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A live WordPress website on your own domain, with a professional theme installed, key plugins active, and your basic pages set up — ready to customise and publish. No technical skills required.
WordPress powers 43% of the internet. Bluehost makes installing it genuinely fast. Here's the exact 10-step process to go from zero to live WordPress site — starting with the Bluehost Business plan at $3.99/month.
You'll need an active Bluehost hosting plan with a domain name registered. If you haven't done that yet, see our guide: How to get your business online for under $5/month. The whole signup process takes about 10 minutes.
Once you have your hosting and domain sorted, come back here and follow these steps.
Go to hpanel.bluehost.com and sign in with your Bluehost account. You'll see your website listed on the dashboard. Click "Manage" next to it.
In the Website section of cPanel, look for "Auto Installer" or "WordPress" — Bluehost often shows it prominently on the dashboard. Click it to open the one-click installer.
You'll be asked for: your website title (your business name), an admin username (don't use "admin" — pick something unique), a strong password, and your admin email address. Fill these in carefully — especially the password. Store it somewhere safe.
Bluehost installs WordPress in about 60 seconds. You'll see a progress bar, then a confirmation screen with your WordPress admin login URL (usually yourdomain.com/wp-admin). Bookmark this page.
Go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin and enter the username and password you just set. You're now inside the WordPress dashboard — the control centre for your website.
In the left menu go to Appearance → Themes → Add New. Search for a theme that suits your business. Good free options for small businesses: Astra, Kadence, GeneratePress, or Hello Elementor. Click Install, then Activate.
Go to Plugins → Add New and install the plugins listed below. Each one takes 30 seconds to install and activate.
Go to Pages → Add New and create your core pages: Home, About, Services, Contact. Write your content, add images, and click Publish on each one.
Go to Settings → Reading and change "Your homepage displays" to "A static page." Select your Home page from the dropdown. Save. Your site now shows your homepage instead of a blog feed.
Click the eye icon at the top of the dashboard to preview your site. Happy with how it looks? You're already live — WordPress sites are public as soon as you publish pages. Share your URL.
Plugins are free add-ons that extend what WordPress can do. These six are the ones every small business website should have from day one:
No. Modern WordPress themes and page builders let you design your entire site by dragging, dropping, and clicking. Elementor (free version) and the built-in Gutenberg editor are both excellent for complete beginners.
Yes, any time. Switching themes is a single click. Your content (text, images, pages) stays intact — only the design changes.
Bluehost's Business plan includes daily backups, so you can restore your site to any previous version from the cPanel dashboard. And Bluehost's 24/7 live chat support is fast and genuinely helpful for WordPress questions.
Yes — WordPress software is completely free. You pay for hosting (the server that runs it) and your domain name. That's it.
Business plan from $3.99/month — one-click WordPress install, free domain, free SSL, 24/7 support.
Get started with Bluehost →