Websites are one of the primary identities for you in the digital space. The website can be for your personal purpose, business, or even an e-commerce store. The first thing that strikes your mind when creating a website is the WordPress platform. And when it comes to hosting a website, cPanel is one of the most popular ways to do it. It is important to learn how to host WordPress website in cPanel.
To host a website on cPanel isn’t challenging as it sounds. Because this platform is getting popular day by day. The main reason for the platform to trend is its usability. The cPanel dashboard is so user-friendly that, even a no-brainer can create and manage their website through this program.
You don’t even need to learn technical coding subjects to host a WordPress website on cPanel. As the hosting providers have understood the needs and expectations of a website owner, they have developed such a unique platform for the users that is convenient.
Whether you are going to host a WordPress website on Godaddy, Hostinger, Bluehost, and Hostgator, they have a common platform which is cPanel.
In this blog post, you will learn everything about how to host a WordPress website in cPanel.
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How to host a WordPress website in cPanel?
Here is a step-by-step guide to hosting a WordPress website on cPanel. The process will be similar for all the leading hosting providers. Follow these easy steps to instantly host your WordPress website.
1. Decide what is the website all about
Before jumping down to hosting a WP site, you need to understand the vision and goals for creating a website. Every website has its own unique offering. Generally, they are categorized into three major types of sites. E-commerce, business and blog. In this way, the website development gets differentiated.
Here you need to plan for which type of website you are looking to build. When you decide the type of website, now it boils down to the objective that you are going to achieve from it. Whether this can be for promotional, sales, or giving out important information related.
This is one of the crucial steps before creating the website. As the entire web development roadmap depends on this process. When you can put down your thoughts on the paper for which type of site you want to get, it will easily help you to create and host a site.
2. Purchase a domain name for your site
A domain name is basically an identity for your website. You need to register and get the license for obtaining the name on the digital space. When you get the unique domain name for the website, it helps your audience to distinguish your website from your competitors. Without a domain name, you can’t proceed to create a website. Because this is the only way to get your website online.
Choosing the right domain name for your website is an important step that you need to watch out for. Because you can purchase the website domain name just once. And you can’t edit it in the future as per your needs. The domain name should always be short and catchy. Only through this way, you can easily engage your audience and make your website memorable. This is one of the best ways to retain the audience.
After choosing the domain name for a site, the next step would be purchasing it. There are many domain name providers where you can easily purchase a domain name from. You need to decide what type of domain extension you want to go ahead with. If you are targeting the website to a regional order, there is a list of regional-based TLDs. And if you want to target your audience globally, you can go for .com.
Learn what is Website hosting all about.
3. Opt for a hosting provider
When you purchase the domain name, you need a digital space to host. This is the most important step to get your website online. Everything depends upon the hosting provider and the type of package that you are going to purchase from them. When you choose a reliable hosting provider, you get peace of mind. Because getting a reliable hosting provider is very important for the future and safety of your website.
There are different types of hosting packages that are offered by hosting companies. It starts from shared hosting, VPS hosting, and dedicated servers. These are some of the popularly available packages that are given by hosting. Depending upon your requirement, you can proceed ahead in purchasing the hosting package. If you are an entry-level user, you can go for the shared hosting plan.
After purchasing the hosting package, now it is time to set up your website. The basic process that is followed here is with the help of connecting your domain name to the hosting package. This is done by editing the nameservers in the domain name which is given by the hosting company. When you change the nameserver, it takes some time to get propagated.
Get to know why web hosting is important?
4. Install the WordPress script
WordPress is one of the most popular CMS platforms that is used across the globe. There are many small and large-scale companies that are completely dependent on the WordPress platform. These programs create such an engaging and intuitive experience for developers and non-developers as well. That’s the reason the WordPress platform is trending every year and a popular choice amongst several website owners.
The process to add WordPress on a hosting provider cPanel is very simple. You just need to go to the cPanel dashboard and try to find the section which is named as an installable script. In some of the hosting provider dashboards, it is named as softaculous applications. When you go to this section and find the WordPress platform. You need to click and proceed ahead to install it.
When it comes to the installation of WordPress script on a particular domain name, you need to first select the domain name for which you want to install the WordPress application. Your WordPress program gets installed on the domain name that you have selected. Ensure that you make a note of the username, password, and other important details while installing the WordPress script on a particular domain name.
Learn how to use cPanel in detail.
5. Set up your WordPress website by selecting the relevant theme
The WordPress theme is something that creates a visual identity for your website. It helps on a larger scale when it comes to the appearance and visibility of your site. If the audience who visits your website is not impressed by your website design, then there can be chances for you to lose the potential customer. To attract them, you need to have a creative design that is possible through WordPress themes.
Depending upon the type of website that you have created, now it’s time to select the relevant theme. Because every type of website has a particular theme that is developed for it. If you are building an eCommerce website, there are plenty of eCommerce themes readily available. Likewise, depending upon the type of website, you get the relevant themes that you can install on your site.
Ensure that the theme which you were going to install on your WP site should have all the basic features. Whether it can be for SEO, marketing, and even some automation features. These help you to make your life easier when you want to scale growth from your WordPress site. It will be ideal if you go for a paid theme, as they give you the complete support and customization feature that you can easily work on.
6. Configure the plugins
Who doesn’t love extra features? Well, plugins are here to make your day. Plugins are something that creates extra features for your website. These plugins are developed on a Programmable PHP platform, which is completely easy to operate. Plugins provide great value for your website as well as the patrons that you are going to target. This is something that you can’t live without while hosting a website.
When you go to the WordPress Dashboard of your site, on the left-hand side, you can locate the plugin section. When you go to the plugin section, see which type of feature that you are looking for. The plugins can range from improving your website page speed, customizing some layout, and there are so many other things that you can do with the help of a plugin. You will easily get a plugin that is dedicated to every problem while hosting a website.
While installing the WordPress plugin, ensure that the compatibility of the plugin is satisfied with your theme. You can see the notice when you search for the plugin name. It is not mandatory to install only the tested plugins. Because sometimes an unstable plugin that is not tested for your WordPress platform can cause the breakdown of the entire website. It will be better if you install only the recommended plugins that are compatible with your theme.
7. Set up all the important pages
When you successfully install the theme and configure the required plugins, now it’s time to set up all the important pages for your website. Important pages can be the main pillar pages which are helpful for the audience to understand your site better. It can be the about us page, contact us page, and other legal pages such as privacy policy or disclaimer.
These are some of the important pages that you can’t miss out on. Whether you are a blog or a business owner. These pages need to be set up according to the objectives of your website. If you are an e-commerce website, then there are some of the important pages that you need to mandatorily include. These pages are terms of use, shipping, returns, and exchange policy.
If you are going to monetize your website, then without these pages, you don’t get the approval. Because it helps the search engine and even the monetization platforms understand what your website is all about. It even helps on a larger scale for your payment gateway to get approved. When you see these many scenarios, there are many advantages to setting up the important pages.
What next?
Now your WordPress website is gracefully live on the internet.
Your work doesn’t get over here. Because there are so many activities that you need to undertake for scaling the growth of your website. Below are some of the steps that you need to execute after your website goes live.
Backup your website
This is one of the most important steps that you need to perform after creating a website. As I know that and even you realize how important websites are for you. When you have invested so much of your hard efforts and time, you need to take precautionary measures for future inevitable events.
Anything can happen to your website. Hackers can try to hack it through malicious plugins or themes installed on your website, or an unprecedented server crash. The scenario can be of any sort. Taking a regular backup is an ideal way to proceed for you to get a peaceful experience by running your website online. The backup can happen weekly once or even once a month. Sometimes even the hosting provider companies offer automatic backup services.
Set up analytics and search console account
Many analytics and Webmaster Tools are available for a website. Some of the popular platforms are Google search console, Bing webmaster, and many other third-party platforms. These tools help your website get indexed on search engines and give complete insights about your site. When you understand the audience’s behavior or regarding your website, it will be easy for you to rework or provide content that will be helpful for them.
The search console or the webmaster’s account is for understanding the website architecture. They basically give you an insight regarding the potential loopholes of the content pages that are active. You can also get insights like how many pages of your website have been successfully indexed on the search engine. Through this, you can take the next steps whether you have to get the pages indexed or not.
Promote your website on social media
Promotion is one of the important methods to get social signals for the website. With the help of social signals, any search engine crawler draws attention towards your website. Because promoting your site on social media channels is one of the effective ways to reach out to consumers and as well as get your website indexed on the search engines as fast as possible.
Do not directly start to create backlinks for new websites, because this can affect the health of your site. As the search engines hate websites that are overly SEO optimized for a beginner’s level. You need to take the baby steps, as growing a website is one of the long-term strategies for yourself or the business. Social media promotion is one of the safest and effective ways to boost your online presence.
To sum it up
If you see the above steps, hosting a WordPress website in cPanel is very easy.
The challenging factor that lies for you is to maintain and manage the website. Because there are so many circumstances when it comes to scaling the growth of your site and as well as maintaining the health of it. When you carefully evaluate the choices and priorities when it comes to the customization and safety of your website, you need to research before taking any major step.
Protecting your website by regularly backing it up, regularly checking your analytics tool and the webmaster are some of the activities that you need to frequently undertake.
Remember that no website is perfect. There is a scope of improvement and endless opportunities for customizing a website. The basic ideology for you to host a WordPress website on cPanel would be creating value that matters for your audience. When you can achieve this, the rest can be easily optimized in the future.