Self-Hosted WordPress
Self-Host WordPress can open the doors to many wonderful things such as plugins and theme flexibility. In this article, I will discuss this topic at a more granular level to help you setup a Self-Hosted WordPress site for the first time.
Getting Started
Did you start a site on WordPress.com and now you are bummed out because you can’t install plugins or do more advanced customization’s? Well, you are in luck. You can quickly and easily setup a standalone instance of WordPress also know as a self-hosted WordPress.
What this means is, you purchase hosting and a domain, you install WordPress, and then you can either export your old site data and import to the new site or simply start from scratch.
If this is new information and an interesting idea, read-on! If this is an old hat trick for you and you are just interested in hearing about an awesome hosting company, skip to the bottom.
Selecting a Domain
It is very common to believe that most .com’s are gone and that you will never have that magical name, but this isn’t exactly true. Sure, you may not be able to get a one word domain or a very common word combination, but the more creative you are, the more likely you will be able to purchase the .com.
Before purchasing a domain, you need to make sure that it is available. The easiest way to do this is to use a reputable domain search. When I say reputable, what I mean is that there are some sites that actually use your searches against you. They are known to purchase domains after you have conducted your search because they know that you want them. We do not want this to happen to you, so, we recommend the following:
At Register.com, there is a search box where you will type in your desired names. The more creative you are, the more likely you are to find a domain that is not owned and available for purchase.
After you have a name that you would like to purchase, now you need hosting. You can purchase your domain from one provider and hosting from another but you may have a few headaches along the way. It is easier to maintain your site when your host is also your domain registrar.
Hosting
For WordPress sites, shared hosting is adequate for most. Shared hosting means that you pay a low price monthly and you are purchasing space on a server used by many sites. You do not know what other sites are on your server nor do you care. You just want good cheap hosting that is fast and reliable. Shared hosting is great because if there is an issue, the host will address it quickly since so many clients are using the service.
NOTE: If you want to have a Magento site or other heavy framework that is a resource hog, VPS, semi-dedicated, or dedicated hosting is recommended.
How Do I Install WordPress?
Most popular hosts have one-click application installation. The applications that they offer for free are the most common, WordPress is among them. Once you have purchased your hosting and domain, you will log in to your new account and follow the steps outlined by your host to quickly and easily setup WordPress.
NOTE: If your host does not have an easy to use application installer, you can download WordPress online for free and upload it using an FTP client.
Recommended Hosting
Our recommended hosting is Hip Gloss Pro for $5.16/m. A few reasons why we consider this service to be the best.
- We have tried GoDaddy, Blue, Gator, and many other hosts. We prefer Hip Gloss Pro.
- 99.9% uptime guarantee.
- unlimited space.
- unlimited bandwidth.
- daily data backup.
- 24/7 customer support.
- free live chat during regular business hours.
- Tech Support responds to tickets within 5 mins! No Joke. The window at GoDaddy for a general ticket is 72 hours. The actual SLA (Service Level Agreement) for Hip Gloss Pro is 1 hour, however, they have always responded to our tickets within 5 mins. 20 mins max! This is so important when you have an emergency, their service is worth it just for this amazing service.
- super fast shared servers which improves your Google ranking.
- 30 day money back guarantee.
- “1 Click” 40+ Installers for applications including WordPress.
- marketing and administration tools.
- Site-Studio built in designer if you prefer to use a site designer.
- your first domain name is FREE when you purchase hosting.
To read about all of the great services that Hip Gloss Pro offers, click here.
To purchase the Starter package at $5.16/m (with free domain), click here.