Hosting a website may sound complex, but it is easily doable. Hosting your website on a good server gives you more control over everything, including the cost and features. You should understand the basics of the hosting process, as your website performance depends on it.
The website hosting process consists of only a few technical steps you can easily learn and do yourself.
How to host a website? 4 main steps you need to know.
Here is how to deal with your website hosting requirements in 4 main steps.
- Select your content management system.
Begin selecting the content management system, as this will be your website’s platform. The most common options include Wix, WordPress, Shopify, or Squarespace, but you must select one according to the website type. Look for the following qualities in the CMS:
- Customization
- Ease of use
- Cost
- Web hosting requirements
Choosing one of the platforms mentioned above will give you flexibility in adding functionality to your website. These make site building easy, but you must deal with hosting yourself. So, after selecting the CMS, you need to purchase a hosting service. Alternatively, you may build your website with code, which will be complex and time-consuming.
2. Get a Web hosting service according to your hosting type and feature requirements.
When purchasing a web hosting service, you need to look for all features you want for your website, including:
- Cloud storage
- Uptime guarantee
- Bandwidth limit
- Speed
- Price
- Contract length
- Security and SSL certificates
With all these features, you may select from Shared hosting, VPS hosting, Dedicated hosting, or Cloud hosting. It is a good idea to start with shared or VPS hosting and upgrade as traffic on your website increases.
3. Connect your web host and domain.
To host your website, you will need a domain name that can be purchased from any online vendor like Google Domains. Depending on your hosting service provider, you may also get a free hosting 1-year domain but using that is optional. If you get the domain name from your hosting provider, you will not need a connection. Otherwise, follow the steps below to connect the domain and web host:
- Go to the site settings from where you purchased your domain name.
- Find out the domain name pointing at the hosting server.
- Now use that domain name and sign into its settings.
- Go to DNS settings, tap, and replace the current DNS with the one that your web host provides.
- Save and finish.
You may need to wait a few hours for the settings to update at the backend. After that, your connection will be successful.
4. Upload your website.
Use cPanel’s file manager to upload the website to your account. Login to the cPanel of your hosting platform and go to file manager. Choose Web Root and click on Go. Lastly, you must add all the website files and folders under the “public_html” and respective domain folders.
If you went for a CMS for website building, you may only need to install that on your domain using the hosting account, and you will be good to go.
Final Remarks:
It’s important to keep your website live all the time, even if the traffic is increasing, to have authority and an edge over your competitors. It’s only possible if you understand the basics of the hosting process and implement any technical steps needed to keep your website running.
With the steps discussed above, you can host your website, and even if you counter any issue during the process, the tools you select will provide comprehensive guides with solutions to that.
You can check our top picks of web hosting providers here.
