Introduction to Your Free WordPress Website
Hey everyone, Kevin here. Today, we'll learn how to create a free website on WordPress. No coding needed. You could design your site just by pointing and clicking. You'll even get web hosting, and it won't cost you anything. So, what's the catch? You'll have a small ad at the top of your site, you only get one gigabyte of storage and customization options are somewhat limited. But considering it's completely free, it's a really solid deal. Plus, if you ever want more features, there are affordable upgrade options available.
Finding the Free Plan & Choosing a Domain
Let's dive in. First, head to WordPress.com. If you use the link right here on the screen, it helps support the channel and it doesn't cost you anything. It's your choice. At the very top of this page, let's click on plans and pricing. You might notice there is no free plan listed here. I thought we were going to get this for free. At the top, if we read the fine print, well, maybe it's not that fine. There's an option to start with a free plan. That's what we're here for. Let's click on that.
Next, create an account. Once you finish creating your account, you'll need to choose a domain name. I'm pulling together a website for the Kevin Cookie Company baking school or what we call our Sweet Lab. So right up here, I'll type in the Kevin Cookie Company Sweet Lab. Down below, we see a number of different options. You can purchase a domain name like .blog or .com, all sorts of different options. However, for any of those top-level domains, you'll have to pay some amount of money every single year. If you truly just want a free website with a free domain name, you can also get a subdomain at wordpress.com. So here as an example, we have the KevinCookieCompanySweetLab.wordpress.com. Since I want everything to be free, I'll select this option right here.
One thing to keep in mind is you can always come back later on, and you can buy a domain. So, you could start with the subdomain for now and then change it later.
Dashboard Overview & General Site Settings
Next, we get a first run experience with a number of different questions that you can answer, and this will help tailor the setup experience to your needs. I'm good without answering any of these questions. Down at the very bottom, I'll skip to the dashboard.
This drops us into the main WordPress interface. If you've ever used WordPress before, this likely looks very familiar. If you haven't used WordPress before, don't worry, it's very intuitive to use. Over on the left-hand side, we have our navigation. This is what you can use to edit your WordPress website. In the center of the screen, we see some additional steps that we need to complete before we can launch our website. And in a moment, we'll run through these. Over on the right-hand side, we can see a preview of what our website currently looks like. And down below, we also see the website address. If you navigate to this website, you'll be able to see your site once we launch it.
Right here in the center, I see a step that says, give your site a name. That sounds like a good idea, so let's click on this. This drops us into site settings. Over on the left-hand navigation, you can see that we're currently in settings under general. Up at the very top, we can give our site a name. Currently, it's Site Title, but that's not that descriptive, so let's highlight that and type in something better. I'll enter in the Kevin Cookie Company Sweet Lab. If we go down just a little bit, you can also set a site icon. What is that? Well here, if I hover over the tabs in my browser, here we'll see the Favicon next to the title of this website. You can set that. You also have some additional settings that you could set on this page and also in these other pages. Feel free to look through them to see if there are any other relevant settings for you. Once you're done making your change, down below, let's click on Save Changes.
Posts vs. Pages: What's the Difference?
Now that it's saved all the changes, let's go back to the homepage. Over on the left-hand side navigation, at the very top, we have the option to go back to My Home. Let's click on that. Look at that, we're making some good progress. We have another item checked off this list.
Next, it recommends writing your first post. So, what is a post? In WordPress, a post is for time-sensitive content. Think of something like a blog update, news or an article that appears in chronological order. You can also set up what's called a page. This is for static or timeless content. Like, think of an About Us page or maybe a contact page where the content on that page doesn't change frequently and it's not part of a blog feed. You can configure both a post and a page in a similar way, so in this example, we're going to set up a post.
Creating a Post with the Block Editor
Now I can click over here to create a post or over on the left-hand side, you could also hover over posts, and here too, you also have the option to add a new post. Let's click here. This drops us into a brand-new post and it's a blank slate. We need to add some content. Right at the top, it's begging for us to add a title. Here it says add title. I could click in there and to add something, let me type in, unleash your inner baker at the Kevin Cookie Company Sweet Lab.
Right down below, I see some text that says type forward slash to choose a block. This post is composed of many different blocks. WordPress is a block-based editor. There are a few different ways that you could insert a block. If I click down here and I press the forward slash, here I could quickly insert different block types. Let me hit backspace. I could also click on this plus icon and here too, I can also insert a block. And down at the bottom, I could click on browse all, and when I do that, it opens up this menu over on the left-hand side that shows me all of the different types of blocks that I can insert, and you have many different types of blocks. As an example, you could insert a paragraph of text, a heading, a list, a quote. If we go down, we have things like media, images, or gallery. Here you can insert files. Let's go down a little more. Here you have different design elements, widgets, and the list goes on and on. There are so many different options. One of my favorites, you could even insert a YouTube video. This way, if you want to insert one of my videos on your WordPress website, you could do that.
Along with blocks, you could also insert what's called a pattern. And in a sense, this is kind of like a template. So, let's take a quick look at one of them. Maybe this featured section. When I click on this, here we see all sorts of different patterns that you could insert onto your website. There are lots of different options and they all look fairly nice. Feel free to go through these different categories to get a feel for all the different types of patterns that you could insert onto your page. For now, I'll close out of this pane by clicking on the X.
Adding & Customizing an Image Block
Let's try inserting our first block. I'll go down here and let's press the forward slash. I get that menu with some of the most popular blocks. I'd like to insert an image. I'll click on this option. We have a few different options. We can upload an image, select an image, generate with AI, or even insert an existing image that's on the web. Let's try generating with AI. Let's click on this.
Right up on top, I can describe the image that I would like to generate. I'll type in some text and over here, let's click on generate. That's a beauty. Down below, let's click on insert. This drops us back into our posts, and right here, you can see that we've inserted an image block. If you'd like to customize what this image block looks like, simply click on the block. I’ll select this image. You can do this with any type of block. Then in the top right-hand corner, let's click on these settings icon. That opens up a pane over on the right-hand side where we have all of this block’s settings. For this image, you could set the alt text. You could also adjust the aspect ratio, the width and the height. And right up on top, we can also adjust the style. I'll click on this and here we have various settings. I'd like to add a radius to the edges of this image. Right down below, I see a section for radius. And let's increase this a little bit. As I do that, you'll see that it adds these curved edges to this image. I think that looks nice. These are all the changes that I wanted it to make.
Finalizing and Publishing Your First Post
Right up on top, I'll close out of this pane by clicking on the X. Let's now add a text block to this page. Scroll down just a little bit and go underneath your image. Here it says type forward slash to choose a block. Or you could simply start typing in text. I'll type in some text. And there, I've now typed in my text.
I think this post is looking pretty good. Once you're finished working on your post, you may want to look at some of the post settings. To do that, just like we saw with blocks, go to the top right-hand corner and click on the settings icon. This drops me into block settings, but over here we could also switch into post settings. When I click into this tab, we have a few different options. You can set a featured image for this post. Here, you could decide when you want to publish this post, and you also have other settings as well. Feel free to look through those.
Once you're ready to publish your post, in the top right-hand corner, let's click on this button that says publish. Here, I could double-check all of the different settings. They look good to me, so let's click on publish. And just like that, the post is now live. To get back to the main WordPress interface, in the top left-hand corner, let's click on this W icon.
Customizing Your Site's Design and Header
Right here in the center of the screen, we can see that we have our first post live. Let's now jump back to the main interface. Over here, let's click on my home. Next, it recommends editing the site design or the look and feel of all of your different posts and your different pages. Let's have a quick look at what you can do here. This opens up the design of the site.
Here, we can look through what the different colors used, the fonts, the spacing. You can go through and you can modify all of this. Over on the left-hand side, you can adjust the navigation of the site, the styles, the pages, the different templates and the patterns. We're going to make just a simple change just to give you a feel for what's possible here. Up on top, I have the top navigation bar where it has our name and also a link to our about page. To make a modification to this, I'll simply click on this, and this now allows me to edit the site. Let's click on the header once more. And over here, we can click on edit. I would like to include a site logo as part of my header. Right over here, I can click into this and right in the center, I see this plus icon that allows me to add a block. Here too, the header is composed of blocks. I'll click on this plus icon and here I could insert different elements.
Let's type in, let's say a site logo and I see that there's a block for site logo. I'll click on this, and this now inserts a placeholder for the logo. However, I need to upload a logo. I'll click on this, and I can now choose an image from my media library, but I don't have my logo here. So over on the left-hand side, I'll click on upload files. Let me now drag and drop in a logo file from my computer. I'll drop it there and that now adds my logo to the media library. This looks great. In the bottom right-hand corner, I'll click on select. That has now inserted my logo. I like the size of that. I think it fits well. In the top right-hand corner, let's click on save and let's click on save again.
Launching and Reviewing Your Live Website
Let's now go back to the main WordPress screen. In the top left-hand corner, just like we did before, let's click on this W icon. Then let's click on it once more. Of course, you can always modify the site's design to your heart's content, but I just want to show you the basics of what's possible. Down at the bottom of this list, it's now time to launch our website. So right here, let's click on this option. And look at that, congratulations. Your site is now live. Right here, you can see your website address. Let's click on visit site to see what it looks like.
This website is now visible to anyone in the world. Right up on top, we see the site title. Here we have that logo that we added. If we scroll down, we can see the blog post. Is this the most beautiful website in the world? Certainly not. You could spend a lot more time on the design, the layout and the style, but the important thing is you have your website up and running. With the free plan, you'll notice that there's an ad on top of the page, but again, you are getting it for free, so that's a fair trade-off.
Next Steps and Further Learning
To get back to the main WordPress interface, in the top left-hand corner, let's click on this W icon. Back on the main WordPress homepage, you'll notice that they added some additional steps. Feel free to run through those as you continue building your website. A few things to call out on the left-hand side. Here, you can review stats for your website. How many visitors are you attracting? You can even set up mailboxes. However, this requires a paid plan. You could upload media, you could add pages, you could review comments, you could even set up a full-fledged shopping cart experience on your website. WordPress is so feature-rich and you can do so much.
If you would like to see more videos on WordPress, leave a comment down below and let me know what exactly you would like to learn about WordPress. And that's it. No hidden fees, no surprise charges, just free. You know what else is free? Subscribing to this channel. If you found this helpful, consider hitting that subscribe button. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
