Build Your WordPress Website with Divi

Module 1: Securing your domain

1. Go to www.godaddy.com

2. Create a free account

3. Enter personal details & preferred payment

4. Search for your desired domain (recommended: dot.com or dot.ca for Canada)

5. Add domain to cart and checkout

6. Add privacy option if you would like to hide your personal information from the web and avoid receiving spam emails from strangers.

*Important note: do not purchase an SSL certificate upon checkout. You will get this for free with your hosting account.

Module 1: Securing your domain

1. Go to www.godaddy.com

2. Create a free account.

3. Enter personal details & preferred payment.

4. Search for your desired domain (recommended: dot.com or dot.ca for Canada.)

5. Add domain to cart and checkout.

6. Add privacy option if you would like to hide your personal information from the web and avoid receiving spam emails from strangers.

   
   

*Important note: do not purchase an SSL certificate upon checkout. You will get this for free with your hosting account.

Module 2: Hosting setup

1. Click sign up to create your account.

2. Choose Tiny plan.

3. Choose monthly or yearly payment plan.

4. Enter payment method.

5. Check out & wait for WordPress to finish installing.

6. Use chat on the bottom right for any technical glitches or difficulties.

Module 3: Hosting dashboard tour & logging into WordPress

1. Take a tour of your hosting dashboard.

2. Take note of the ‘Add Ons’ section in order to add your SSL certificate when you’re site is ready to go live.

3. Test logging into your WordPress dashboard to prepare for the installation of Divi.

Module 4: Purchasing & Installing Divi

1. Click ‘Join to download’ in the top right-hand corner to purchase your Divi License.

2. Enter your personal credentials.

3. Choose yearly or lifetime plan.

4. Go to ‘Downloads’ in your account dashboard.

5. Download your Divi theme to your computer.

6. Go to your WordPress dashboard, scroll to Appearance » Themes.

7. Click ‘Add New’ to upload the Divi Zip file downloaded to your computer.

8. Select ‘Activate’ once uploaded completely.

Module 5: Choosing your visual theme.

Ok little technical break to get our creative brain flowing!

It’s important to know that no matter what theme you will choose, you will be able to change the fonts, colours, etc to adapt it to your desired style.

Right now, just find the one you would like to use. When we begin building the Homepage I will show you how to upload your chosen theme onto your site.

Module 6: Customizing WordPress settings.

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard, click on ‘Settings’

2. Click on ‘General’ to choose your site name & tagline.

3. Go to ‘Pages’ and create a new page called ‘Home’

4. Go back to ‘Settings’ » ‘Reading’ and select a static page and choose the new page you just created called ‘Home’

5. Go to ‘Permalinks’ and select ‘Post name’

Module 6.1: Customizing Divi settings.

1. From the WordPress dashboard go to ‘Divi’ » ‘Theme Options’

2. Begin by entering your Divi API key so you can update your theme monthly as proposed.

3. Customize only the proposed settings in this video to lay the foundation.

4. Stay up to date with Divi on their blog here.

5. Access Divi tutorials to learn about the modules and dive deeper into their knowledge base.

6. Visit their forum for previously asked questions & solutions found to common problems or to submit a ticket and get technical support from their team.

Module 7: Installing plugins

1. From your WordPress dashboard, go to ‘Plugins’ then ‘Add New’

2. Upload the plugin you wish to add to your website

3. Once uploaded click ‘Activate’

4. You can usually find your plugin and its settings under ‘Appearance’, ‘Tools’ or ‘Settings’ but sometimes need to navigate through the WordPress dashboard to find it

5. Install ‘Menu Social Icon’ plugin here.

6. If you wish to install Monarch for social sharing or Bloom for email opt-ins, go to your Elegant Themes dashboard and under downloads you will find them both to download.

*If you would like to add email opt-ins on your site, we recommend starting with Mailchimp, which is a free and easy system to use.

Module 8: Setting up Homepage.

1. Before you begin, make sure you have chosen the template you wish to use to build your site on here.

2. From your WordPress dashboard go to ‘Pages’ and click on ‘Home’ the Homepage we created at the beginning.

3. Click on edit with ‘Divi Builder’

4. Choose to begin using a premade layout.

5. Select the page layout you wish to use for your homepage.

6. Start editing the sections to insert your own content and visuals related to your business/project.

7. Because there are SO many modules we can’t review them all, therefore we suggest getting to know each module available in this Divi documentation.

Module 9: Setting up other pages.

1. From your WordPress dashboard go to ‘Pages’ and click on ‘Add New’

2. Enter the name of your page. Ex: About.

3. Click ‘Edit with Divi Builder’ and choose a premade layout from your chosen theme to build new page. Repeat the same process as the Homepage to edit and customize your page.

4. Repeat to create as many pages as you wish.

*Remember you can save sections of other pages to integrate in a page you are building by creating a test page, uploading the layout with the section you desire and saving it to the Divi library

Module 10: Setting up your blog.

1. You can integrate a blog section within a page (we recommend on the Homepage) or create a separate page to display your full blog.

2. Create a section (or page) that will display your blog posts.

3. Customize the layout and choose a full-width or grid layout.

4. Make sure to select all categories to display all blog posts you will create.

5. To create your blog posts go to your WordPress dashboard, click on ‘Posts’ » ‘Add New’

6. Name your post title.

7. In the settings at the bottom right insert a featured image to represent your post.

8. Below, make sure to choose ‘No sidebar or full-width layout’ to keep a clean layout on your page.

9. Click ‘Edit with Divi Builder’ and choose a blank layout.

10. Add a regular section (blue) with one full-width row.

11. Insert a text module and begin writing your article.

Module 11: Building menus

1. From your WordPress dashboard go to ‘Appearance’ » ‘Menus’

2. Click Create new menu.

3. Name it ‘Primary’ or ‘Top Menu’ depending on where you want your menu to appear. If you want both, you will need to create 2 separate menus.

4. Select the pages you would like to appear in your menu along with your social media profiles. If you are creating a one-pager site with drop links, use ‘Custom Links’. Enter in the URL section #thenameofyoursection and label your menu item.

5. Make sure to select ‘Link Target’ in the drop-down menu ‘Screen Options’ at the top right of the screen, to make your social icons open in a new tab.

6. At the bottom of your menu, select the location where you would like it to appear (primary, secondary, footer.)

Module 12: Testing your site.

1. Test your website on desktop, phone and tablet.

2. Go through your entire site and test ALL the links.

3. Send your website to a few close friends and ask for feedback on user experience and any glitches you might have missed.

4. Use the Divi Facebook support group here to get quick answers and help with your questions and technical glitches.

Module 12.1: Making your site LIVE!

Once everything is working well, go back to your hosting dashboard to attach your domain (url) to your website to make it officially LIVE!  If you run into technical difficulties, open up that magical chat box and they will assist you in finalizing the process.

*Very important: don’t forget to go back into your hosting dashboard, under ‘Add Ons’ to add SSL to your site. Once added, you also want to ‘Force HTTPS’ under the ‘Advanced’ tab. If you are not comfortable doing this, simply open the chat and ask an agent to do it for you or to guide you step-by-step. They will happily do this with you.