How To Build Your Dream Website in 30 Minutes

Want to build your dream website, but don’t know where to start? Trust me, you’re not alone. Most people today feel totally overwhelmed and scared by the process, and they wind up either hiring an expert or quitting altogether as a result.

On one hand, the hesitation makes sense – we’ve all heard the horror stories about how hard it is to build a site from scratch, and we’ve seen how, for some businesses, a site can majorly drain time and resources that they just don’t have to spare.

But what if I told you that it doesn’t always have to be that way and that you could easily build your dream website in just 30 minutes? Well, with WME, you can.

In this tutorial, we’ll walk you through exactly how to build the website of your dreams – a website that’s fully customized, that perfectly reflects your brand and your mission, and that just rakes in the profit and the traffic –  in the time it takes you to eat your lunch or commute to work.

• Disclosure: When you sign up for Hostgator through my coupon code (wordpresshero) I will earn a commission for referring you, at no additional cost to you. This helps us continue to create this awesome content for you.

You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So let’s get started.

What Do You Need To Start a WordPress Website?

To start your WordPress site, you’ll need:

• A computer with internet
• An idea of what your domain name and your site aesthetic will be
• A space where you can work, uninterrupted, for 30 minutes.

And that’s it – we’ll handle the rest together as we work through this tutorial.

In this tutorial, we’ll cover:

• Choosing a great domain name.
• Determining your hosting plan.
• How to install WordPress
• How to successfully launch your WordPress site.
• How to build your site pages on WordPress
• Making sure your site is set up to be discovered by search engines
• Improving your functionality with plugins
• Creating a fully customized site

Ready? Let’s begin.

Step 1: Choose Your Web Address (Domain Name)

First, you have to choose your domain name and your hosting. This first step may seem beside the point, but it’s essential to setting up the foundation for a successful, high-converting site.

The good news? This part is cheap and easy with WME.

To choose your domain name, visit www.hostgator.com and click on the GET STARTED button.

Next, click on the Hatchling plan and enter your details as you’re prompted.

Step 1: Choose a Domain

On the next page, choose your website’s address. Simply decide what you’d like and type it in where it says “Enter Your Domain.” Here, you can choose whatever suffix you’d like “.com, .tv, .net, etc.” but do keep in mind that certain suffixes have much more authority with users, so you may want to opt for one of these over the lesser known options.

Step 2: Choose a Hosting Plan

Next, choose the billing cycle you would like. Options like a full year, for example, will be slightly less expensive – so this may be the way to go.

Then, enter a username and a security pin.

Step 3: Enter Your Billing Info

Step 4: Add Additional Services

Uncheck everything, since you don’t need any of these services and we want to streamline this process as much as possible.

Step 5: Enter a Coupon Code

The special code we’re offering today is WORDPRESSHERO. Enter it to see your cost go right down, saving you up to 60% of your entire hosting depending on the billing cycle that you choose.

When you sign up for Hostgator through my coupon code I will earn a commission for referring you, at no additional cost to you. This helps us continue to create this awesome content for you 🙂

Step 6: Check Out

Finally, just go over to check out and you will be the proud owner of your own web hosting address. Yay!

Step 7: Check Your Email

You’ll receive a couple of emails from HostGator confirming your purchase and your account details. This will contain various links for your reference.

Look for the “Your Control Panel” link and click on it.

Step 2: Install WordPress

On the page that the control panel linked to, scroll down until you see the “Software” section. Click on “QuickInstall.”

Next, click on WordPress.

Select your domain name from the dropdown and click next.  

Enter your details and click on “Install.”

On the following page, write down your login details (you’ll need them in the next step) and click on “Login.”

Finally, you should see the WordPress login page, where you can login to your website to start creating it. If you don’t see the page, and instead see a page saying that it’s unavailable, simply wait a few minutes and try again.

Congratulations! You’ve now got your website up and running, and you’re ready to start creating and customizing your dream website.

Step 3: Create Your Website Pages and Launch

The first thing that you’ll see once you have your website running is your WordPress dashboard. It’s really the heart of your website, where you can edit it and make changes as necessary.

First, check out how your website currently looks by clicking on “Visit Site” from the Homepage dropdown in the upper left corner. Open this up in a new tab.

Launch Your Website

You’ll see, at this point, that your website is essentially a blank slate. If you head back to your dashboard, it will let you know that “Your site is displaying a “Coming Soon” page. Once you are ready to launch your site click here.” Go ahead and launch it right away so you can view your site as you create it and see your updates in real time.

Next, it’s time to start creating and editing your pages. Start by going to “Pages” then “All Pages” in the sidebar.

Begin Creating Your Pages

Delete any default pages and click on “Add New” at the top.

Start by adding your page title. For the first, simply write “Home” and click on “Publish” in the upper righthand corner.

Repeat the process for your “About” page and your “Contact” page. Publish.

You now have your website’s pages created, and you’re ready to start customizing each one.

Step 4: Change Your Basic Settings to Optimize Your Site

Set Up The Foundations

First, you want to start by making sure that your site is properly organized and set up before you begin your customizations.

Go to “Settings” > “General”

Remove your site title and tagline.

Never change your WordPress Address (URL) or your Site Address (URL). It will stop your site from working properly.

Save changes.

Next, go to your “Reading” settings. Here, change “Your homepage displays” to “ A static page” and under the “Homepage” dropdown select “Home.”

Save.

Finally, go to your “Permalink Setting” page. Here, select “Post Name” as this will make it easier for search engines like Google to find your website. Make sure everything is saved.

You now have strong foundations for your website and you’re ready to start customizing it and making it unique.

Step 5: Customize With Your Theme and Plugins

Now the fun stuff! Here’s where we teach you how to fully customize and optimize your pages in order to build the website of your dreams.

Choose Your Theme

The theme is the overall look and feel of your website, and it’s an important component to get right – it lays the foundation for the great first impressions, and it also gives you a base layout and functionality to work with. So choosing the right theme is an important step.

To do it, go to “Appearance” and “Themes.”

Click on “Add New Theme.” There are thousands of options on WordPress, but the best one that we’ve found is called “OceanWP.” Search for that theme and click on “Install” then “Activate” to get started.

You’ve just changed your whole website, though it’s still a blank canvas that you can do with what you’d like.

Setup Your Plugins

Next, go to your toolbar and click “Plugins” and “Add New.”

A plugin is a tool that enhances your website and adds functionality. It can really boost your website and take it to the next level. You’re going to use a few plugins:

• Elementor Page Builder: This is the main tool that’s going to make creating your website easier than it’s ever been before.

Premium Addons for Elementor: This will make the tool even more useful.

• Envato Elements: This gives you ready-made websites to work with so you’re not starting from scratch. You can basically take a shortcut to success and completely customize your site as you go.  

Install and activate all three plugins.

Next, go to your main “Plugins” page. Get rid of all of the plugins that you aren’t going to use and deactivate them by selecting “Deactivate” from the dropdown at the bottom of the page. Then select “Delete” to get rid of them completely.

At this point, you should have a message on your dashboard prompting you to install two plugins:

Go ahead and install both.

Finally, install and activate one final plugin called Contact Form 7.

And you’re good to go! Now your site has all of the tools and functinality you may need, which means that it’s time to really create using your new plugins and this amazing foundation.

Step 6: Begin Working With Elementor and Envato Elements

Before you truly get started, you have to configure your pages to run using the plugins.

Start by going back to “Pages” and “All pages” from your dashboard’s sidebar.

Under the “Home” page, click on “Edit.”

Scroll down and find the OceanWP settings. Make sure, under “Header,” that you have “Display Top Bar” disabled. Also make sure that your header style is “transparent.”

Then, under the “Title” menu, disable the page title. Under the “Footer” menu, disable “Display Footer Widgets Area” and “Display Copyright Area.”

Finally, under “Page Attributes” change the template to “Elementor Full Width.”

Click “Update” at the top of the page.

Repeat this entire process for your “About” and “Contact” pages.

Go back to your homepage and click “Edit with Elementor” at the top of the page.

Do this for all your pages so you have them all open in Elementor. Your “Pages” screen should look like this:

Now you can start bringing your website to life directly from the Elementor dashboard, which looks like this:

But there’s one more step to complete before you do. Go back to your main dashboard and go to Envato Elements. Pick a template for your homepage. For this tutorial, we’re choosing a corporate template, but you can choose and import a different one later on if you’d like.

Do the same thing for the “Corporate About” and “Corporate Contact Us” page.

The last template will be under the “Health and Medical” section. From here, scroll and import the “Recipes” page. You’ll see why later.

Return to your Elementor Homepage.

Step 7: Working In Elementor

Click on the file icon in the middle of the page.

Then go to “My Templates” and insert the “Corporate Business – Home” template. You now have a homepage ready to go! Now it’s time to go through and customize to make it personal and unique to you.

Customizing Your Homepage

First, you can remove anything you don’t want by right-clicking the icon at the top and selecting “Delete.”

From there, you’ll want to change your header image. Do this by clicking “style” in your toolbar on the left, then by clicking directly on the image itself.

There will be lots of images available in your media library, but if you want some great images that aren’t included, you can download them from our blog. Just visit www.websitesmadeeasy.tv/blog/create-your-dream-site/ then click to download the file. And voila! Stunning, high-quality images are yours. Go back to Elementor and choose the one you like best.

Next, click, drag, and change your header copy and your top button as you wish until it looks exactly how you want it to (visit minute 15 in the video for more detailed suggestions).

One trick of the trade? Change your image’s attachment to “fixed” so that it stays put as the user navigates the page – this looks great and professional to the end user.

Next, you can remove all unnecessary elements on the homepage except for the portfolio section:

Then, you can add in the sections you’ll actually want. You’ll be mixing and matching from the various templates that we downloaded in step 6, but don’t worry – there’s a method to the madness.

Get started by clicking, once more, on the file button at the bottom of the page.

Go to “My Templates” and then find the Nutritionist > Recipes template that you downloaded in step 6. This is a great template to work from: it’s super engaging and it has lots of animations that you can use to make your site dynamic and interesting to the end user. That said, you’ll want to remove everything except for the section that looks like this:

Next, go back to add file and to the “pages” area of your library. Look for this template:

And insert it into your page. Remove everything except for the “Our Vision” section, which will be your footer.

Now, you can customize each section on your homepage so it contains the exact information you want. For specific guides, check from minute 18 in the video.

A hack? Save your footer after you’ve customized it by clicking on the center blue button, then on “save as template.”

That way, it will be available on all your pages as you progress through your site.

Customizing Your About Page

Start by adding the “Corporate Business” template to the page. Only keep the header and this section here:

Then, add your footer from the homepage.

Once again, change your images and copy to suit your business’ needs.

Customizing Your Contact Page

Start by adding your contact template, entitled “Corporate Business- Contact 2”:

Edit your header to change the image and heading text.

Then, you can easily add a contact form at the bottom of the page. This can be done by, first, deleting the default map. Then simply search for “contact” and insert “Premium Contact Form7” by simply dragging and dropping it into your page.  

To create the actual contact form, you’ll have to return to your WordPress dashboard. Then, go to “Contact” then “Contact Forms.”

Delete the default contact form, if one exists, and click on “Add New” in the upper left corner of the page. Simply give your contact form a name and you’re done. Don’t touch the code at the bottom unless you really know what you’re doing.

Go back to Elementor and click on your contact. Your new form should appear:

Finally, the Menu

Make sure to click “Update” to save everything. Then, the last thing you have to do is create your menu so people can search on your site. Do this by going to “Appearance” then “Menus” on your WordPress dashboard.

Then give your menu a name and select the pages that you would like to appear on your menu (all of them). Finally, click “Add to Menu” and “Save.”

Then, go to “Appearance” and “Customize” if you want to edit the menus colors or get rid of the line at the bottom (for more information on this, check out minute 29 of the video).

And that’s it! Your website is up, running, and good to go. The next steps are up to you.