The first stage is getting your domain and web hosting. It’s a rather important step because if you host your site with an unreliable web hoster or pick the wrong domain name, it will be really hard to change it in the future.
– Here is a quick guide on how to choose the best domain name for your web project.
– And another guide on how to choose the best web hosting provider for a WordPress site.
Most modern web hosting companies provide a free 1-click WordPress installation service.
If, for some reason, your hoster does not have that, please use this guide to manually install WordPress.
The next step is the WordPress Theme installation. Most modern premium themes are supplied with the installation wizards, which makes the theme and plugins’ installation really simple. But if your theme does not have that, please check this theme installation guide.
All ThemeREX themes contain the demo import functionality. Most other premium theme suppliers also have that. Please be attentive before installing the dummy data though. Check all the import options carefully, because the full demo installation erases all the current content on your site. So, if you want to keep some posts or pages, you should choose a partial import.
The next step is theme customization. You need to choose layouts for your posts, pages, products, and custom post types.
Then you need to add your logo, customize the color scheme, set up your online store (if you have it).
Usually, the theme comes with the documentation, but sometimes you may have some specific questions that you can check with the support team or outsource some part of the job to a professional custom studio.
The next item in our checklist is website security. Luckily, there are 5 WP Security plugins that can provide an essential level of security.
Site speed is important nowadays, but this stage can be rather challenging. Your site’s speed depends on various factors, that include your web hosting performance, the theme and plugins you are using, visual effects and animations on your site, and images/videos loaded on your pages.
So, you need to make sure you get maximum from your web hosting company, use fast modern WP themes, uninstall heavy plugins that you don’t need, optimize your images, etc. Do it using the website speed optimization guide, or hire professionals to have this done for you.
Obviously, you want your site to rank in Google as high as it is possible. And you need to optimize your site to get a better ranking. Luckily, there are several effective SEO plugins that can help you significantly improve your site’s SEO. Or again you can outsource SEO optimization by hiring an SEO expert.
Content is a king, right? Add texts, charts, images, and videos to your site organically. For example, if you write an article and you feel that it requires some diagram to show some stats to your visitors, then do that with no hesitation. You can use these ideas to create content that drives traffic to your site.
Of course, the site owner has to measure the site’s results. The most popular tools are Google Analytics and Tag Manager. Use this Google Analytics setup guide to get it installed and customized correctly.
When you have your site ready, you can start your marketing and advertising activities. We’ve prepared a list of the most affordable and effective marketing strategies and digital marketing tools.
Or, as in some of the previous examples, you can outsource the digital marketing part of the job to experienced specialists.
Website maintenance is a recurrent task. WordPress issues major updates for its platform from time to time. Also, you need to keep your plugins up-to-date. As well as the version of software installed on your server (PHP, SQL, Apache/Nginx, etc).
Here at ThemeREX, we are doing our best to make your life easier. That is why we offer a free ThemeREX Auto-Updater plugin for our themes. It helps to keep your theme and plugins up-to-date.
And again, alternatively, you can simply buy a website maintenance service from the ThemeREX Studio team to free yourself from this routine. Also, you can subscribe for a Premium Support Monthly subscription and they will teach you everything you may need, plus the developer will write a custom code for your website.
