How to Make Your Own Site Like WikiHow

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Ben Sibley

“Follow the plan outlined here and you can create your own website from scratch without writing any code for less than $300.”

We’ve all heard of WikiHow.

It’s one of the web’s largest and most successful websites.

But I’m sure you know that!

WikiHow is a simple website making it easy to replicate from a technical standpoint. All you need to is a great wiki design and a few tools to get your site online.

That said, you don’t want to waste your time and hard-earned money with the wrong tools.

If you select the software and products you need carefully, creating this site will be a breeze.

In this guide, you’re going to learn exactly what you need to create the WikiHow site and even better, you can do it all for around $100.

No kidding!

Keep reading to find the step-by-step action plan to create your site.

How to make a site like WikiHow

There are five main steps required to create your own website just like WikiHow.

  1. Pick an excellent domain
  2. Signup for hosting
  3. Install WordPress
  4. Choose a theme
  5. Launch your site

That’s it!

Let’s jump straight into the domain name selection now.

Pick a domain

Your domain is the name that will show up in the address bar in the browser. For instance, this site’s domain is competethemes.com.

The challenge is selecting a name that’s actually available still. You see, there are domain squatters who buy up all the domains like real estate and then sell them for a premium.

Most often, you’ll uncover a great name being held like this and you’ll have to pay a few thousand to get it.

Yup, it’s super annoying.

So avoid all that hassle and follow my guide on how to find a great domain name that’s actually available.

Domain Name Post

You’ll have the perfect domain for your site in no time (and for just $10).

But don’t register the domain just yet! You can get it for free if you follow the next step.

Signup for hosting

Every website needs hosting.

When you purchase hosting, you are paying a company to rent space on one of their servers. When someone visits your site, the server file delivers the files to their device so your site loads.

Simple, right?

There are hundreds of hosts out there, but I recommend Nexcess above all others for WP newbies.

Nexcess WordPress Hosting
Click here to visit Bluehost.com

I recommend Nexcess for a few reasons.

First, Nexcess has excellent performance and uptime, so you won’t have to deal with a slow website, and you also don’t have to change hosts once you get a lot of traffic.

Second, they automatically backup your site for you every day. This is extremely important so that you never lose your work, and there are lots of technical challenges when backing up a site yourself.

Lastly, Nexcess has a hosting plan specifically designed for WordPress, so it runs quickly and includes helpful services like automatic plugin updates.

Click here to create your WordPress site with Nexcess now.

You can learn the ins and outs of creating a WordPress website with my WordPress site creation tutorial, which includes a free video course.

Install WordPress

Installing WordPress is pretty simple these days. All you need to do is fill out a simple form.

However, you can make things even easier by using Nexcess because they’ll auto-generate the website for you.

Why WordPress?

WordPress is well over a decade old now and is used on more websites than any other CMS.

Wordpress Site

Besides an incredibly reliable platform, you get access to tens of thousands of themes and plugins. Thanks to this massive developer community, you can create virtually any kind of website you want.

Even one like WikiHow 😉

The next step is to select a theme that will transform the design of your site.

Choose a theme

I spent a long time comparing themes and thinking about which would be best to make this site.

My suggestion may not make perfect sense right away, but I’ll explain.

I recommend you use Bimber to create a site like WikiHow.

Bimber viral theme
Click here to see Bimber

Bimber is made to create viral websites like Buzzfeed. However, it’s also the best option for making a WikiHow style website.

If you view the homepage of WikiHow right now, you’ll see it’s very similar to Bimber. Not to mention, Bimber is massively customizable so forget about the demo screenshot above – you can recreate the same layout using the customization tools included.

Second, every WikiHow article has a distinct list post style design and Bimber replicates this very well. The step-by-step tutorials are the most important aspect to recreate on your site.

Third, Bimber supports user-submitted content, so visitors can register for an account and then add posts to your site. Of course, you can require a review before publishing anything live.

On top of these features, Bimber includes an absolutely massive number of additional customization tools. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Click here to see Bimber now and decide if it’s right for your site.

Bimber alternatives

While not as flashy or customizable as Bimber, these wiki WordPress themes should be the next templates you consider for your website.

Wiki WordPress Themes

Wiki plugins

One more thing – you might find a theme with a design you love but missing the wiki features you need. In this case, you can select one of the wiki plugins featured in this collection and add it to your site.

Wiki WordPress Plugins
Wiki WordPress plugins collection

Launch your site

With a live WordPress site hosted on your new domain and an awesome theme installed, you’re done with the technical prep work.

Next, you’ll want to get a handful of articles published, so you have a foundation to work with.

Then the final step is to launch and begin promoting your site. It will take time to attract visitors through Google and other search engines, but all you need to do is keep publishing and promoting new content.

To summarize, the steps to create your site are:

  1. Pick an excellent domain
  2. Signup for hosting (Nexcess)
  3. Install WordPress
  4. Choose a theme (Bimber)
  5. Launch your site

If you still have questions about how to make a website like WikiHow, please post your comments below.

Ben Sibley
Ben Sibley
This article was written by Ben Sibley. He is a WordPress theme designer & developer, and founder of Compete Themes.