How to set up a website on hosting: a guide for beginners | Crealeon 2023

Hosting is the site where the webmaster hosts the website. It can be provided as part of the project development tool (for example, when using the constructor) or selected separately.We will consider the second case, when all the site creation activities are done on the hosting. Other services may not be used at all, if you choose a good site to host the web project.

There is nothing complicated about managing hosting. In fact, the hoster provides you with server space (or a whole server – depending on the tariff you choose), on which you save your site. You can at any time to take away your files and move to another hosting – it’s just a platform, the functionality of the project itself does not directly depend on it.

To perform the basic operations on hosting like installing a CMS or creating a database no special skills are required – one detailed manual is enough. But it’s important to remember that each hosting has its own characteristics: self-written control panel, limits, the terms of the tariff plan. Fortunately, you can always contact technical support or search for an answer in the knowledge base to resolve any issues that may arise.

Choosing website hosting

Hosting has a lot to do with how quickly a website will load and whether it will always be available to visitors. Therefore it is important to choose proven web hosting companies that have no performance or performance problems. These include the web hosting provider Bluehost.

Bluehost is an international website hosting platform. There are more than 2 million addresses under its management. But the developers of WordPress, the most popular CMS in the world, have given this hosting company their top recommendation. They cite Bluehost as one of the hosts where WP sites should be built if you want maximum performance.

The advantages of Bluehost:

• A grid of tariffs with options for projects of different sizes and levels of complexity.
• Large database of applications available for quick one-click installation.
• Domain and SSL as a gift when you pay for the rates.
• Around-the-clock technical support by phone, online chat or tickets.
• Excellent performance ratings.
• Utilization of data centres in different regions of the world and connection to CDNs for increasing content delivery speed to users.
• The up-time performance of Bluehost hosting deserves a special mention. The average value for 2019 is 99.99%. Only two failures were recorded: in
• September, the server under test failed to respond for 9 minutes, and in October for 3 minutes. The rest of the time, the hosting worked without failures. This makes Bluehost the optimal choice for businesses that want their website to function 24 hours a day – otherwise the risk of losing customers and money increases.

For personal websites, Bluehost is also ideal. A varied pricing grid with affordable prices and discounts allows you to get packages for a variety of tasks, including small ones. As your audience grows and your site develops, you’ll always have the option to upgrade to a more powerful shared hosting plan, VPS or dedicated server.

Selecting a tariff plan

In order to choose the right hosting plan, you need to be clear about the type of website you are creating. In general terms, you can make this division according to the type of hosting:

• Virtual hosting (from $2.99/month) – suitable for small projects. On Bluehost senior rates you can create an unlimited number of sites. Disk space is not limited, but there are load limits, above which you have two options – to move to a more powerful plan or stay with a blocked account, until the load gets lower.
• VPS Hosting (from $14.99/month) is an intermediate solution for those who do not have enough shared hosting capacity and do not need a dedicated server. On VPS you get full access to the server and can create a custom configuration.
• Dedicated Hosting (from $69.99 per month) – the most powerful solution, suitable for large sites with high load.

You need to choose a suitable plan and pay for it. You will then have access to the hosting control panel in which you will create the website.

Domain name registration

Before you can create a website, you need to add a domain to your hosting. If you received it as a gift when you purchased hosting, all that remains is to register a free domain name in a suitable zone.

• Open the Domains section in the hosting control panel.
• Click on Add Domain.
• Enter the desired name and check its availability.
• Add the suitable option.

If the purchased service did not include a domain, you can purchase one from Bluehost. The cost of the address depends on the zone you choose.

1. Go to Domains.
2. Click on the Add Domain button.
3. Enter the desired name (no zone, only sitename) and click Check.
4. See in which domain zones the domain name is available for purchase.
5. Select the suitable option (or several) and add it to the shopping cart.
6. Click on the shopping cart to check out.
7. The domain is already yours and you just need to register it. You will need the contact details of the owner. In the case of an individual, this is your full name, date of birth, gender, mailing address and place of residence.

You can also transfer a domain that you purchased from another registrar. For this purpose, there is a Transfer button in the Domains section. The transfer is free, but when you move to a new host you will need to renew for one year. The remaining time from another registrar will also not go anywhere – you will use it first, only after that the next year will start counting down.

You might face some restrictions when transferring your domain to Bluehost. Some registrars block users from migrating if the payment period expires. You can also only transfer .com, .co, .org, .net, .us, .info and .biz domains to Bluehost right now.

Before your domain expires, you have to renew the domain to stay in ownership.

1. Go to Domains in the control panel.
2. Select the domain you want to renew from the list.
3. Expand the Renewal
4. Options menu.
5. Click Renew Now and then Save Changes.
6. Read the renewal terms and conditions.
7. Click Pay now to pay for the domain for another year.
8. For convenience, you can enable auto-renewal. In this case the money will be deducted from your Bluehost account closer to the expiry date of the paid period.

Selecting and installing a CMS

One of Bluehost’s strengths is its support for fast installation of popular CMSs from the built-in shop.

1. Open the Marketplace section in the hosting control panel.
2. Scroll down the page to the Featured Products block.
3. Click the One-Click Installs tab.
4. Choose from the most popular CMSs, or click
5. View All to see the full list of engines available for one-click installation.

You’ll find a huge number of applications in the Bluehost shop. There are even forum engines, social networking scripts, commercial systems and CRMs. They are all installed in roughly the same way.

Let’s look at the order using the most popular CMS, WordPress, as an example.

• Find WordPress in the list.
• Click Install.
• Enter the site name under which it will appear in the hosting control panel.
• Select the domain or directory where the engine will be installed. Refuse to install additional free plugins if you don’t need them.

In fact, once the CMS has been installed, you’re done creating your hosting site. From there, you’ll go into the control panel of WordPress or another engine and work with its tools: add extensions, customise the design, publish content.

Conclusion

Creating a website on a hosting site is easy – especially if it is a good site that offers convenient tools for rapid deployment of popular CMSs. It is also important that other features are comfortable to use, because there are different tasks to be done with hosting – such as renewing a domain or creating mailboxes associated with the site’s domain.