Before you can pray, you have to be in a state to pray. Islam separates two things that English runs together: being physically clean, and being in a ritual state. You can be freshly showered and still unable to pray; you can have dust on your sleeve and be entirely fine.
There are two states and two washes, and the order matters.
Ghusl comes first on this site, before wudu, and that is deliberate. Wudu cannot lift the major state — someone who needs ghusl and makes wudu instead has not become able to pray. Learning them the other way round can leave you praying invalidly without knowing it.
A note on doubt. Some new Muslims develop waswasah — obsessive uncertainty about whether they are clean, repeating wudu four or five times, never able to trust it counted. If that begins happening to you, it is a recognised problem with a known answer: stop, act on your first judgement, and refuse to repeat. Tell your imam. Do not mistake the doubt for piety.
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