How to set up a WordPress site quickly
WordPress is an incredibly popular website management system, powering an estimated 25% of websites.
We love it because at its very core, it’s an open source CMS. The source code is freely available for anyone to study, use, modify, and build upon. This has resulted in thousands of people across the world using it to build sites, blogs and businesses.
Speed, security, and reliability are the top concerns to anyone looking to host a WordPress site. Ease of installation and maintenance are also issues that often come up during our conversations with customers and developers.
To help make this as easy as possible, one of our System Administrators, Paul, has shared some top tips for getting started with WordPress quickly, whilst making sure everything is secure:
1) Install a security plugin
We like Wordfence – it’s popular and reliable.
2) Check the source of all plugins
Whilst we’re on the subject of plugins… only install ones that you trust. The same goes for themes. Check that they are from a reputable source and are updated frequently. In addition, look for plugins which have tens or hundreds of thousands of installs and a high star rating.
3) Keep everything up to date
WordPress will install its own security updates. But plugins and themes will need to be done manually. Checking everything is up to date every week or two will keep everything running smoothly and ensure any bugs are fixed.
4) Make sure your account is secure
Each user should have a unique password – and they should all be difficult to crack! The longer and more complex the better. Use a password manager app if you need to. At Bytemark, most of us use 1Password.
5) Make a copy
If you host with Bytemark on Symbiosis then backups will automatically be made for all of your WordPress sites every few days. If you’re using a Bytemark Cloud Server in York then you can also set up regular system backups using our panel.
For extra redundancy and reassurance, you can also use a plugin to make backups to a third party. Try UpdraftPlus.
6) Know your stats
The Jetpack plugin has a lot of nice features in its free version, like detailed site statistics and automatic integration with social media, so it is usually a good start.
A full, step-by-step guide
If you’ve checked out these tips and still need some help getting started, then you’re in luck! Paul has also written this very handy documentation guide to setting up a WordPress site. It uses Symbiosis — our free, open source server management software.
Symbiosis is perfect for WordPress, as it automatically updates itself and supports things like plugins and themes with minimal security concerns. This also can be repeated multiple times to run many individual sites on the same server.
What’s your favourite thing about WordPress?
