If you have been thinking about building a website and done any research at all, you will have encountered WordPress. It runs somewhere between 40 and 45 per cent of all websites on the internet, which makes it by some distance the most widely used platform of its kind. That statistic gets quoted a lot, and it is worth pausing on: nearly half the sites you visit are probably built on the same software.
This guide explains what WordPress actually is, how the pieces fit together, and what you need to get started. It is written for people who are new to it.
What WordPress is, and what it is not
WordPress is software that helps you build and manage a website. Specifically, it is a content management system, which means it gives you a way to create, edit, and organise the content on your site without needing to write code from scratch every time you want to add a page or a blog post.
It is free to download and use. The software itself costs nothing.
What you do pay for is hosting: the server space where your WordPress site lives, and the domain name that points people to it. More on that shortly.
One thing worth clarifying early: there are two versions of WordPress. WordPress.com is a hosted service where WordPress manages the technical side for you, with various plan tiers and limitations. WordPress.org is the open-source software you install on your own hosting. When most people talk about WordPress, and when this guide uses the word, they mean the self-hosted version from WordPress.org. It is more flexible, gives you full ownership of your site, and is what the vast majority of professional sites use.
Why people choose it
WordPress works for a very wide range of sites, from a simple personal blog to a full ecommerce shop with hundreds of products. This flexibility is one reason for its popularity, but it is not the only one.
It does not require you to know how to code. A complete beginner can install WordPress, choose a theme, and have a reasonable-looking site running in an afternoon. Someone with design and development skills can go much further, building entirely custom experiences. The same platform serves both.
It is also well-supported. Because WordPress is so widely used, there is a large community of people maintaining plugins, writing documentation, answering questions in forums, and producing tutorials. Whatever problem you run into, someone has probably run into it before and written about how they solved it.
The three building blocks
WordPress sites are made up of three main components: the theme, the plugins, and the content. Understanding what each one does makes the whole thing easier to think about.
Themes
A theme controls how your site looks. It determines the layout, the fonts, the colours, the spacing, and the overall visual structure of your pages.
WordPress has a directory of free themes, and there are thousands of premium (paid) themes available from third-party marketplaces. Most themes are designed to be customised: you can adjust colours and fonts, upload your own logo, and rearrange sections without touching any code.
Some themes come with a page builder built in, such as Divi or Elementor, which gives you a drag-and-drop interface for designing pages visually. These are popular with designers and with anyone who wants precise control over layout without writing HTML or CSS.
Choosing a theme is one of the first decisions you make when setting up a WordPress site, and it is also one that can be changed later. Switching themes does not delete your content; it just changes how that content is presented.
Plugins
A plugin is an add-on that extends what WordPress can do. If a theme controls how your site looks, plugins control what it does.
There are over 59,000 plugins in the WordPress plugin directory, covering almost every function you might want to add: contact forms, SEO tools, image galleries, ecommerce, membership areas, booking systems, backup automation, security scanning, and much more.
Most plugins are free, or free with a paid upgrade for additional features. They are installed directly from your WordPress admin area with a few clicks.
A common question from beginners is how many plugins to install. There is no fixed answer, but the general principle is to install plugins that solve a specific problem you actually have, and to avoid installing things on the basis that they might be useful. Each plugin adds a small amount of overhead, and a site with fifty plugins installed is harder to maintain and more likely to have conflicts than one with ten well-chosen ones.
Content
The third component is simply your content: the pages, posts, images, and media that make up your site.
WordPress distinguishes between pages and posts. Pages are for static content that does not change often: your homepage, your about page, your contact page, your services. Posts are for time-stamped content published in reverse chronological order: blog entries, news updates, case studies. Most sites use both.
The WordPress editor (called the block editor, or Gutenberg) is where you write and arrange content. It works on a block system: paragraphs, headings, images, buttons, and other elements are each their own block that you can add, move, and configure independently. If you have used a modern document editor, the basic concept will feel familiar.
What you need before you start
To get a WordPress site up and running, you need two things: a domain name and hosting.
A domain name is your web address: the thing people type into a browser to find you. Domain names are registered through a registrar and typically cost somewhere between £10 and £20 per year, depending on the extension (.co.uk, .com, and so on).
Hosting is the server where your WordPress files and database live. When someone visits your site, their browser connects to that server and downloads your pages. The quality and reliability of your hosting affects how fast your site loads and how often it is available.
Hosting is a recurring cost, usually billed monthly or annually. Prices vary considerably, and the headline figure is not always the most useful number to look at. Some hosts advertise low introductory prices that increase substantially at renewal. At Angelsites, the price on the plans page is the price you pay at renewal too, without any change. Plans start at £5.99/month.
Once you have hosting, most providers give you a way to install WordPress with a few clicks from your hosting control panel. At Angelsites, this is included as standard. You do not need to download or configure anything manually unless you want to.
The pages most sites need
Once WordPress is installed and you have chosen a theme, the next step is building out the basic structure of your site. Most sites, whatever their purpose, need some version of the same core pages.
Homepage. The first thing most visitors see. It should communicate clearly what your site is about and what you want visitors to do next. Most themes include a homepage template as a starting point.
About page. For freelancers and creators especially, this is often one of the most visited pages on the site. It is where you explain who you are, what you do, and why someone should work with or buy from you. It does not need to be long, but it should feel like a person wrote it.
Contact page. A contact form plugin (Gravity Forms and WPForms are both widely used) makes it straightforward to add a form that delivers enquiries to your email address without exposing that address publicly.
Blog or journal. Even if regular blogging is not your plan, having a blog section is worth setting up. It gives you somewhere to publish content that is useful to your audience, which is good for search visibility over time.
Portfolio or gallery. For photographers, designers, illustrators, and other visual creators, a portfolio section is often the most important part of the site. WordPress has several good gallery plugins; Modula and FooGallery are both worth looking at.
A few things worth knowing early
Keep WordPress and plugins updated. WordPress releases updates regularly, as do most plugins. Running outdated software is the most common reason sites get hacked. Updates can be applied from your WordPress admin area and take a few seconds.
Back up your site. Your host may run backups, but do not rely solely on those. A plugin like UpdraftPlus can automate backups to Google Drive or Dropbox, giving you a copy you control.
Not every plugin you install will be maintained forever. Plugins are built by third parties, and some of them are eventually abandoned. If a plugin has not been updated in over a year and is not compatible with the current version of WordPress, it is worth finding an alternative.
You do not need to learn to code. Most things you want to do with WordPress can be done without writing a line of code. If you find yourself being told you need to edit PHP or CSS to accomplish something basic, there is usually a simpler way.
Getting started with Angelsites
If you are ready to set up a WordPress site and want hosting that is designed for exactly this kind of use, Angelsites is worth a look. Plans include one-click WordPress installation, NVMe storage for fast page loads, automatic SSL, UK-based servers, and support from a real person if something does not go as expected.
Pricing starts at £5.99/month, with no introductory rate and no renewal increase. See what’s included.
Angelsites is a small UK web host for freelancers and creators. UK data centre, fixed pricing, support from a real person.