I recommend & only use SiteGround. They have exceptional WP technical knowledge, inside & out! You are largely paying for support if (when ) a technical issue comes up.

Make sure you specify WordPress Hosting! For most solopreneur websites, you only need shared hosting.

Hosting Plan names change, so just look for the lowest-cost plan at the time you sign up.

Don't sign up for any premium add-ons... As with other recommended service providers, I'll have specific tips for these in later steps.

Don't install WordPress as this is part of SiteGround's service! They will also send you login credentials via email, so make sure you doublecheck your email address is correctly typed!

Don't skip this step!

• Save and "archive" the login information you received from both your domain registration — the email from NameCheap — and the login information & link to your new website from SiteGround.
• I recommend you archive it in both digital form  — such as Evernote or Google Docs or Drive...and print it off and file it with your other important business papers!
• Post on your calendar exactly when your domain expires! Follow up to renew at least 30 days ahead of time!
• Keep your domain contact information updated! I recommend listing yourself as all of the contact people for your domain, but if you do have a "tech person" that is part of your business — ie, your partner, spouse, sibling, etc. — and they are invested in your business as much as you are, it's okay to list them (but I don't recommend it).

First, lets define these two terms in the context of WordPress...

• "Posts" are a carry-over from the legacy "blog platform" days of WordPress. Whenever you see the term, think "article" as the term is normally used...
• An article usually has a date & author, and a headline.
• If you are viewing an online magazine site — or any site with LOTS of content — you may also see articles grouped into categories for easy reader access. 
• These are all traits of a WP post.

The concept of "Pages" — as used in WordPress —  is often confusing to WP beginners, because it seems like "every piece of content on a website is a page..."

• This is a very common 'assumption' and seems logical.
• However, in WordPress a page is different in subtle but important ways...
  • Pages cannot be assigned an author or a category.
  • They fill a different specific use: they are reserved for content that is not "time-specific" and doesn't change much over the life of a website.
  • Some examples are HOME page, About page, Contact page, Disclaimer & TOC's page, etc.
  • In general, they are strictly informational in nature and not 'time-sensitive.'

Both posts and pages have a crucial role in your website, both for readers and for search engines.

Together, they make up your website content, and as such are the "smallest unit" of content possible to create in WordPress.

They are both created & accessed from your WP Main Menu in the WP Dashboard, and each has their own separate menu item.

If you hover over each one in the Menu, you'll notice that the "Posts" menu has 4 sub-menu items, while the "Page" has only 2, reflecting their internal difference, as I explained above.

Your website menu(s) or navigation structure is how readers access specific website content — those posts & pages we discussed above.

It usually comes as a shock to new WordPress users that the content they have just created doesn't automatically show up on the website!

That's reasonable, but not the way it works...

• You create menu(s) in the Appearance option in the WP Dashboard. You have to manually create the menu(s) as needed. You may be able to create more than one menu — as I have on my website — but this depends on other WordPress modules we have yet to discuss. (We'll get there in this Guide, so just be patient!)
• Once created and saved, you then add existing content to the menu. You can add both pages and posts to your main menu, and you can reorder them by dragging one page under the other (that's outside the scope of this Guide).

Website Organization & Structure

You should think carefully about the organization of your website!

• Menus are designed to not only help your readers find your content, but also to organize that content in a meaningful way for your readers.
• When I was introducing pages & posts and their intrinsic differences within WordPress, I briefly mentioned "categories."
  • These are best considered "sub-topics" of your website's overall main niche.
• How your website is organized will go a long way toward creating a pleasing experience for your readers...or not!
• Make sure you do some planning on paper or in a mind map.
  • There is no "right" answer here, as organization is largely subjective, but make sure you approach it from a 'beginner's perspective!'
  • Ask yourself: "What questions would a beginner in my niche want to know first?" 
  • Once you have a logical, initial set of sub-topics, you can add them as categories to your website & menu.
  • Your readers will thank you by returning to visit!
  • This is also crucial for search engines to understand exactly what your website is all about (human language is ambiguous, so you have to help out the bots ).

These are 'add-ins' that extend the functions of your website. They are plentiful and many of them are free.

Examples include:

• SEO-related plugins like Yoast & SEOPress
• a simple PayPal button for taking payments or donations
• shopping carts
• Comments (outside of the native  WP comments)
• Akismet (prevents comment spam and you really need this if you plan to have ANY comments on your website
• Backup & security plugins

Plugins are essential and some of them are invaluable (like the backup & security ones).

But...they come at a cost in "overhead" on your website. Everything added to your website takes up "storage/server" space, and with this comes an incremental slowing of your website.

Now, before you stress out, understand that these are measured in milliseconds!

However, because they are so extremely useful, a lot of beginners get over-enthusiastic and start adding plugins willy-nilly...then wonder why their site is slowing down!

Plugin Best Practices

• Only source plugins from the official WordPress plugin repository! Because most are free, if you only  search "WordPress plugins" in Google, you will have no idea if what you are seeing has been vetted for quality code by the programmers of WordPress. Everything on the above repository IS already vetted.
• Plan essential website functionality ahead of time when you are planning your website niche and sub-topics.
  • What do you absolutely need? If you are selling on your website, you obviously need a way to take payments.
  • If you are not, you don't need a shopping cart!
  • And if you are only selling digital products and/or services, you probably don't need a "shopping cart" plugin either.
  • Sometimes a simple PayPal button will be just fine...
  • Give it plenty of thought!
• It's typical practice to evaluate plugins when you are just setting things up... to see which ones suit your needs.
  • Make sure — once your testing is completed — you uninstall all unused plugins!
  • Even unused plugins take overhead, and could cause conflicts with existing plugins on your site.
  • Even existing plugins can bump up against each other (and no... there's no way to determine this in advance), so this is another reason to keep your plugin inventory to the minimum necessary.
  • Troubleshooting a plugin conflict is a painstaking process!

Themes control virtually everything about the appearance of your content, from the actual layout of your posts and pages, whether you have a sidebar or not, fonts & overall typography, website colors, etc. If it has to do with "design" it's the theme's job to take care of that.

In WordPress, the theme is another "add-on" but unlike plugins — where you can have "many" —  you can only have one theme installed and "active" at any given time.

For beginners — and a lot of seasoned "veterans" — your website's visual appearance (& themes) are largely misunderstood... or at least misguided!

Pro Marketing Tips:

• From a "conversion" perspective — whether someone becomes a subscriber, signs up for a discovery call, requests a quote or buys from you — has almost nothing to do with website design!
• It is very common for beginners to endlessly tweak their theme — appearance —  when that is NOT going to make one bit of difference about getting your readers to take action. Don't fall into this beginner "rabbit hole!"
• Now, having said that, bad design can turn readers away before they ever get to read your content. 
• Clear & concise rules the day! 
  • A "busy" website with all sorts of "cool" techie gimmicks is not the way to attract readers and return visitors!
  • Conversion rate is directly related to clarity!
  • Make sure your topics are clear and to the point.
  • Make sure it's obvious what you do and whom you serve — and don't serve — right away!

WordPress Settings instruct the software to do what you want it to! They're important!

But they can also become another rabbit hole  ...and can be understandably confusing for beginners (some veterans don't get them right either! )

Fortunately, the following are all you need to know when first getting started with a new website.

Read on to see exactly which settings you need to change for a new website:

Settings have a dedicated menu in the WP Dashboard. One look and you can see there are a LOT of settings! Fortunately, you only need to change 2 of them right away:

Permalinks [link goes to WordPress official reference] serve to provide access to your content. In its default WP format, it's cryptic and not human or SEO friendly, so you'll want to change that before you create any content!

• Go to Settings ==> Permalinks & select Post Name, then scroll down and click the blue Save Changes button.  This aids both your human readers and the search engines! That's it for this setting.

 Reading 

The very first setting "Your Homepage Displays" should always be set to a "static home page" NOT a blog page.  There are a couple of reasons for this:

• Your HOME page is extremely important web 'real estate' and you want to customize exactly what you show here.
• This is especially important to show your first-time visitors, as this is likely the first page on your website they will see!
• They have no idea who you are and this is the first chance you get to let them know what you do and who you serve. [Make sure to read the full explanation in the alert box below ]

Website Maintenance: 

A website is certainly not "set it and forget it" but a constant work in progress.

There are lots of reasons for this:

One reason is that Google demands fresh & original content!

Another often-ignored reason is that a website is a technical tool. Improvements happen constantly! Just like your phone OS and your computer operating system, updates are constantly being introduced.

One critical reason for this is security vulnerabilities (in the actual coding)!

• Websites — just like computers — can be hacked & the programmers are always trying to stay one step ahead of hackers.
• WordPress itself is updated frequently — with major updates released several times a year.
• Urgent security-related updates will be released at any time an issue is discovered.

Updates: 

These will apply to both plugins  & your current theme (or any others you have installed but not activated).

You will see in the WP Dashboard — right at the very top — a small circular icon . The number in this alert shows you how many updates there are and clicking on it will take you directly to the Updates page, where you can review the required Updates.

FYI: they are grouped by Plugins and Themes, so you'll need to apply the updates separately. If there is a current WordPress update, that information will be shown above all of the other updates, and it's recommended you apply that update first, then take care of the plugins and themes...