WordPress and WooCommerce, one step per page
The twenty-four steps from an empty hosting account to a shop you run yourself, with the FluentCart alternative covered honestly.
A diagram of the mechanism, the classic mistake, and one thing to go try. That's a page.
WordPress and WooCommerce, one step per page
The twenty-four steps from an empty hosting account to a shop you run yourself, with the FluentCart alternative covered honestly.
Set in Space Grotesk, Inter and JetBrains Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Behaviour claims checked against the official WordPress documentation (developer.wordpress.org Administration, Theme and Plugin Handbooks; wordpress.org documentation articles on posts, pages, permalinks, updates and backups) and the official WooCommerce documents at woocommerce.com (installation and setup wizard, products, payment gateways, shipping zones, taxes). FluentCart facts checked against its wordpress.org plugin listing and the WPManageNinja site, and its youth and smaller ecosystem are stated plainly. Prices are approximate at the time of writing; no other statistics are quoted. Example businesses are illustrative, not case studies.
General guidance only, for building your own site and shop. Not legal, tax or accounting advice: what to charge and collect is yours to answer with your accountant. Hosted platforms such as Shopify and BigCommerce are discussed neutrally as legitimate alternatives.
Your purchase is for personal use only. You do not have redistribution rights: please do not share, resell, or republish this book or its pages.
© 2026 Steve Hodgkiss. All rights reserved. Personal use only; no redistribution rights.
Edition 1.0 · stevehodgkiss.net
Contents
Foundations
Before any styling or selling: the publishing engine with a plugin socket, hosting as rented land with PHP and MySQL utilities, the famous five-minute install, the dashboard as your control room, and posts versus pages.
- 01The engine with a socket
- 02Hosting: rented land with utilities
- 03Installing without fear
- 04The dashboard: your control room
- 05Posts vs pages: the two shelves
WordPress core is a publishing engine with a socket. It publishes posts and pages and renders them through a theme; every extra, from forms to a full shop, arrives as a plugin snapped into that socket.
The engine with a socket
Core is deliberately lean: it publishes and renders. Plugins carry everything else, in the Plugin Handbook's own words.
The classic mistake is editing core files for a feature. The next update overwrites your work.
Every extra is a brick: snap it in, remove it later, the engine still runs.
Engine for publishing. Socket for everything else.
Install WordPress on a free local test setup or one-click host. Find the Plugins screen and notice the engine shipped with almost nothing extra.
Hosting is rented land: a server that runs PHP and a MySQL database, the two utilities WordPress needs. You control everything on the plot, which also means the upkeep is yours.
Hosting: rented land with utilities
WordPress is software, not a place. It needs two utilities: PHP to run its code, MySQL to store every post and setting.
The mistake is expecting hosted-software care from rented land. The engine on your plot is yours to maintain.
Buy hosting that lists PHP and MySQL, ideally with a one-click WordPress installer.
Rent the land. Own the engine on it.
Find where your host's panel shows PHP version and databases. You may never touch them, but knowing where the utilities live helps.
The famous five-minute install is four moves, download, database, upload, visit, and then a short wizard that asks five questions. Nothing clever, nothing to fear.
Installing without fear
The install asks almost nothing: where the database is, then five wizard questions. WordPress itself says under five minutes.
The mistake is fearing the database step: one form in your host's panel, and the installer writes wp-config for you.
Most hosts offer one-click installers. Both roads end at the same dashboard login.
Five minutes once learned. An unhurried afternoon the first time.
Install WordPress locally or via one-click. Save the admin username and password somewhere safe: that pair is your front door key.
The dashboard at /wp-admin is the control room: a left sidebar with every lever, at-a-glance counts, an updates number, and one click to view the site itself. Shop plugins add their own levers to the same room.
The dashboard: your control room
The left sidebar holds every lever: Posts and Pages to write, Appearance to restyle, Plugins to add parts, Settings for the important boring.
The mistake is hunting for changes at the shopfront. Everything is edited from the room.
Learn three landmarks: the updates count, the Plugins screen, View Site.
Sidebar left, site out front, one login.
Log in and click the three landmarks once each: the updates number, the Plugins screen, View Site. The room stops being unfamiliar.
Posts are the dated shelf: they appear newest first in the blog stream. Pages are the standing shelf: About, Contact, and the shop itself, outside time and in your menus. Same editor, different job.
Posts vs pages: the two shelves
The docs put it plainly: posts appear newest first; pages live outside time. Time-bound goes to Posts, permanent to Pages.
The mistake is publishing news as Pages: the site fills with undated orphans nobody finds.
Restock news is a post. Delivery information is a page. Products get their own shelf later.
Flow on the dated shelf. Stand on the still one.
Write one post (a short note) and one page (how to reach you). Publish both and see where each lands: stream versus menu.
Making it yours
Changing the site without touching its engine: themes as paint and layout skins, the editor as blocks rather than a word processor, plugins as Lego bricks snapped into the socket, choosing few and well maintained, and the web addresses people and search engines read.
- 01Themes: paint and layout
- 02Plugins: Lego bricks
A theme is paint and layout: it dresses your content in colours, fonts and arrangement. Your writing does not live in the theme, so switching skins never loses a word.
Themes: paint and layout
The theme decides arrangement and styling. Block themes edit in the Site Editor; classic themes use PHP files.
The mistake is trusting a nulled premium theme from a shady site: a classic infection route.
Pick a plain, well-maintained theme and restyle lightly. Loud themes fight your content.
Change the paint any year. The room keeps its contents.
Install a second free theme from the official directory and preview your site with it. Every post and page is still there.
Plugins are Lego bricks: packages of PHP and assets that snap into the core's socket and unplug without engine surgery. The shop, the forms, the SEO helper: all bricks.
Plugins: Lego bricks
The handbook's definition: packages of code that extend core. Activate snaps a brick in; deactivate unplugs it, settings kept.
The mistake is the drawer of dead bricks: every deactivated plugin still needs updates and can conflict.
A shop is a brick. WooCommerce and FluentCart both arrive via Plugins, Add New, Activate.
Use a brick or lose the brick.
Open Plugins and count what is installed. Deactivate and delete anything you cannot name a purpose for in one sentence.
Self-hosted WordPress is a trade: control and no software rent in exchange for doing the running. Hosted platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce take the running off you for monthly fees and their rules. Neither is wrong; know your exit signs.
When you have outgrown it
Most shops never hit the signs. The weekly ritual covers a one-person shop honestly.
The mistake is treating the choice as identity: loyalists burn out, or wake up to rules they never chose.
Revisit the trade yearly against the exit signs. Content exports; products re-import; WordPress waits.
It is a shop. Run the one you can run.
Score yourself against the four exit signs on paper. Zero or one: keep the ritual. Two or more, twice running: price a hosted platform.