Website build

To build a website we must first upload the files (Ingredients) to the hosting server. We do this using FTP (Remember we created the FTP login in using our insider knowledge – Website Hosting page.

Once we have the files uploaded to the hosting server we then need to install WordPress. We then move onto the build of the website and in this case we will use a WordPress website builder namely ‘Elementor‘ as we will be doing this ourselves without using a web company to build the site for us. We will also download and use a theme to design the site.

You will need to download WordPress and extract the zipped files to your local computer as a pre-requisite.

*Just to be clear at this point, when we build websites we do not use builders nor do we use themes.

Upload the website files

Using a FTP client, in this case we will use Core FTP Lite, we will now upload the website files to the hosting server.

1. Open Core FTP Lite. Click on Sites — > Site Manager
2. Click ‘New Site’
3. Enter the site name
4. Enter the Host/IP/URL (In our case this will be the IP address of the hosting server)
5. Enter the username
6. Enter the password
7. Click Connect

Once connected in the left hand pane navigate to the WordPress files that you downloaded earlier. Select all files and drag these over to the right hand pane within the Core FTP application. The system will show you progress in the lower pane.

Install WordPress

Now that the files are on your hosting server you can install WordPress. Navigate to the web address of your website so in our case it would be www.taylormadeclothing.co.uk.

Follow the prompts on the screen until you get to the Database Name entry page.

1. Enter the database name
2. Enter the database username
3. Enter the database user password
4. Leave the Database host and table prefix as defaults
5. Click Submit
6. If you have entered the details correctly you will get to the ‘All right sunshine!’ notice. Click ‘Run the Installation’ button

You will now be prompted to enter some further details:

1. Site Title: In our case we have set this as Taylor Clothing
2. Username: A username (Can be anything)
3. Password: Either use the one that has been created or create one yourself
4. Your email: Your email address
5. For the moment we will discourage search engines from indexing this site by selecting the check box at the bottom.
6. Click Install WordPress

Once completed the system should automatically log you in and you should be at the Welcome to WordPress! screen This is known as the back end of your website.

Install a site maintenance plugin

Website maintenance plugins allows you to put up a holding page whilst you develop your website in the background, kind of like a curtain over your work in progress. A great plugin for this purpose is WP Maintenance Mode & Coming Soon.

Once you have the plugin installed and activated the system will take you straight to the template section. Unless you plan on doing anything major for your maintenance page, the Maintenance template will suffice. Click on the template and click continue. On the next screen you may click ‘I’ll skip for now, thanks’. On the next page click on the go to settings button. You can make changes here if you require but defaults are ok.

You will now have a new ‘Maintenance’ page within the pages section of WordPress. Edit this page to use the maintenance builder to modify the page to look and act how you like. This will open a block editor which is very easy to use. Click on elements to change them to your desired design and layout.

Install the Elementor builder

Log in to the back end of your WordPress site and navigate to ‘Plugins’ in the left hand menu pane. Once in the plugins screen click ‘Add New’ then in the search field enter ‘Elementor’. The plugin that you require is named ‘Elementor Website Builder’. Once located, click Install Now and then activate once the installation has completed.

You will now be taken to the Elementor start page where you will need to create a free account. You should only need to input an email address and password to create your account. Once created click on the ‘Connect’ button. As you are already logged into WordPress and have just installed the Elementor plugin the site should know this and show you the connection details to your site. Click ‘Connect’.

You now have the option to choose a theme, the hello theme is the default theme for Elementor at the time of writing this article. For this insider knowledge article we will go ahead and use the Hello theme (Don’t worry you can change it later).

Setting up your site’s theme

Now that you have your Elementor account and the plugin installed, we need to set up our theme. To do this is quite intuitive so we won’t go into every step, so just follow the prompts on screen to set up your theme.

Towards the end of the process Elementor will ask you if you want to apply the kit. In our example, we have said yes to this as we want all of the elements available to us within the theme. TIP: If you attempt to install the kit and you receive a message that PHP ZIP is not installed then refer to enabling PHP ZIP within your hosting cPanel instructions.

At the end of the process you should be prompted with ‘Your kit is now live on your site!’. You can safely close this window now as everything else will be done within the back end of your website in WordPress.

With most Elementor themes you will now have at least 4 new pages to play with. we will discuss Elementor in detail on our insider knowledge – how to configure your Elementor website