Yes—if you’ve done it many times before. If you already have the knowledge and experience, it’s just a matter of putting in the time.

does it really make sense to spend weeks learning and building a DIY website…

But if you’re starting from scratch, expect it to take a lot of time. “Simple but long” inevitably turns into “difficult.” See for yourself.

The official WordPress Getting Started guide is pretty extensive, but let’s break it down into the key steps.

Installation Stage

• Buy hosting.
• Install WordPress on the server.
• Buy a domain.
• Configure the domain on the hosting.
• Choose and install a theme (a template for your site’s design—both free and paid options exist).

Think of it like building a house. At this stage, you’ve laid the foundation and built the “frame,” but there’s no interior or exterior finishing—let alone furniture.

And here’s the catch: free themes are often packed with useless code, duplicate elements, and general clutter that you’ll need to clean up. Fixing that? More plugins.

Customization Stage

• Adjust the website’s design.
• Configure WordPress settings.
• Install and set up additional plugins.

Even if you’ve picked a good theme, you’ll need to tweak it: menu structure, layout, graphics, buttons, forms, sliders, and so on.

Then come the internal settings—things like access rights, URL formats, post display parameters, comments, image settings, etc.

Out of the box, WordPress is pretty barebones. You’ll need plugins to make it functional, including:

• An SEO plugin for meta tags (without it, search engine optimization is basically impossible).
• An XML sitemap plugin, among others.

Plugins: A Necessary Evil?

Plugins are band-aid solutions—different developers, different versions, different levels of support. Even experienced users deal with bugs, broken site elements, and slow load speeds. Keeping everything updated is a full-time job.

And what happens if a plugin or theme you’re using suddenly gets removed from WordPress? If you’re not a developer, you might find yourself in trouble.

Installed and Configured. Now What?

At this point, you’ll probably be exhausted. But don’t get too comfortable because…
You have a website, but no content.

You’ll need to add the essentials:

• Basic info about you or your business.
• Contact details.
• Product or service categories.
• “Shipping & Payment” pages, and so on.

WordPress: Good for Blogs. Not for Everything Else.

A professional website rarely comes from a template. Why? Because it’ll always look like every other template-based site.

One best practice? Develop your site locally first (do you even know what a local server is?) before pushing it to live hosting. Install XAMPP or Denwer, set up MySQL and Apache, and build your site properly. If those words mean nothing to you, then honestly… building a proper website (on WordPress or anything else) is just not for you, my friend.

Like it or not, WordPress (out of the box) is NOT a universal solution for all types of websites.

• Need a high-converting landing page? Not its strong suit.
• Need a serious e-commerce platform? You’ll run into limitations.

The only thing WordPress truly excels at is blogs. Everything else requires developer intervention. To get a fully functional site, you’ll need to customize and extend it significantly.

So, Ask Yourself This…

If you’re an entrepreneur—or literally anything other than a developer—does it really make sense to spend weeks learning and building a DIY website… that still won’t be truly professional?