NOTE: This guide assumes you have already set up Yunohost for your self-hosted software needs.

A key component of small business needs, is a basic marketing or e-commerce website. Thankfully, Yunohost provides WordPress, which, like Yunohost and Nextcloud, has its own marketplace of open source (as well as proprietary) software to help you build your site. To get started, simply navigate to your Yunohost software catalog and install WordPress. In addition to following the steps described in this article, there are many great resources provided by WordPress.org which will help you understand how to use and enjoy WordPress.

WordPress Development

Customizing a basic WordPress installation to meet your marketing and e-commerce needs may not be your thing. There are plenty of WordPress “design shops” out there who could help you, but they may be hesitant to work with your Open Source I.T. configuration. There is no reason they can’t, but these “dime-a-dozen” shops often try to minimize friction for maximum profit – or they may be simply technically incompetent. I haven’t done any research on WordPress developers or companies who will work with an existing Yunohost WordPress installation – but they shouldn’t be too hard to find.

That said, there’s still a lot you can do to get started with a basic WordPress site without getting too much “in the weeds”.

Making your Website the Default for your Domain

If you choose to use Yunohost WordPress for your company’s web presence, you will probably want to make WordPress the default application for your domain. To do that, simply go to “Applications > WordPress” within the Yunohost administration interface and click “Make default”. This way, when your customers navigate to your domain on the web, they will go directly to your WordPress marketing or e-commerce site.

After setting your WordPress site as your Yunohost default, you’ll need to access your other business applications at yourdomain.tld/sso – or pretty much any sub-URL that isn’t already associated with an app on your Yunohost instance.

Plugins and Themes

Plugins and Themes are what WordPress is all about. The combination and customization of these two aspects are typically sufficient to produce whatever sort of website you want.

Theme Selection

Theme selection is easy enough. Simply navigate to the “Appearance > Themes” section of your WordPress admin site and activate a theme. Note that the WordPress Theme and Plugin marketplace is a mix of open and proprietary software, and that both options may require payment. While Open Source I.T. is not opposed to paying for software, it is opposed to promoting proprietary software by any means. So, if you are fine paying a little money for a theme that looks right for you, go for it! Just make sure the license for the theme is open source. Otherwise, choosing one of the built-in WordPress themes is usually a great option – open source and cost-free.¹

Once you have chosen a theme, you can start adding content.

Plugins

Following is a list of my favorite WordPress plugins – all open source, of course:

• Contact Form 7
• Contact Form 7 Image Captcha
• Easy Footnotes
• LuckyWP Table of Contents
• Simple Custom Post Order
• WP Captcha
• YOP Poll

Finally, make sure to activate the Yunohost provided WordPress “HTTP Authentication” plugin, as this is not enabled by default for your Yunohost Single Sign-On.

1. Note that if you ever get into the weeds of making small hacks and changes to the code of a built-in WordPress theme, you will need to make sure to fork the theme and link it to your installation in order for your changes to be preserved during upgrades. You will also need to make sure the parent directory you link to is executable to other or the wordpress user (so that it can be accessed), and make sure Yunohost upgrades don’t change those permissions.