Bluehost wordpress tutorial – How to set it up correctly

Last Updated: March 2024

Table of Contents

 

Internet is spreading its wings worldwide, which is encouraging more and more businesses to establish their online presence. One of the best ways to reach out to the customers is through the websites, which are hosted using a web hosting service. Therefore, in the process of launching websites, the selection of the right web hosting service is very critical. The best web hosting service would offer good uptime levels, continuous customer support service, compatibility for various types of the latest features plugins. Blue host is one such type of service, which claims to offer 99.99 uptime, 10/10 customer support services rating, and compatibility with word press sites.

In this article, we will show you how to set up a word press website correctly on blue host.

It is very easy and quick. You just have to follow five major steps.

STEP: 1 Get Hosting and Domain

You can start hosting on Bluehost with the simple steps listed below :

Visiting Bluehost

The first step is to get your domain hosted. Hosting is the process of renting an online space, where your website would be stored and people can access it from the hosting location. Hosting is called the domain of your website, which tells the address of your site. Bluehost is usually recommended for hosting and domain because it is the best and most reliable option.

When you visit the Bluehost website (please visit: https://www.bluehost.com), you have to click on get started. You will find this get started button couple of scrolls downs. Please see the picture shown below.

Hosting plans

You will see 4 hosting plans:

  • Basic
  • Plus
  • Choice plus
  • Pro

You will have to choose a hosting plan, which would be ideal for launching a new webpage. It is available at 5.95$/month if you select an annual subscription. However, you can get it much cheaper, if you go for 36 months subscription period. In such a case, it would cost you 3.95$/month. Top features offered by the basic plan include 1 Website, 50 GB SSD Storage, 24/7 Customer Support, Custom Themes. Moreover, it will also include a free domain for a period of one year with a free CDN and SSL certificate.

Selecting domain name

After selecting the basic plan, you will see two options. Whether to choose a new domain name or go with the domain, you already have. Please see the picture shown below.

Account information

You can use the new domain or the one you already own. To create a new domain, you have to enter the name of your website and then click next. Once you see that your domain is available, you have to fill out all of your account information that is required. Please see the picture shown below.

Package tools

Package Extras: You will also see the information on your selected plan on the same page. Below that you will find a list of package extras, that you may also want to add. These include Domain privacy protection, codeguard basic, Bluehost SEO tools, 1 Microsoft 365 Mailbox, sitelock security essentials,… For the moment, we recommend keeping all these options unselected.

Payment information

The last thing on this page would be the payment information. You have to enter your payment information here. It has two options i.e. pay by credit card (visa card, master card, etc.) Or pay with PayPal. Please see the picture shown below. Then agree to the terms that are mentioned below the payment method. After doing this, click on the submit button.

Log in to Bluehost

When you have confirmed that the purchase has been made successfully, you can start the process of making your account. After doing this you just have to enter the password and login into the account, you have just created. You may have to answer a few questions about yourself before clicking on continue. A snapshot of these questions is attached below. Here you will see an option to add a tag line for your website, which will appear in search engines below your website name.

Setting up your account

After that, you have to give some personal particulars. You can then jump ahead to the last step of onboarding. After doing this, you will be logged in. After the login you will see, your hosting and domain name would by now be setup. You will see a screen similar to the one shown below.

STEP: 2 Login to WordPress

Log in to WordPress from Bluehost

Step two is to log in to WordPress. WordPress will make it very easy for you to make a webpage without worrying about writing long source code. Since WordPress is pre-installed on Bluehost, you just need to click the button “WordPress”. Please see the picture shown below. It will simply take you to the page where you have to type in your login details.

WordPress dashboard

When you will click on WordPress, you will see your dashboards for managing your WordPress website. When you reach the dashboard, you can edit your website over there. It shows a snapshot of the WordPress dashboard below.

 

Previewing your default website

So here you will see that your website is already setup. It will be given a default name and homepage. If you want to see how your website looks like, you have to click on the Visit Site button, which is located on the top left side. This will show you the preview of your default website.

When you click on a button named as visit site, your custom domain name will be visible to you. You will also see the default design, that comes with WordPress.

STEP: 3 Installing a new theme

The third step is installing a new theme on your website for its better appearance. Your WordPress theme controls how your website will look like. Selecting the right and best WordPress theme is an important task and can take time as there are so many options from which you have to choose. Installing a new and best WordPress theme will help you make your website look much better and awesome.

Themes by Astra

The theme that is mostly recommended is Astra because Astra contains Dozens of free designs that you can choose so it will help you make your website look more beautiful.

Installing Astra Plugin

Installation of a new theme would require you to follow the following steps:

Click into your WordPress Dashboard. After this, you have to go to Appearance. Select the first option that is THEMES. Now you have to add a new theme. After adding a theme, search for Astra. Then click install and activate.

If you want to get the free design that comes with the selected theme, go to PLUGINS and select the option that is Add New. After that search for the plugin named Astra. After doing this click install now and activate. If you want to see more free designs, please click Library.

Picking the theme

You can also edit designs. For that, you need to Select Elementor to easily edit the designs.

Free and paid themes

In order to visualize all the free designs available for download, click on Free at the top. There are several more options for themes available if you go for paid options. The free designs provided by Astra can be used for entire kinds of websites.

Selecting a theme

Scroll down through them and select the design that matches your website that you want to make. You can choose any of the designs you want to choose, there are no specific recommendations. It all depends on your preference, whether you want your website to be graphically appealing or easily navigable.

Editing flexibility

After picking the design you want to have on your website, the next step is to edit it. The process of editing designs is very much easy. It is the same for every design, so there is no need to select any specific design, you can select any of the designs of your own choice. You can preview any of the templates to see how it will look.

Applying a template to your site

If you want to apply a template to a site, you have to click the button name as Import Site. After the completion of the import process, the website can be viewed by you. The design templates available by WordPress are much better and are a huge improvement. These design templates can make your website look better and appealing. The default design is not as appealing. However, with WordPress, you can also have multiple pages automatically made which certainly reduces the time it will take you to develop a website.

STEP: 4 Customizing your website

The fourth step is to edit your website, which is very easy. It will allow you to make your website look exactly like what you want.

Editing buttons

To edit the website, open the webpage that you desire to change, and after this start editing the thing. For example, to modify your Home page, open your home page first, and then click the edit with Elementor button. Elementor is a software tool provided by WordPress to build your websites. If you want to modify the wording text, choose the text that you want to rewrite and start entering. Similarly, you can also modify text on a button and also it’s color. For this, go to the Style menu located in the sidebar. Then you can pick the color that you want to apply to the button. Please see the picture shown below. You can also change the color of the text. It is also very easy. To put it in simple words, you can edit the type of font, font size, color, and other text formatting options more or less with the same ease and flexibility, as you can do it, MS Word.

Editing background

If you want to modify or change the background, right-click on the background, that you have decided to change and click Edit Section. You can have a background of different types. It can either be an image, a solid color with or without gradient, a video, or even a slideshow. To replace the existing mage, click on the existing image, upload the image of your own choice from your computer, and finally press the Insert Media button to add the image to your webpage. You can also pick your background from the image library of WordPress. Similar options are available if you want to have gradient color, video, or slide show for your website background. After doing this, you will only need to click the Update button, which will save the changes made by you. If you click the view button, it will show you a preview of the website. It would also exit the editor. Hence, it is very much easy to modify any page of your webpage.

Editing Headers

In this section, we will show you how to edit the headers, which appear on the top of webpages. To edit the header, you have to click Customize and click any of the blue icons to start editing. For example, if you want to change the logo of your website, click on the blue button next to the logo. Chose the logo of your preference. In case you do not have a logo, you can simply remove it and display only the site title. After doing this all, click the Publish button to save the changes you made and exit the editor.

Editing footers

In this section, we will show you how to edit the footer which appears on the bottom of webpages. To edit the footer, you have to click Edit with Elementor, and then click Site Footer. After doing this select anything to begin editing. For example, if you want to modify the text on the header, just select the text and start writing the new text. After doing this all, click the Publish button to save the changes you made and exit the editor.

Adding a new page

Adding a new webpage to your website is also a very simple process. You have to click a New button on the top and then the New page (Please the picture shown below). Add a page title for your new page and then press the button: edit with elementor. To add more substance to the webpage, you have to merely drag and drop templates to the page from the editor on the left. For example, to add a title drag and drop heading template on the page and click on the text editor. After doing this all, click the Publish button to save the changes you made and exit the editor.

Adding share buttons

Now, if you want to add some share buttons to your site. These share buttons could be of different social sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc. Apart from this WordPress provides lots of plugins and features that you can add to your website. One such feature is adding this.com, which not only tells you the specific items that have been shared from your website but also gives you a kind of broad overview of your traffic. By traffic, it means the number of people visiting your website. You can also check this with your analytics.

Using addthis.com plugin for share buttons

In order to add a plugin from addthis.com, just visit this website. Then you just need to click on tools and then you must click add. After that, click new, and then right there it shows share buttons. There you can add various types of buttons. They include floating, inline, expanding, pop-up, banner, and slider button.

  • Floating share buttons will move along as the user will scroll down.
  • Inline share buttons would be constant at a particular place in a line.
  • Expanding buttons will show descriptions when the cursor scrolls across them.
  • Pop-up share buttons will show up automatically at a certain place on the page.
  • Banner share buttons would be placed as a banner on the top of your page.
  • Slider share button would be sliding across your web page.

Making a floating share button

So here in this tutorial, we are going to use the floating share button. You have to click its button. You can basically have it be smart sorting by adding this or you can select it by yourself. Smart sorting basically means that per individual visitor it will show buttons that are most related to the individual visitor to the site. However, in this tutorial we are going to go it selected by you. We are just keeping it simple here and you can add Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter or maybe even just Facebook, Pinterest, and email. It really just depends on where your audience hangs out.

Adding more share buttons

If you want to add more services, you can just click on that. To scan and add something that is really specific to your country. For example, WhatsApp is more commonly used in Europe. Anyway, click the button next to the plus-shaped button. (please see the picture shown below). Here you can modify the mobile size of buttons.

Appearance of share buttons

We are selecting it as small in this tutorial. So, when people are on their mobile devices, the buttons are nice and small and don’t take up a lot of area on the screen. Next, if you click on the 3k button shown in the above picture, you call also make visible the share counts. You can select the share counter type and minimum number, after which share counts are displayed. And then in the end click on activate tools.

Copying the code

So next thing you will see that your floating share buttons are ready. So now you just have to click “Get the code”. Please see the picture shown below.

It will then show you a script that you can copy. Then you have to switch back to the Bluehost interface and click plugins as shown below.

Then click add new. It will show you a couple of plugins. Search the headers and footers plugin. It will show you the header and footer plugin. Go ahead and install it. Then you have to go back to settings and then click insert header and footers. Lastly, you can paste your copied script to the footer section. And then click on Save. So, it will show share buttons on the page.

Editing menus

Now, what if you want to add another webpage to the menu on the top of your website so that it can be located easily. For this, you have to edit the menu. To modify the menu contents, click the customize button, and then click the “edit menu button” as shown in the below figure.

Then click the button of “add items” to add the page. After that, select the page, you desire to add from a list of pages shown on the right. This will automatically add your page to the menu. You can also reorder the pages in the same menu. Additionally, if you want to remove any page from the menu, click on the red cross sign shown next to the name of the page. Once you are done, click the publish button to save the changes.

STEP: 5 Launching your website

Step five is to launch your website. It is the final and the most exciting step because the website is no doubt such a unique, amazing, and powerful way to connect with the world. Once you have created your content and customized the appearance of your website, now all that is left is that you have to launch your website now. Right now, your website is displaying a Coming Soon page to visitors. To finally start your website, press the Coming Soon button visible at top of the webpage, and press the launch your site button. After following all these steps your site will be live and you would own a little space of your own on the internet.

Conclusion

If you want to launch your site on WordPress.org, Bluehost is the super best, simple, and convenient route. Bluehost is very much user-friendly, it also incorporates a wide range of tools and functionality into your WordPress dashboard. It helps you so much and makes it very much easy for you to create your own website. Hence, Bluehost is an excellent solution and the best thing for users who need hosting and are trying to launch their own website on WordPress.