4. Using WordPress Through Bluehost
All the research and decision-making discussed earlier turned out to be a good foundation for spontaneous trial-and-error exploration. Unlike choosing a domain, website software, and hosting service, the actual website-building part was loose and experimental. From this point on, most of what I decided to try could be easily undone or replaced with something better. With endless possibilities for customization, it was fun to explore my options and see them realized on my screen.
The products through Bluehost and WordPress are very intuitive—but only once you familiarize yourself with the basics. I suggest taking some time to click around and see what happens.
However, I will share my initial impression and first steps, which can be referenced to help you stay oriented.
To make changes or additions to your site, go to bluehost.com and log in to WordPress (by choosing My Sites > Manage Site > Log in to WordPress, or by clicking the blue WordPress login button on the homepage).
The admin login used to establish a Bluehost account allows access to the Bluehost portal (at my.bluehost.com), WordPress tools (including dashboard and admin modes), and links to the website(s) being created or managed – all are interlinked and accessible from one another.
Upon arriving on the Bluehost portal, I was greeted with a checklist of site-building steps including links that suggested actions such as creating specific pages, adding content, and customizing design features. Several of the links came with pop-up boxes with helpful hints, but each one eventually led to the WordPress Dashboard.
To block out all the noise, I suggest clicking the box at the screen’s top right to log in to WordPress.
By doing that, I was taken to an integrated control panel that seamlessly incorporated Bluehost product links with the WordPress admin area known as its dashboard, so managing multiple websites could happen from this same space. Admittedly, there was a lot to take in. But I was excited to start exploring.
My first step was to check out what my site looked like by clicking my site’s title (found at the far left of the toolbar situated along the top of the control panel/dashboard admin page).
The first glimpse of my site showed that it was predictably primitive. But it existed!
It was a start!
I clicked the browser’s back arrow to return to the integrated dashboard screen.
I clicked around to explore the items on the menu bar. Naturally, there were links selling things. Under the Bluehost section of the menu bar, Themes, Plugins, Services, and Staging were links to products they wanted me to buy. I wasn’t interested.
Directly under that section appears the WordPress dashboard menu.
Now, this is what I came to see!
The WordPress dashboard lists several links, many of which I wasn’t going to need right away. For the initial set-up steps described here, I will focus on the tools found under Appearance (and touch on some of the functions of Media and Pages later in this tutorial).
Appearance > Themes
From Appearance on the dashboard menu, I chose Themes, which would allow me to change the overall look of the site. I selected an appealingly clean and simple theme labeled Lively to replace the one I chose at random during set-up.
Appearance > Customize
Once the theme downloaded, I clicked Customize (which can be done from the button on the newly downloaded theme image in the screen’s right pane or from the dashboard under Appearance), which brought me to a screen that showed a preview of my site.
A bare-bones version of my website appeared with the site title and tagline I chose earlier. The rest of the items and text on the page were generic filler that I could adjust or delete later.
To the left of the preview pane displaying my homepage, a menu of options appeared. I refer to this as the Customize menu. The list of options is different for each theme, as each theme is customizable in different ways.
Appearance > Customize menu > Theme Options
The first item on the theme’s menu was labeled Theme Options. Under this was only one item, Header Options. This allowed me to remove the search icon from my site’s header (not pictured). I wouldn’t need a search box, so I made the change. I doubled back to the theme customization menu to see more.
Appearance > Customize menu > Site Identity
The second option on the menu, Site Identity allowed me to adjust my tagline to all lower case, which looked better than it had in initial caps.
I clicked Publish at the top of the tools menu, and both changes were made.
Appearance > Customize menu > Menus
I returned to the theme customization menu again and skipped around opening each menu item. I left most of the tabs unchanged, but decided to click on Menus to add menu links to allow navigation to the rest of the site from my homepage.
Pro Prep Tip:
I had taken some time to think about the outline structure and style I was going for. I had decided that my simple site only needed a homepage with a menu listing links to three other pages:
– an About page to introduce myself
– a Contact page for my site’s visitors to reach me
– a Writing Portfolio page of links to individual writing samples
On the Menus toolbar, I clicked Create New Menu. I named my first menu item “main menu,” selected the option to make it a primary menu. Next, I added three pages to my menu: About, Contact, and Writing Portfolio.
One at a time for each page, I clicked the Add Items box, typed the page name into the text box, and clicked the +Add button. Each item appeared in the preview pane, and I liked what I saw. So I clicked Publish.
In the mock-up preview pane, links appeared one by one as the menu items were added; right away these linked to actual pages created in the process.
Appearance > Customize menu > Content Options
Under Content Options on the theme customization menu, I was able to remove a section of my homepage that had been set up to be used for a blog (as part of the theme’s initial template). I wasn’t planning to include a blog on my site, so I got rid of each element of the blog interface by deselecting each component using on-off slider icons. I changed some of the filler text that came with theme too. Then I clicked Publish, and the changes took effect.
The theme-specific menu offered more customization, but I planned to come back to make those adjustments after I got a chance to check out more of what the WordPress dashboard could do.
I clicked the X at the top left of the customization menu and was brought back to the WordPress dashboard.
I wanted to see my website, so I clicked the link at the very top left of the dashboard menu.
Multiple routes to access
Besides the multi-step login process at bluehost.com, the portal can be accessed directly by logging on at my.bluehost.com. From there, you must log in to your account in order to access WordPress.
A more direct way to access WordPress tools to manage your website is to type the web address directly into an internet browser tab. There are login links on the system-generated Coming Soon page, but once your site is live those links won’t be there, unless you choose to add them.
Once the site is live, the most direct way to log in to make changes would be to type the website name into the browser followed by /wp-admin (as meganheronwilkins.com/wp-admin is used here).
From the dashboard, clicking the website name will take you to the site. For some reason there is also a link that appears underneath the website name to select Visit Site – either one will work.
When my website appeared, I was able to view and interact with it just as any visitor would. The only difference was that, since I was logged in with admin access, I saw the site in View Page mode (also referred to as Visit Site mode), which featured a discrete WordPress toolbar across the top of the page.
My admin access also allowed me to make changes by clicking the small Edit links that would take me to Edit Page mode, where I could use a WordPress tool called Block Editor (pictured below and discussed in the next section).
- Choosing a Web Address
- Selecting a Web Builder and a Host Server
- Following Bluehost’s Set-Up Prompts
- Using WordPress Through Bluehost
- Adding and Editing Blocks in WordPress
- Adding Additional Pages (and Links to Them)