How to install WordPress on Bluehost (step by step)

If you’ve decided to build your website on WordPress and you’ve chosen Bluehost as your host, good choices both. Now let’s get it set up.

This guide on how to install WordPress on Bluehost walks you through the entire process from scratch. By the end of it you’ll have a live WordPress site on Bluehost, ready to customise and start publishing on. The whole thing takes around 30–45 minutes if you follow the steps carefully.

No technical knowledge required. No steps skipped.

Before you start – what you’ll need

Before we begin, make sure you have:

A Bluehost account – if you haven’t signed up yet, you’ll need to do that first. Their Basic plan is the right starting point for most new sites.

A domain name – either registered through Bluehost during signup (they include a free domain for the first year) or bought separately from a registrar like Namecheap and pointed at Bluehost.

About 30–45 minutes – the process is straightforward but worth doing carefully rather than rushing.

That’s genuinely it. Let’s go.

Step 1 – Sign up for Bluehost

If you haven’t already, head to Bluehost and sign up for a hosting plan.

The Basic plan is the right choice for most new websites – it covers one site, comes with a free domain for year one, and includes a free SSL certificate, at an introductory rate of ~$2.95/month (USA) or ~£2.50/month (UK). You can always upgrade later if you need more.

During signup, you’ll be asked to:

• Choose your plan
• Enter or register your domain name
• Create your Bluehost account
• Complete payment

On the extras screen: Bluehost will offer several add-ons during checkout – SiteLock security, SEO tools, and others. Most of these are optional and can be added later if needed. Uncheck anything you’re not sure you need to keep your initial cost down.

Once payment is complete, Bluehost will send you a confirmation email with your account details. Keep these somewhere safe – you’ll need your login credentials in a moment.

Step 2 – Log in to your Bluehost account

Go to bluehost.com and click Log In in the top right corner. Enter the email address and password you used during signup.

You’ll land in the Bluehost dashboard – the control centre for your hosting account. It might look slightly overwhelming at first glance, but you only need a small part of it to get WordPress installed.

Step 3 – Install WordPress

Here’s the good news: Bluehost makes WordPress installation extremely simple. In most cases, WordPress is actually pre-installed when you sign up – you may not need to install it manually at all.

Check if WordPress is already installed:

In your Bluehost dashboard, look for the My Sites or WordPress section in the main navigation. If you see your domain listed with a WordPress installation already attached, you can skip straight to Step 4.

If WordPress isn’t already installed:

In your Bluehost dashboard, find the Website or My Sites section and look for an option to Install WordPress or Create Site.

Click it. You’ll be presented with a simple form asking for:

• Site name – what you want to call your website. This can be changed later, so don’t overthink it.
• Site tagline – a short description of your site. Again, changeable later.
• Domain – the domain you want to install WordPress on. If you only have one domain, it’ll be pre-selected.
• Admin username – the username you’ll use to log in to WordPress. Don’t use “admin” – it’s a security risk. Choose something more unique.
• Admin password – make it strong. Use a mix of letters, numbers, and symbols.
• Admin email – the email address associated with your WordPress account. WordPress will send important notifications here.

Fill in the form, click Install, and wait. The installation typically completes in under two minutes.

Once it’s done, Bluehost will show you a confirmation screen with your WordPress admin URL – something like yourdomain.com/wp-admin. Note this down. You’ll use it every time you log in to WordPress.

Step 4 – Log in to WordPress

Open a new browser tab and go to yourdomain.com/wp-admin.

You’ll see the WordPress login screen. Enter the admin username and password you set during installation.

Click Log In.

Welcome to your WordPress dashboard – the control centre for your website.

Step 5 – A quick tour of the WordPress dashboard

Before you start customising anything, take a moment to understand the main areas of the WordPress dashboard. It’ll make everything that follows much easier.

Left-hand navigation – this is how you navigate between different sections of WordPress. The main areas are:

• Posts – where you write and manage blog posts and articles
• Pages – where you create static pages like Home, About, and Contact
• Media – your image and file library
• Appearance – where you manage themes, menus, and widgets
• Plugins – where you install and manage plugins
• Settings – site-wide settings like your site name, URL, and reading preferences

Dashboard home – the default screen shows a summary of your site’s activity, WordPress news, and quick links to common tasks. You won’t spend much time here.

Top toolbar – the dark bar across the top gives you quick access to add new content, visit your live site, and access your account settings.

Take a few minutes to click around and get familiar with where things are. You’ll be using this dashboard a lot.

Step 6 – Set your permalink structure

This is a small but important step that most setup guides skip – and skipping it causes problems later.

Your permalink structure controls how your post and page URLs are formatted. By default, WordPress uses a date-based structure that looks like this:

yourdomain.com/?p=123

This is terrible for SEO and terrible for readability. You want your URLs to look like this instead:

yourdomain.com/your-post-title/

To change this:

In your dashboard, go to Settings → Permalinks.

Select the post name from the list of options.

Click Save Changes.

Done. From now on, every post and page URL will use the post title – clean, readable, and much better for search engines.

Do this before you publish any content. Changing the permalink structure after you’ve published posts breaks all your existing URLs, which is a significant SEO problem.

Step 7 – Install your SSL certificate

An SSL certificate is what gives your site the padlock icon in the browser bar and the https:// prefix. It’s essential for any modern website – without it, browsers warn visitors that your site may not be secure, which puts people off and hurts your Google rankings.

Bluehost includes a free SSL certificate on all plans, but it sometimes needs to be activated manually.

To check and activate your SSL:

Go back to your Bluehost dashboard (not WordPress – the Bluehost account dashboard). Find the My Sites section, click on your site, and look for an SSL or Security section.

If SSL shows as inactive, click to activate it. It typically takes a few minutes to propagate.

To force HTTPS in WordPress:

Once SSL is active, go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings → General.

Change both the WordPress Address and Site Address from http:// to https://. Click Save Changes.

Your site now runs on HTTPS throughout.

Step 8 – Install a theme

Your WordPress theme controls how your site looks. There are thousands of free and paid themes available – but for a new site, we recommend starting with one of these free options:

Kadence – fast, flexible, beginner-friendly, and works beautifully with WordPress’s block editor. Our top recommendation for most new sites.

GeneratePress – lightweight and highly customisable. Excellent for performance-focused sites.

Astra – popular, versatile, and has a large library of starter templates to give you a head start.

To install a theme:

In your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance → Themes → Add New.

Search for the theme name – for example, “Kadence”.

When it appears in the results, click Install, then Activate.

Once activated, most themes offer a Setup Wizard or Starter Templates option. Running through this takes 5–10 minutes and gives you a starting layout to build from, which is much faster than starting with a blank canvas.

A word of advice: Don’t spend too long choosing and customising your theme before you’ve published any content. It’s very easy to lose hours tweaking colours and fonts when you should be writing posts. Pick something clean, activate it, and move on. You can refine the design later.

Step 9 – Install essential plugins

Plugins add functionality to your WordPress site. You only need a handful to get started.

To install a plugin:

Go to Plugins → Add New. Search for the plugin name, click Install Now, then Activate.

Here are the plugins worth installing before you publish anything:

Rank Math (free) – handles all your SEO settings. Install this first, run the setup wizard, and connect it to Google Search Console.

UpdraftPlus (free) – automatic backups. Set up a weekly backup schedule to your Google Drive or Dropbox. Takes five minutes and protects everything you build.

WPCode (free) – lets you add code snippets cleanly. You’ll need this if you ever want to embed your quiz HTML or add tracking codes.

Cloudflare (free) – improves speed and security. Set up a free Cloudflare account and connect your domain to it for meaningful performance improvements.

W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache (both free) – page caching to speed up your site. Check first whether Bluehost’s built-in caching is already active – if it is, you don’t need an additional caching plugin.

A note on plugins: Install only what you need. Every plugin you add is a potential slowdown and a potential security vulnerability. Five well-chosen plugins will serve you better than twenty that seemed useful at the time.

Step 10 – Create your essential pages

Before you publish any posts, create the core pages your site needs.

To create a page:

Go to Pages → Add New. Give it a title, add your content using the block editor, and click Publish.

The essential pages for any website:

Home page – your site’s landing page. You can set a static home page under Settings → Reading – select “A static page” and choose your homepage from the dropdown.

About page – who you are, what your site is about, and why people should trust you. One of the most visited pages on most sites – write it in a warm, personal voice.

Contact page – a simple contact form (install Contact Form 7 – free) or just your email address.

Privacy Policy – legally required if you’re collecting any data, using analytics, or planning to run ads. WordPress includes a template under Settings → Privacy – customise it for your site.

Step 11 – Set up your navigation menu

Once your pages are created, add them to your site’s navigation menu so visitors can find them.

Go to Appearance → Menus.

Click Create a new menu, give it a name (such as “Main Navigation”), then click Create Menu.

On the left, you’ll see a list of your pages. Tick the ones you want in your menu – Home, About, Contact, Privacy Policy – and click Add to Menu.

Arrange them in the order you want by dragging them up or down.

Under Menu Settings, tick the checkbox for your primary navigation location – usually called “Primary Menu” or “Header Menu” depending on your theme.

Click Save Menu.

Your navigation is now live.

Step 12 – Connect Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free tool that tells you how your site is performing in search results – which keywords people are using to find it, which pages are getting impressions, and any technical issues Google finds when it crawls your site.

Connecting it early means you’ll have data from day one rather than starting from a blank slate weeks later.

To connect:

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account.

Add your site as a property using your full domain (https://yourdomain.com).

Verify ownership – the easiest method is through Rank Math, which adds the verification code automatically. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Rank Math → General Settings → Webmaster Tools and paste the Search Console verification code into the Google Search Console field.

Back in Search Console, click Verify.

Submit your sitemap – Rank Math automatically generates one at yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. In Search Console, go to Sitemaps and add this URL.

Done. It takes a few days for data to appear, but you’re set up from day one.

Step 13 – You’re live. What next?

Your WordPress site on Bluehost is set up and ready. Here’s what to focus on next.

Start publishing content. Your first few posts are the most important – they establish your site’s structure, give Google something to index, and create the internal linking foundation everything else builds on.

Set up your email list from day one. Install MailerLite or Kit and add a simple signup form. You don’t need many subscribers to start – you just need to be collecting them from the beginning.

Update WordPress, themes, and plugins regularly. Go to Dashboard → Updates and apply any available updates. Keeping everything current is one of the most important security habits you can build.

Check your site on mobile. Most of your visitors will be on their phones. Preview every page you publish on mobile before it goes live.

Troubleshooting common issues

My site shows a “Coming Soon” or “Under Construction” page. Bluehost sometimes puts new sites in coming-soon mode. In your Bluehost dashboard, find the Launch button or the “Coming Soon” setting and turn it off.

My domain isn’t connecting to my site. DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate. If you’ve just registered your domain or pointed a new domain at Bluehost, wait a few hours and try again.

My SSL certificate isn’t working. Go back to your Bluehost dashboard and check the SSL status under My Sites. If it shows as inactive, activate it. If it shows as active but the padlock isn’t appearing, clear your browser cache and try again.

I forgot my WordPress admin password. On the WordPress login screen, click Lost your password? and enter your admin email address. WordPress will send a reset link.

WordPress is asking me to update, but something breaks when I do. This is why UpdraftPlus backups are essential. If an update causes a problem, restore your most recent backup and investigate before updating again.

Frequently asked questions

How do I install WordPress on Bluehost? Sign up for a Bluehost plan, log in to your Bluehost dashboard, and either check whether WordPress is already pre-installed (look under My Sites) or use the one-click “Install WordPress” option to set your site name, admin username, and password. The installation itself takes under two minutes.

How long does it take to install WordPress on Bluehost? The actual installation takes under two minutes. The full setup process – including theme, plugins, pages, and Search Console – takes around 30–45 minutes if you follow the steps in this guide.

Is WordPress free on Bluehost? WordPress software is free. You pay for Bluehost hosting, which starts from around $2.95/month (USA) or £2.50/month (UK) on the introductory rate. Bluehost includes a one-click WordPress installer at no extra cost.

Can I install WordPress on Bluehost without technical knowledge? Yes – Bluehost’s one-click installer makes WordPress installation straightforward. You don’t need any coding knowledge or technical experience. Following the steps in this guide is sufficient.

Do I need to install WordPress manually on Bluehost? No, in most cases, Bluehost pre-installs WordPress for you. If not, the one-click installer in your Bluehost dashboard handles the installation in under two minutes.

What’s the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org? WordPress.com is a hosted platform – similar to Squarespace, hosting is included. WordPress.org is the free self-hosted software you install on your own hosting, which is what this guide covers. Read our full explainer →