- Best forBlogs, shops, bookings and sites that will grow
- DesignTemplates (themes), customised in a visual editor
- Time to a first siteA day or a weekend
- CostFree software; optional paid themes and plugins
- SkillsSome learning; no code needed
Is WordPress right for you?
Choose WordPress if your site needs to grow: a blog you’ll add to every week, a shop, bookings, or several people editing pages. It’s the most flexible of the four routes — the trade-off is that you look after it.
Pros
- Thousands of free themes and plugins: shop, bookings, forms, galleries
- Best choice for a blog or an online shop (WooCommerce)
- You and your staff edit pages from a dashboard
- Yours to keep — it moves to any host
- Huge amount of help and tutorials
Cons
- Needs regular updates, or it becomes a security risk
- Too many plugins slow it down or clash
- More to learn than a site builder
- Premium themes and plugins can add up
Build it, step by step
1. Get your domain and hosting
Every OnPoint plan supports WordPress at no extra cost. Pick a plan, choose your domain and you’re ready — ordering takes about 10 minutes. Then log in to cPanel from your Client Area.
2. Install WordPress from cPanel
cPanel has a one-click WordPress installer. Depending on your account it’s called WordPress Toolkit, WordPress Manager or Softaculous — type “WordPress” into cPanel’s search box to find it.
Choose Install. Pick your domain with
https://and leave the folder (directory) empty so WordPress becomes your home page.Set the site name (you can change it later), and an admin username that isn’t “admin”, a long password and your email address.
Leave the database settings as suggested — the installer creates the database for you. Select Install.
When it finishes, log in at
https://yourdomain.co.uk/wp-admin.
3. Five settings to change first
- Settings › General — site title, tagline and timezone (London).
- Settings › Permalinks — choose Post name, for clean addresses such as
/about-us/. - Settings › Discussion — turn comments off if you don’t want them; they attract spam.
- Delete the samples — the “Hello world!” post and “Sample Page”, and any plugins and themes you won’t use.
- Users › Profile — set your name as you want it shown on posts.
4. Choose a theme (your template)
The theme sets the whole look. Go to Appearance › Themes › Add New Theme and preview a few. Today’s best themes are block themes, which you customise visually in Appearance › Editor — colours, fonts, header and footer — without code. The default theme WordPress installs is a good, fast starting point.
- Check a theme was updated recently and has good reviews.
- Paid themes are fine from reputable sellers. Never use “free” copies of paid themes (“nulled” themes) — they often hide malware.
- Look at the demo on your phone: most of your visitors will.
5. Create your pages and menu
Under Pages › Add New Page, create Home, About, Services (or Products), Contact and a Privacy Policy (WordPress has a privacy-policy page ready to fill in under Settings › Privacy). Write with blocks: headings, paragraphs, images, buttons. Then in Settings › Reading set Your homepage displays to your Home page, and arrange the menu in Appearance › Editor › Navigation.
Not sure what to say? An AI assistant such as Claude is good at drafting page text from a few notes about your business — just check every fact before you publish.
6. Add only the plugins you need
Plugins add features. Each one is more code to keep updated, so add them for a reason, from Plugins › Add New Plugin:
| You need… | Look for |
|---|---|
| A contact form | A form plugin such as WPForms Lite or Contact Form 7, plus anti-spam |
| Search-engine settings | An SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math, for page titles, descriptions and a sitemap |
| Backups | A backup plugin that saves copies off the server, or OnPoint’s website backup add-on |
| An online shop | WooCommerce — free, with Stripe and PayPal payments |
| Bookings | A booking or appointments plugin, or embed your booking service’s calendar |
7. Keep it safe
- Turn on automatic updates for WordPress, plugins and themes (each has an Enable auto-updates link), and log in now and then to check.
- Use two-factor login for every administrator, and give other people the lowest role they need (Editor or Author, not Administrator).
- Keep PHP up to date — 8.4 or 8.5. How to check and change it
- Back up before big changes, such as a new theme or a major update.
8. Launch and get found
Check the padlock and every page on your phone, then set up your email addresses, your favicon (Appearance › Editor › Site Icon or Settings › General), and work through the SEO checklist and Google Search Console. Your SEO plugin makes the sitemap for you.