Around 40% of the world’s website owners can testify that WordPress is an excellent site-building platform. It’s free, incredibly versatile, and much more user-friendly than some of its competitors. However, if you want to unfold its true potential, you need a suitable hosting solution.
A managed VPS is undoubtedly one of the most compelling options. You get guaranteed resources for more stable performance and a completely isolated environment for better security. At the same time, your host takes care of the technical tasks, so you don’t need years of sysadmin experience to keep the account running.
It sounds like a straightforward job, then – get a managed virtual server, install WordPress on it, and you can start work on your site.
As always, the reality is a little bit different. Setting up and developing a website presents quite a few challenges, and you need to make lots of critical decisions to steer the project in the right direction.
Today, we’ll follow the entire process – from the decision to use WordPress all the way to the optimization of your site’s loading speeds. Hopefully, the information we give you will help you make the most out of the world’s most popular Content Management System (CMS).
Let’s get started.
Chapter 1
WordPress vs. Other Website Building Applications
Your first job is to pick the tools you’ll use to make your project idea a reality. WordPress often appears to be the obvious choice. It powers millions of websites, and its popularity is far from dwindling, despite the emergence of many new, user-friendly site builders.
However, just because it’s suitable for many other projects doesn’t necessarily make it the perfect framework for your website. Take the time to research what WordPress can and can’t do. Make sure you’re fully aware of the functionality you want your website to have and see if WP is the best application to implement it. It’s also a good idea to have a good look through the rest of the CMS solutions on the market.
Through the links below, you should be able to find out more about how WordPress stacks up against them. You’ll realize just how versatile it can be, but you’ll also see examples of projects better supported by other platforms.
- WordPress vs Website Builders
- WordPress vs Other Content Management Systems
- WordPress vs Static HTML: How Should You Build Your Site?
- Why is WordPress Better Than Many Other CMS Solutions?
- Wix vs WordPress – Which Platform Should You Choose
- When is WordPress NOT the Right CMS for Your Site?
- Squarespace vs WordPress – Which Platform Should You Choose
- 10 Reasons Why WordPress Is so Popular
Chapter 2
Hosting Solutions for Your WordPress Website
Because of its lightweight design, you can install WordPress on an affordable shared hosting plan. However, if you’re serious about your business, you’ll likely look for something more suitable in the long run.
A managed VPS is an obvious choice. The price difference between virtual servers and shared accounts is not that huge, and you get better reliability, more power, and improved security thanks to the isolated environment. However, picking a suitable VPS is a crucial task, and unfortunately, it’s often trickier than it sounds.
It’s essential to get the proper hardware configuration and ensure consistent loading speeds, but there are a ton of other factors you need to consider.
From the guides below, you can learn more about them. You’ll understand what you can expect from your managed plan, get familiar with some of the tools that help you develop your WordPress project, and see what providers can do to make the experience smoother.
- WordPress VPS Hosting – The Superior Choice for WP Users
- WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org – Which to Choose?
- Which Web Hosting Service Is the Most Reliable?
- Where to Host a WordPress website?
- When Does a WordPress Site Require VPS Hosting?
- What Web Hosting Services Are Good for Beginners?
- What Is the Fastest WordPress Hosting?
- What Is the Cost of Managed WordPress Hosting?
- What Is the Best Web Hosting Plan for a WordPress Blog?
- What Is Scalable WordPress Hosting?
- Is WordPress VPS Hosting Worth the Price
- Can I Host My WordPress VPS Website Without cPanel?
Chapter 3
Getting Started With WordPress
WordPress is notorious for its sleek backend interface and ease of use. This may leave you with the wrong impression that you’ll open the dashboard and be able to do anything you want with it straightaway.
The truth is, WordPress is a complex application, and if you want to make the most of it, you will have to invest some time studying its features and the tools it provides.
Ideally, you’ll start by learning how to install and manage the core, themes, and plugins. Reviewing the menus inside the WP dashboard will help you get used to the interface, and some online research will show you tips and tricks that can improve your site’s performance and make your life easier.
On the one hand, getting to know WordPress better will create opportunities for developing your site in interesting new directions. On the other, it will help you streamline your workflow and save you time in the long run.
You can start with the links below.
- WordPress Manual Installation and WP-Config.php Optimization
- WordPress 4.7 Released
- What is WordPress? How Does It Work?
- A Quick Guide for Managing Your WordPress Website
- 40 Common WordPress Errors and How to Fix Them
- Navigating Your WordPress Dashboard
- Is WordPress Good For High-Traffic Websites?
- How to Set Up WordPress on an Unmanaged VPS Hosting Plan
- How to Move From Blogger to WordPress [Without SEO Damages]
- How to Migrate a WordPress Website?
- How to Make a Landing Page on WordPress?
- How to Install WordPress?
- How Much Should a Custom WordPress Website Cost?
- How to Export a WordPress Website
- Clone WordPress with 1 click
- 8 Server Issues That Affect WordPress and How to Fix Them
- 7 Most Useful Sites for WordPress Tutorials
- 15 Types of WordPress Websites
Chapter 4
WordPress Features
WordPress is famous for its modular architecture and the infinite choice of plugins that let you do pretty much whatever you want with it. However, it’s not all about the plugins.
The core itself has plenty of tools that let you realize your some of your ideas without the use of third-party products. Its default features can also help with anything from search engine optimization, through content development, to everyday maintenance tasks.
Getting familiar with them will help you understand how WordPress works and enable you to tackle all sorts of tasks more efficiently. You can start your research with the links below.
- What is WP-CLI? A Beginner’s Guide
- What is WordPress Multisite Used For?
- What Are WordPress Post Revisions and How to Use Them
- How to Get Started With WordPress Multisite
Chapter 5
WordPress Security
WordPress wouldn’t be this popular if it wasn’t secure. Plenty of security mechanisms have been implemented over the years, with more being worked on all the time.
Moreover, it’s an open-source project, so anyone can review the code whenever they want. As a result, there’s no shortage of people ready to help produce a patch when a security vulnerability crops up.
Unfortunately, this isn’t always enough to keep your website safe.
In addition to being the most popular platform of its kind, WordPress is also the most frequently attacked CMS. If you’re serious about security, you may want to think beyond installing updates whenever they’re available.
It’s essential to get to know the threats you’re facing. Do some research on the methods hackers use to compromise WP-based projects. Find out more about the potential damage they can cause and make sure you have a recovery plan in case the worst happens. Last but not least, check out the tools and features the WP community produces to help you keep your site safe.
The guides below will give you more information.
- The Definitive WordPress Security Guide
- How Does WordPress Hash Passwords?
- Best Security Plugins for WordPress
- How to backup my WordPress site?
Chapter 6
WordPress Performance
Nobody likes a slow website. Users are frustrated when a page takes too long to respond, and Google puts it lower on the results pages.
The hosting account obviously plays a significant role in determining your project’s loading speeds. Even so, many WordPress users struggle to achieve the performance they’re after, despite hosting their projects on an adequate server.
The truth is, many techniques can speed up your website significantly. You can, for example, enable caching, optimize your images, or minify your JavaScript files and CSS stylesheets. In some cases, this requires a plugin. In others, it’s a matter of tweaking some of WP’s core settings.
More information is available in the links below.
- WordPress Image Optimization – Tips and Tricks
- WordPress Site Caching – Tips and Tricks
- How to Speed Up a WordPress Website
Chapter 7
WordPress Themes
In this day and age, retaining users’ attention is trickier than ever, so it’s essential to have a distinguishable design that makes you stand out from the crowd. This is where your WordPress theme comes in.
Choosing and customizing a theme may seem like one of the more pleasant stages of launching a website, but the reality is, it’s both difficult and essential to get it right.
The variety of designs is enormous, so you must approach the matter methodically.
First, you have to determine what sort of budget (if any) you’re prepared to set aside. Then, it’s a matter of filtering through the available options and picking the one that suits your requirements the best.
That’s only a starting point, though. You can’t stand out from the crowd if you use a theme’s default look, so it’s critical to customize the design and create something people easily recognize. This is the most challenging part of the process, and how you approach it depends on many factors, including your technical skills, budget, etc.
More information is available in the links below.
- WordPress Theme Updates – Why and How?
- Which Is the Best Business WordPress Theme?
- What Are the Top WordPress Themes in 2020?
- What Are the Best WordPress Blog Themes in 2020?
- How to Learn WordPress Theme Development?
- How to Find Out the WordPress Theme of a Website?
- A Commercial or a Custom WordPress Theme?
- 10 Best Page Builders for WordPress
Chapter 8
WordPress Plugins
The WordPress community has built plugins for anything you care to imagine. Some focus on frontend elements like contact forms. Others improve critical aspects of your site (e.g., performance and search engine rankings). Others still can transform the entire project and turn a WordPress installation into an online shop or a discussion board.
The range of options is practically unlimited, but you need to choose wisely.
If you don’t, you may fail to achieve the goals you’re after or, worse still, end up compromising your site’s security and performance.
Via the links below, you will learn more about WordPress plugins in general and will see what you need to look out for when choosing the add-ons for your site.
- WordPress Plugins: When Not to Use Them
- What is a WordPress Plugin?
- What Are the Best LMS Plugins for WordPress?
- Top WordPress Plugins of 2020
- Top WordPress Plugins for SEO in 2020
- MailChimp for WordPress – Benefits and Setup
- BuddyPress Plugin for Community-Led Growth
- Best WordPress Plugins To Increase Sales In 2021
- 7 Best Social Media Sharing Plugins for WordPress
- 6 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins For Your Store in 2020
Chapter 9
Maintaining and Optimizing Your WordPress Website
Owning a website is not just about setting it up and filling it with content. No matter what sort of project you’re running, the competition is stiff, and you need to ensure you’re ahead of it at all times. This means constant work on your website to improve every single aspect of its operation.
It can involve anything from gathering analytics data to cater the content to your audience, through implementing SEO techniques, to updating the core and add-ons for better security and performance.
Website maintenance and optimization are critical for the entire project’s future. It not only keeps existing visitors interested, but it also increases your chances of attracting new traffic and growing the business further.
The list of tasks you can do to keep your WordPress project in excellent shape is pretty extensive. You can find more about them via the links below.
- WordPress Maintenance Tasks – The Ultimate Checklist
- Which PHP Version to Use With WordPress?
- What is a WordPress Sitemap and How to Generate One?
- The Ultimate SEO Checklist for WordPress
- Twitter Conversion Tracking in WordPress
- Optimize Website Speed with WP Super Cache
- Optimize Website Speed with WP Rocket
- How to Track People On Your WordPress Website
- How to Use Google Tag Manager with WordPress?
- How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress?
- Google AdWords Conversion Tracking in WordPress
- Get Better Rank for Your WordPress Websites
