How to make a WordPress website: a small business guide

WordPress is free, open-source software for building websites, and it runs 39.6% of all websites, per W3Techs on October 21, 2026. You pay for the domain, the hosting and your time instead. Most guides skip what year 2 costs.

This guide shows US small-business owners how to make a WordPress website, step by step. We tested every screen on a fresh copy of WordPress 7.1.3 in WordPress Playground, the official in-browser version, on October 22, 2026. Several steps in older tutorials don't match what you'll see now.

Key facts before you create a WordPress website

• WordPress is free and licensed under the GPLv2 or later, per WordPress.org. You pay for a domain and hosting.
• The current version is 7.1.3, released October 6, 2026. It shipped 7 security fixes, per the WordPress 7.1.3 release note.
• WordPress.org recommends PHP 8.3 or newer and MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or newer, per its requirements page.
• The block editor has been the default since WordPress 5.0 in December 2018, per the block editor guide.
• WordPress 5.5 added built-in XML sitemaps at /wp-sitemap.xml, per the July 2020 core note.
• SiteGround StartUp costs $3.99 a month for the first 12 months, then $17.99, as of October 2026.

What do you need before you start?

To make a WordPress website, you need 3 things: a domain name, a hosting plan and a few hours a week for about a month. The domain is your address, like yourbusiness.com. Hosting is the computer that stores the site and serves it to visitors.

A .com domain costs about $11 a year. Porkbun lists .com at $11.08 for both registration and renewal, as of October 2026. Many hosts give a free domain, but only for the first year.

Check that the host meets WordPress.org's recommended requirements: PHP 8.3 or newer, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.11 or newer, and HTTPS support. Every host we priced includes a free SSL certificate, which gives you HTTPS. Bluehost, for one, names Let's Encrypt, a nonprofit that issues free certificates.

Not sure WordPress is right for you? If you mainly want an online store, compare WordPress vs Shopify first. If you want strong search basics, here are the reasons WordPress works well for SEO.

WordPress.com or WordPress.org: which one should you use?

Use self-hosted WordPress if you want full control and any plugin. Use WordPress.com if you don't want to look after servers. Both run the same software; the difference is who looks after it. SiteGround's entry plan costs $47.88 for a first year of self-hosting, and WordPress.com Personal is $4 a month, billed yearly, as of October 2026.

As WordPress.com's own comparison page puts it, the real choice is between its "managed WordPress hosting and a self-hosted WordPress site."

Prices in this table are as of October 2026. WordPress.com now allows plugins on all paid plans, per its plan features page. Older guides say you need the Business plan, which is no longer true.

Our take: pick self-hosted if you want any plugin and plan to grow the site. Pick WordPress.com Personal or Premium if you never want to think about servers.

WordPress has been the most used site builder for years. Its share of all websites grew from 23.3% in 2015 to 43.2% in 2022, per W3Techs' yearly history. By October 21, 2026 it was 39.6%. W3Techs doesn't say why. Shopify is next at 5.3%.

How much does a WordPress website cost?

A basic do-it-yourself WordPress site costs about $59 in year 1 and about $227 in year 2, as of October 2026. That assumes SiteGround StartUp hosting and an $11.08 .com domain, while the WordPress software stays free. The jump comes from hosting renewals.

We read every price below on the hosts' own US pages on October 22, 2026, and rechecked them on October 25. Bluehost blocked our recheck, so its row is from October 22.

Year 1 vs year 2 WordPress cost table (October 2026)

All prices are in USD, as of October 2026. Long prepaid terms lock in the low price but charge it all up front. SiteGround renews StartUp at $17.99 a month. Bluehost renews Starter at $9.99 a month after a 36-month term.

As of October 2026, Hostinger charges $119.52 for 48 months of Premium, then $10.99 a month. DreamHost charges the full 4-year Launch term at checkout, then $7.99 a month. WordPress.com Premium is $8 a month for year 1, then $9.

Most paid extras are optional. Spam filtering is the one to plan for: Akismet's pay-what-you-can Personal plan covers personal sites only. Its commercial plan starts at $9.95 a month, billed yearly, per Akismet's pricing page, as of October 2026.

Prices on these pages change often, and several showed seasonal sales on October 22, 2026. Write down the renewal price and date before you pay.

How to make a WordPress website in 10 steps

Here's the whole build in order, from your page list to launch. Plan on about 4 weeks at a few hours a week (our estimate). Each step names the screen you'll see in WordPress 7.1.3. For a longer walk-through, see our step-by-step guide to making a WordPress website.

1. Decide what the site must do. List your pages: Home, Services, About, Contact and a Privacy Policy. Pick one main action, such as a call, a booking or a quote request.
2. Choose self-hosted or WordPress.com. Use the comparison above. If you plan to sell online, read our ecommerce website guide first.
3. Buy your domain. Choose a short .com that is easy to spell, without hyphens. Note when the free first year ends.
4. Buy hosting. Check PHP 8.3+, HTTPS, backups and the renewal price. Avoid a 4-year prepay until you know you will keep the site.
5. Install WordPress and lock the login. Most hosts install it for you. Log in at yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Don't use "admin" as your username, and turn on two-step login. No installer at your host? Follow WordPress's install guide. It says the process usually "takes less than five minutes."
6. Set the basics. Under Settings > General, set the site title and time zone. Under Settings > Permalinks, choose "Post name" for clean addresses.
7. Pick a block theme. Twenty Twenty-Five is the default and free. Design the header, footer and colors in Appearance > Editor, and build menus under Navigation. Our branding strategy for small business shows how to pick brand colors that pass the contrast check. Free themes in the official Theme Directory are reviewed by a team before they are listed, per WordPress's themes guide. You can switch themes later under Appearance > Themes.
8. Build your pages. Add pages with blocks and patterns. Give every image alt text and every form field a label. Use pages for timeless content like About and Contact, and posts for dated news, per WordPress's pages guide.
9. Add a few plugins. Install only what you need, from WordPress.org or a well-known company. Delete any plugin you stop using.
10. Test and launch. Run the launch checklist below, then check how fast your homepage loads with our free website speed test.

Google publishes 3 speed targets, called Core Web Vitals, per web.dev. A "good" page shows its main content within 2.5 seconds and reacts to taps within 200 milliseconds. Its layout should also stay steady, with a layout shift score of 0.1 or less. A light theme, compressed images and few plugins get most beginners there.

Do you need a page builder like Elementor?

No. WordPress's built-in block editor already builds pages from blocks and patterns, so most small business sites can skip a builder. A page builder such as Elementor is an extra plugin with its own editor and its own learning curve.

Elementor is one example. Its core plugin is free on WordPress.org. Its paid Essential plan costs $60 a year for 1 site, as of October 23, 2026, per Elementor's pricing page.

Our take: start with the built-in editor. Add a builder only if it can't make a layout you need, since every plugin is one more thing to update.

What looks different in WordPress 7.1.3?

In WordPress 7.1.3 with a block theme, you build menus and the site layout in the Site Editor, not on a Menus screen. Settings has a new Connectors screen for AI keys, and a sitemap is built in. Before launch, make sure the "Discourage search engines" box is unticked.

Our test: we opened a fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site with the Twenty Twenty-Five theme in WordPress Playground on October 22, 2026. Here is what a beginner will notice, and where older tutorials go wrong.

First, the Appearance menu shows only Themes, Editor and Fonts. With this theme, there is no Menus or Customize screen. You edit menus in Appearance > Editor > Navigation instead.

WordPress's own docs explain why: the Site Editor "is only available when you install and activate a Block theme," per the Site Editor documentation. With a classic theme, the old Menus screen still applies.

Second, the Settings menu has a new Connectors screen. It stores keys for AI services from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI, and each one needs a plugin. The screen arrived with WordPress 7.0, which added an "AI Client in Core," per the 7.0 release post. You don't need any of it to build a site.

Third, Settings > Reading has the "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" box. In our test it was unticked. Some hosts and staging copies tick it, so check it before launch.

Fourth, WordPress already makes a sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml. Ours listed 4 sitemaps for posts, pages, categories and users. Core sitemaps arrived in version 5.5, per the WordPress core announcement.

How to keep your WordPress site safe

Keep WordPress, your theme and your plugins updated, use strong unique logins with two-step sign-in, and keep several backups in different places. WordPress's hardening guide says older versions "are not maintained with security updates."

Version 7.1.3 shipped 7 security fixes, and WordPress recommends updating "immediately," per its October 6, 2026 release note. Keep automatic updates for minor releases switched on. They're on by default.

• Use a username other than "admin" and a password manager.
• Turn on two-step login for every account that can publish.
• Install plugins and themes only from WordPress.org or well-known companies.
• Keep 3 to 5 recent backups in different places, as the WordPress backup guide advises.
• Delete plugins and themes you no longer use.

Your host's backup is one copy. Add a second copy off the server, for example with the free UpdraftPlus plugin sending files to cloud storage. Then test one restore, so you know it works.

Security is the hardest part to keep up with on your own. Want updates, backups and fixes handled for you? Our web development team builds and looks after WordPress sites. (DigitalTreed sells this service.)

Does the ADA apply to your website?

If your business is open to the public, the Department of Justice says the ADA covers your website too. Its web accessibility guidance says the ADA applies to "businesses that are open to the public," including services "offered on the web."

The DOJ has no detailed technical rule for private businesses. Most teams aim for WCAG 2.2 level AA, the current W3C standard. The DOJ names common barriers to avoid:

• Poor color contrast, or color alone to carry meaning
• Images without alt text
• Videos without captions
• Forms without labels
• Pages you cannot use with a keyboard

The DOJ also warns about automated checkers and overlays. A "clean" report "does not necessarily mean everything is accessible." This is general information, not legal advice; check with an attorney for your situation.

Does your website need a privacy policy?

If your contact form collects names, emails or phone numbers, publish a short privacy policy. That is our advice, and WordPress makes it easy. Settings > Privacy can create a Privacy Policy page with suggested text, per the Privacy Settings guide.

WordPress adds a warning: it is your responsibility to fill in that page correctly and keep it current. Say what the form collects, why, and who sees it.

California's privacy law, the CCPA, covers only some for-profit businesses. Per the California Privacy Protection Agency, it applies to a for-profit business that does business in California and meets any of these:

• Gross annual revenue of $26.625 million or more, as of January 1, 2025
• Buys, sells or shares the personal information of 100,000 or more California residents or households
• Earns 50% or more of its yearly revenue from selling or sharing that information

A small firm under that revenue line usually falls outside the CCPA, unless it meets one of the two data tests above. Other states have their own privacy laws, which we did not review. This is general information, not legal advice; check with an attorney for your situation.

How to get your new site on Google

After launch, search Google for site:yourdomain.com. If pages show, you're in the index, per Google's SEO Starter Guide. Then add your site to Search Console and submit /wp-sitemap.xml.

Our Google Search Console guide walks through the setup. Google says a sitemap "isn't required" but helps, and its sitemap help page suggests letting your CMS make one. If you install Yoast SEO, submit its sitemap instead.

Give every page a clear title and its own meta description. Google asks for titles that are "descriptive and concise," per its title link guide. It also asks for "unique descriptions for each page," per its meta description guide. Our SEO for beginners guide covers the next steps.

To see your visitors, install the free Site Kit by Google plugin. It shows Search Console and Google Analytics data inside your WordPress dashboard.

Be patient. Google says some changes "could take several months" to show. For more steps, see how to get a new WordPress site indexed. A local business should also set up its Google Business Profile; our local SEO guide explains how. A month after launch, run through our first SEO audit for small business to catch indexing, title and speed problems.

What to check before you launch

1. HTTPS works on every page; check it with our free SSL checker
2. "Discourage search engines" is unticked under Settings > Reading
3. Permalinks are set to "Post name"
4. The sample page and "Hello world!" post are deleted
5. The contact form reaches the right inbox, with spam protection on
6. A Privacy Policy page is published and linked in the footer
7. Every image has alt text, and the site works with the keyboard alone
8. The phone number is tappable on mobile
9. Backups run, with one copy off the host
10. Hosting and domain renewal dates are in your calendar A free uptime monitor watches your home page; our website uptime monitoring guide shows the 15-minute setup

For more pre-launch search checks, see our 4 SEO steps before a WordPress site goes live. Before you switch the site on, run the launch-day checks in our website development process guide, starting with the noindex setting.

Example: a 2-person CPA firm in Tampa

Example: a made-up firm, "Bayside Tax & Books," wants consultation requests before tax season. It needs Home, Services, Fees, About, Contact and Privacy pages.

The partners choose self-hosting on SiteGround StartUp: $47.88 for year 1 and $215.88 for year 2, as of October 2026. They add a .com for $11.08 a year and use Twenty Twenty-Five.

Their plugins are a contact form, Akismet's commercial plan, Yoast SEO, Wordfence and UpdraftPlus. Each partner gets a separate login with two-step sign-in, and no one shares an "admin" account.

Their year 1 total is $58.96: $47.88 for hosting plus $11.08 for the domain, as of October 2026. Akismet's commercial plan adds $119.40 a year.

The contact form asks only for name, email, phone and a short message. Tax documents go through a secure client portal, never a plain web form. That rule is our advice, not a legal requirement we checked.

What to do if your site breaks

A white screen or "critical error" usually points to a plugin or server problem; see our HTTP 500 error fix. For "Error establishing a database connection," use our database connection error fix. A redirect loop after turning on HTTPS is covered in our too many redirects fix. To see which plugin or theme caused an error, turn on the WordPress debug log with 4 lines in wp-config.php.

Your next step

This week, write your page list and your one main action, then compare 2 hosts on their renewal price. That hour keeps the year 2 renewal bill from surprising you.

Weighing DIY against hiring help? The median pay for US web developers and digital designers was $47.85 an hour in May 2025, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That is employee pay, not a freelancer's rate or a project price. Our guide on how to hire a web designer covers questions and contracts.

If you would rather have the site built for you, our quote estimator shows a price range in USD in about a minute.

How we made this guide: it's built from WordPress.org's requirements, release notes and documentation and WordPress.com's plan pages. We also used the hosts' own US pricing pages, W3Techs, the DOJ's ADA guidance and Google's Search Central docs. We tested the screens on a fresh WordPress 7.1.3 site in WordPress Playground on October 22, 2026.

We checked every number against the source named next to it on October 22, 2026. WordPress 7.2 was in beta that day, so some screens may change.

First published April 2020. Rewritten October 2026: new step-by-step build for WordPress 7.1.3, our own screenshots, year 1 vs year 2 costs, security, ADA and Google launch steps. Updated October 23, 2026: added a page builder section, a privacy policy and CCPA section and a free-plan FAQ. We also added title and meta description tips and fuller install, theme and page steps. Updated October 25, 2026: rechecked host prices, as SiteGround's first-year price rose to $3.99 a month. We also added key facts, short answers under question headings, the 10 steps as a plain list and a link to our WordPress website guide.

Sources

• WordPress.org: Requirements
• WordPress.org: About WordPress
• WordPress.org: Releases archive
• WordPress 7.1.3 Maintenance and Security Release, October 6, 2026
• WordPress 7.0 "Armstrong", May 20, 2026
• WordPress Playground
• WordPress documentation: Site Editor
• WordPress documentation: Block editor
• WordPress: Hardening WordPress
• WordPress: Backups
• WordPress core: XML sitemaps in 5.5, July 22, 2020
• WordPress.com vs WordPress.org (WordPress.com)
• WordPress.com pricing
• WordPress.com plan features
• W3Techs: CMS usage, October 21, 2026 (vendor survey)
• W3Techs: yearly CMS trends (vendor survey)
• SiteGround WordPress hosting prices (vendor)
• Bluehost WordPress hosting prices (vendor)
• Hostinger WordPress hosting prices (vendor)
• DreamHost WordPress hosting prices (vendor)
• Porkbun domain prices (vendor)
• Akismet pricing (vendor)
• Elementor on WordPress.org
• Elementor pricing, October 23, 2026 (vendor)
• WordPress: How to install WordPress
• WordPress documentation: Work with themes
• WordPress documentation: Create pages
• WordPress documentation: Settings Privacy screen
• California Privacy Protection Agency: CCPA FAQ
• US Bureau of Labor Statistics: Web Developers and Digital Designers
• Let's Encrypt
• US Department of Justice: Guidance on Web Accessibility and the ADA, March 18, 2022
• W3C: WCAG 2.2, December 12, 2024
• Google: SEO Starter Guide
• Google: Build and submit a sitemap
• Google: Influencing title links
• Google: How to write meta descriptions
• web.dev: Web Vitals