Help & Support

Creating a Website or Blog

Knowledge Commons makes it easy to create your own website or blog. You can build a personal site or, if you’re working with a group, a group site (see our guide to creating a group site for details). This page covers how to create a personal site.

In this article

  • Start a New Site
  • Choose a Site Title and Address
  • Set Your Site’s Privacy
  • Create Your Site
  • Accessing Your Site
  • Accessing Your WordPress Dashboard

Start a New Site

  1. Log in to the Commons.
  2. In the main left-hand menu, click Sites.
  3. Select Create a Site.

You’ll be taken to the site creation page.

Choose a Site Title and Address

On the creation screen, you’ll set:

Site Title

This is the display name of your site—what visitors will see at the top of the page.

Site Domain

This determines the URL (web address) of your site.
For example, if you enter:

mysitename

your site will appear at:

https://mysitename.hcommons.org

Important notes:

  • No spaces or special punctuation (hyphens are allowed)
  • Must be unique—if the address is taken, choose another
  • Cannot be changed later, so choose carefully

Set Your Site’s Privacy

Privacy settings determine whether:

  • Your site appears in the Commons Sites directory
  • Your content is visible to search engines like Google

Choose:

  • Yes — your site is public
  • No — your site is private (you can change this later)

This is helpful if you want to build your site privately before sharing it.

Create Your Site

Click Create Site to finish the setup. Your new WordPress site will be created immediately.

Accessing Your Site

You can reach your site in several ways:

By URL

Type your site’s address directly into your browser (e.g., https://mysitename.hcommons.org).

From the Commons Toolbar

At the top of any page on Knowledge Commons, you’ll see the black toolbar.

  1. Hover over My Sites (top-left).
  2. Your sites—and any associated group sites—will appear in a menu.

You’ll see several options when hovering over your site name:

  • Visit Site — View the public-facing site
  • New Post — Create a new blog post
  • Manage Comments — Moderate comments
  • Dashboard — Go to your WordPress dashboard (admin area)

Accessing Your WordPress Dashboard

The WordPress Dashboard is where you control your site. It’s the starting point for:

  • Editing pages
  • Creating posts
  • Changing themes
  • Adjusting settings
  • Adding menus, widgets, and more

You can reach it in two ways:

  1. From the Commons toolbar → My Sites → [Your Site] → Dashboard
  2. Or by typing directly into your browser:

https://mysitename.hcommons.org/wp-admin

Additional Resources

For more in-depth WordPress help, we recommend: