Make a WordPress Site in 10 Minutes (2023)

This article primarily documents the process of how I set up the current website. I hope it can assist anyone with similar needs in quickly establishing their own WordPress website.

Goals and Cost

To set up a WordPress website, the first step is to choose a place to host our site. This time, I chose HostGator as my web hosting service. There are some main reasons for this choice:

1. Being a well-known web hosting service for many years, its quality and security are beyond doubt.
2. Full refund service within 45 days.
3. 24/7 online customer support.
4. The operational costs are low, and the specific fees are as follows:
   • HostGator Domain Registration: First year free of charge.
   • HostGator Server: $30.85 (USD) per year.

Of course, if you have a preferred service provider, that’s completely fine as well.

HostGator Plans and Registration

1. Select the plan that suits you on the HostGator official website and click Buy Now:
   
   If there are no specific needs, I believe most people will find the Hatchling Plan more than sufficient. Please note that to see the discounted price shown in the image, you’ll need to use the provided link. If you go directly through the official website, the monthly fee will be $3.75 ($45 per year).
2. Once you’ve selected the plan, the next step is to choose a suitable domain name:
   
   Currently, the annual plan includes a promotion for the first year’s domain registration fee to be waived. If you already have your own domain, you can click on I Already Own This Domain on the right to skip this step. Under the domain registration, there’s an option for Domain Privacy Protection. It’s not necessary, so you can uncheck the box for now:
   
3. Next, select your Hosting Plan:
   
4. Enter your payment information; you can use a credit card or PayPal.
5. Next is Add Additional Services. Most of these features can be found for free or with more powerful plugins and we will introduce them in the future. So, you can uncheck all the boxes for plugins.
   
6. Finally, after confirming that the fees and plan are correct, you can submit the registration form.
   

Install WordPress

1. Once you’ve successfully created your HostGator account, you can access your server’s control panel through the HostGator Portal. Click on Install WordPress under the Control Panel on the right:
   
2. Click Install Now:
   
3. Next, you’ll come to the WordPress Software Setup. Choose the domain you just registered and the version of WordPress you’d like to install. I would recommend selecting the latest version. Then, under Site Settings, enter the name and description of your website; these can be changed later. Finally, create an admin user account and password under Admin Account. You’ll use this account to log into the WordPress dashboard in the future.
   
4. Next, select the primary language for your website. You can completely skip the Select Plugins section on the right:
   
5. Next, you can also completely skip the Advanced Options and Select Theme sections (we will use Elementor + Astra to set up your WordPress website in future tutorials). Finally, click Install:
   
6. After the installation is complete, you might need to wait for about 10 – 30 minutes for all the settings to take effect, including the free SSL certificate. Once all the configurations are ready, you should be able to access your website using the domain you just registered, for example, https://[your_domain].
7. Lastly, make sure you can also access the admin login page through https://[your_domain]/wp-admin and log in using the admin account you just created. If that works, then you’ve successfully completed the setup process!