As a ScalaHosting customer, you get everything you’ll ever need to manage your domains. 

Table of contents:

• Registering a Domain
• Managing Domains with ScalaHosting
• Transferring Domains to ScalaHosting
• What Happens if a Domain Expires?
• Domain Reselling
• Conclusion

Registering a Domain

In addition to the hosting packages, ScalaHosting offers you the chance to register a domain name during the signup process or later, through your Client Area. With our shared hosting and managed VPS hosting plans, you can even get a new domain completely free for the first year.

After you pick and configure your hosting plan, you will arrive on the Choose your Domain Name page. Select the Register a New Domain option, enter the URL into the field below, and pick the desired extension from the drop-down menu on the right. You can choose from one of the following TLDs:

.com, .net, .org, .info, .eu, .biz, .de, .in, .com.au, .mn, .asia, .ca, .org.uk, .co.uk, .us, .co.in, .club

Click Search to find out if the domain you’ve picked is available for registration. If it is – you should see the following message:

Click Add to Cart and complete the order. After your account is created, the domain you’ve just registered will be assigned as a primary domain name.

Purchasing a hosting plan gives you access to your own Client Area at ScalaHosting.

As we mentioned, you can also register a domain at a later point. To do that, log in to your Client Area, and go to My Domains > Register a New Domain.

From then on, you simply need to pick a domain available for registration and complete the order.

Managing Domains with ScalaHosting

As you can see, once you pick an available domain, the registration process is fairly straightforward. Registering one is only half the story, though. You also need to point it to the correct server for it to resolve properly. This happens through your ScalaHosting Client Area.

In the My Domains menu, you have a list of all your domains as well as the tools you need to configure their DNS and renewal settings. To manage a domain, select the checkbox next to it and pick an action from the With Selected drop-down menu.

The Manage Nameservers option lets you point the domain to the appropriate website content.

If your domain was registered along with your ScalaHosting hosting account, the nameservers should be configured automatically. But if you want to point the URL to another account or to an outside server, you will need to alter these settings.

On the Edit Contact Information page, you can update the registrar’s personal information. If you own a domain, your contact details are typically saved in the domain registry, and it’s extremely important to ensure they are valid. If you lose access to the admin email address, for example, you have little means of proving the domain belongs to you in case of ownership disputes.

However, if you’re going to edit your personal information, you’ll first need to disable the Registrar Lock. When the option is On, you can’t make any modifications to the contact details, transfer the domain away, or delete it. The feature is designed to stop domain hijackers, so it’s recommended you keep it enabled unless you really need to deactivate it.

The same drop-down menu also lets you manage your domain renewal options. By default, all hosting packages and domain names are set to renew automatically to prevent service downtimes. You can modify these settings and choose to manually renew any domains that are close to expiration.

Transferring Domains to ScalaHosting

When you’re signing up for a new hosting service, you can also transfer an existing domain to ScalaHosting. With this, you will ensure your entire project is managed from a single place. 

When a domain is transferred, it’s automatically renewed for one additional year. Normally, the transfer is free, and customers pay for the added year to the domain registration. Still, if the hosting plan you picked has a free domain included, you’ll be able to request the transfer completely free of charge. To ensure the successful migration of the domain, you need to double-check a couple of things.

First, take a look at your domain expiration date. The transfer can take up to two weeks, so if your domain expires during this period, you could end up losing control over it. In some cases, it could be a good idea to renew the domain at the old registrar before initiating the transfer. If you do so, you will still get the year added to the expiration dates, and you won’t need to worry about renewing the domain for quite some time.

Second, make sure the domain lock is turned off. Your old registrar should point you exactly where you need to look. If the domain is locked, the transfer will fail.

Finally, ask your old registrar for the domain authorization (or EPP) code. It’s an essential part of the process, and without it, you won’t be able to request the transfer.

What Happens if a Domain Expires?

Did you know that if a domain expires, it’s not necessarily lost for good? It simply stops resolving correctly after its expiration date, which means your website will go down, and your email service will be disrupted. Still, the domain remains in your Client Area, and you will be able to renew it at the regular rate.

You shouldn’t delay the renewal too much, though.

30 days after its expiration, the domain enters the so-called Redemption period. While it is in place, you are still able to regain control over the domain and renew it, but this time, you need to pay a hefty redemption fee that could go up to hundreds of dollars, depending on the registrar.

If you fail to renew the domain during the redemption period, it will be sent to the domain registry for deletion. Eventually, it will be released for registration once again, but nobody can say when that will happen. There are even cases when the registrar might decide to “hold” a valuable domain and sell it for a premium fee to the highest bidder.

Domain Reselling

Starting your very own web hosting business isn’t that hard or expensive with a reseller account from ScalaHosting.

With it, you can build your own brand, attract more customers, and manage their accounts through an easy-to-use control panel. Not to mention the extra revenue stream…

With every reseller hosting plan, you can activate a domain reseller plan, which allows you to register, transfer, and renew domains for your customers. Users will be able to manage everything related to their online project from a single place, which adds enormous value to the service you’re offering.

The reseller account itself is free, but you need to credit it with funds which you then use to register and renew your domains. To activate it, you have to put in a minimum of $25, but you can easily add more funds later through your Domain Reseller dashboard.

After you activate your domain reseller account, you will receive a welcome email containing more information on what you need to do next. The account is managed through a separate Admin Area located at https://domains.scalahosting.com/reseller/.

When you log in for the first time, the Admin Area offers to help you set up your account with a quick setup guide.

Your first step is to choose what sort of products you’re going to offer and at what prices. This happens through the Domain Registration page.

Through the Manage TLDs list, you can decide which domain extensions will be available to your customers. You have three options for each TLD:

• Sell means that you will register and renew the domains with this TLD.
• No New Orders indicates you will not register new domains with this TLD but will continue to support and renew existing ones.
• Do Not Sell is only available if you have no orders for that TLD. This option means you don’t want to sell these domain extensions.

After you’ve made your selection, you need to confirm you agree with the service’s Terms and Conditions and click Submit. The system will notify you when it successfully applies the changes.

The Manage Prices page should be your next stop. The table contains the cost of each domain registration/renewal/transfer/restoration and the default prices, set to give you a profit margin of roughly 20%.

You can set prices automatically using a profit margin of your choice or edit individual prices by clicking the pencil button next to each TLD.

By editing individual prices, you can also offer discounted rates to the customers who want to register a domain for a longer period of time.

Your customers can also resell domains. As a reseller, you can grant them access to the tools and features that enable you to run your domain registration business. Through the Sub-Reseller Pricing tab, you can determine the terms under which this can happen.

The final price you need to set is for the Privacy Protection feature that gives users the ability to hide their personal information in whois databases. Its pricing is managed from a separate link available on the Domain Registration page.

The Setup Guide’s second step redirects you to the Branding Settings page. Here, you can enjoy an intuitive white-label platform to create an entirely new portal for users and sub-resellers. You can also integrate the domain registration service with your own website.

Finally, you need to configure the Payment Settings.

First, things like the currency and transaction limits must be determined, and the system then lets you add the payment gateway of your choice.

Once you’ve gone through the initial setup guide, you can go to your domain reseller dashboard. It gives you access to all the tools you need to control the service, including an API that can make the integration much smoother.

Conclusion

The analogies between the domain name and the facade of a building are not unreasonable. People usually notice your domain before seeing your website, so it’s natural they build some expectations before hitting the Enter button. It’s up to you to ensure these expectations are met and even surpassed.

You can always get reliable email service from public providers like Gmail and Yahoo. Still, if you want people to take your business seriously, you need to have branded email addresses.

That starts with a hosting account that can guarantee the smooth and reliable communication.

Table of contents:

• What is Email Hosting?
• Activating Your Email Hosting Plan
• Creating Email Accounts with cPanel
• Accessing Email Accounts via Webmail
• Email Options and Settings
• Email Hosting with ScalaHosting’s SPanel VPS Solutions
• Conclusion

What is Email Hosting?

Most of you probably have @gmail.com or @yahoo.com inboxes, and these work fine for registering accounts and signing up for newsletters. In a professional environment, however, free email providers don’t inspire a lot of confidence. 

Unless you want to make a bad impression from the very start, your organization must have its own registered domain and email addresses associated with it.

For this, you would need email hosting. This service lets you create and manage email accounts, configure forwarders, set up anti-spam filters, and control pretty much everything related to your organization’s online communication.

At ScalaHosting, you can choose from four different email hosting solutions. Your choice of plan should depend on the number of email accounts you’re going to need and the storage they’re going to take up.

With the StartUp plan, you’ll get 50GB of storage and 10 email inboxes associated with 1 domain. 

The SmallBiz package gives you 50 email inboxes associated with up to 5 domains and 100GB of storage.

As for the Medium package, you can create 100 email accounts associated with 10 domains, and you receive 150GB of storage. 

Those of you who need even more email accounts can opt-in for our Corporate plan that comes with a free domain and plenty of additional features, but we’ll get to that in a second.

Let’s first have a look at what you need to do after you activate your email hosting plan.

Activating Your Email Hosting Plan

Our StartUp, SmallBiz, and Medium solutions are all based on a shared hosting environment, and their activation is instantaneous. After you’ve successfully processed the payment, your account will be created, and you will receive a welcome email with more information on what your next steps should be.

Your first priority is to ensure the emails arrive at the right place, which means pointing the domain to the email server. If you’ve bought the domain along with your email hosting plan, it will be configured automatically. If you’re using an external domain, however, you’ll need to make some changes.

The welcome email contains the nameservers you need to set for your domain to ensure that it resolves to the email server. If, for some reason, you don’t want to change the entire nameservers (for example, the domain is associated with a website hosted at another provider), you can simply change the domain’s MX records. Once again, all the details are available in your welcome email.

Creating Email Accounts with cPanel

Our StartUp, SmallBiz, and Medium, your email hosting solutions are managed with the help of cPanel, one of the most popular control panel tools. You have all the needed information to log into your cPanel inside the welcome email.

If you’re just getting started, your first job would be to create your mailboxes. This happens through the Email Accounts tool in cPanel’s Email section.

Accessing it for the first time, you’ll only see the default email address. This one is created to automatically capture all unrouted messages (i.e., emails that are addressed to invalid inboxes on your account). You can access it using your default cPanel login credentials.

To set up a new account, click the Create button. A panel on the right gives you information on how many inboxes you’ve set up so far and how many you have left. The process of creating a new account starts with assigning a username. 

The username is the part of the email address that precedes the “@” sign. It can be up to 64 characters long and consist of letters, numbers, periods, hyphens, and special symbols.

Next, you need to address the security of the new email account.

You can set a password yourself or let the account owner do it. With the Set Password Now option, you are responsible for securing the account. It is possible to enter the password manually, but you can be confident it will be even more secure if you let cPanel generate it. The arrow next to the Generate button even lets you fine-tune what characters it should contain.

Alternatively, you can select the Provide Alternate Email radio button and enter an additional address that will receive a link through which the user can set their own password. The alternative email will also be used for sending notifications and password reset instructions.

In the Storage Space section, you can decide how much storage to allocate to each new mailbox. You can either choose to distribute the available storage space evenly or set up some inboxes with more room than others. 

There’s an Unlimited option, which, when selected, won’t stop the emails from coming in, no matter how big the inbox becomes. Bear in mind, however, this could affect other users’ service, and if you do reach your hosting account’s storage capacity limit, the messages will start bouncing back.

Your next task is to select the Plus Addressing options for the email account. Plus Addressing is a feature that lets the sender address an email message not just to a recipient but to a specific folder. 

For example, if you compose an email and put “john+important@example.com” into the Recipient field, you are actually sending the email to john@example.com. If the john@example.com email account has Plus Addressing enabled, it will automatically create a folder named “important” and put the message there.

Finally, you can choose whether you want cPanel to send a welcome email with client setup instructions to the newly created inbox.

The Create button completes the process.

You can also create multiple email accounts at once. The Address Importer tool on cPanel’s homepage hosts example CSV and MS Excel files, which you can fill with the email addresses, passwords, and quotas for all the accounts you want to create.

After you’re ready, you can use the tool to upload the file, and cPanel will automatically set up the accounts for you. The same tool also lets you configure multiple forwarders.

The Email Accounts page gives you a list of all the inboxes you’ve created so far. There’s a Check Email button next to each of them, through which you can access the client inbox. The Connect Devices button gives you all the information to set up an email client. Then you have the Manage button, where you change the account credentials and resource allocation, restrict access, and disable the Plus Addressing functionality. 

This is where you can also delete existing accounts. Bear in mind, however, the data will be permanently wiped, and you will not be able to get it back.

Accessing Email Accounts via Webmail

The welcome email you receive with the activation of your email hosting plan does a pretty good job of explaining what you need to do to set up popular email clients on your devices.

Still, configuring the SMTP and IMAP/POP3 settings of an email client is not always practical. Imagine, for example, you want to check your inbox from a friend’s computer…you can’t ask them to install and configure something like Outlook or Thunderbird just for that.

That’s why cPanel is equipped with the Webmail functionality that lets users access their emails through a web browser.

If your domain name’s nameservers are pointed to the email server, you should be able to access the Webmail feature via yourdomain.com/webmail. If that’s not the case, you can use the IP address in your welcome email.

After you enter the account’s username and password, you will be asked to pick a webmail client. The Horde and Roundcube clients may differ when it comes to the interface, but they offer pretty much the same functionality. Navigating through the interface is not much different than navigating through your Gmail or Yahoo account. Nevertheless, with a dedicated email client, you get more features and are less likely to miss any new messages.

Email Options and Settings

cPanel gives you plenty of control over the email accounts you create, and that’s not just limited to resetting passwords, changing disk quotas, or restricting incoming and outgoing communication.

For example, with the Forwarders tool, you can automatically forward messages coming to individual accounts and discard the emails, and send an error message to the sender. As we mentioned already, you can set up multiple forwarders at once, so you can also forward the emails in a single, catch-all inbox.

You’ve got plenty of options when setting up Autoresponders as well. This includes setting the automatic responder start and end times, which email they’re coming from, and even an optional delay between the received email and the response.

You can create custom filters and apply them either to individual accounts or to the entire domain. Messages that contain certain strings or phrases can be discarded or piped to an outside application.

Using the Filters tool, you can also decide how your email accounts will process messages that Apache’s SpamAssassin flags as unsolicited. To filter all suspicious emails, select Spam Status from the first drop-down menu, Begins With from the second one, and type “Yes“ in the field below.

You can choose what happens to these messages from the Actions drop-down.

Email Hosting with ScalaHosting’s SPanel VPS Solutions

Email hosting is one of the cheapest types of hosting, partly because it doesn’t include additional website features like FTP access. Plus, because it is based on a shared hosting service, you and multiple other users utilize the same server resources and the same IP address.

This is cost-effective not just for you but for hosting providers as well. As long as everyone sticks to the rules – it works well. But if just one of the users on a shared server starts sending spam, the shared IP could get blacklisted, and all the accounts under that IP will suffer as well.

For years, this was a risk many people were willing to take because the alternatives were way too expensive. This is no longer the case, though.

ScalaHosting’s Corporate email hosting plan is a completely optimized solution when it comes to handling business communication. With it, you get a free domain and unlimited number of email accounts and domains you can utilize.

More importantly, it’s based on our managed VPS plans, which means you don’t need to share the same server with other users. Your VPS offers isolated resources and a dedicated IP for your needs only. That way, you won’t need to worry about your emails failing to reach their intended recipient because of someone else’s actions.

With the Corporate email hosting plan, you’ll control the service through SPanel, our proprietary management platform that was specially designed for managed VPS solutions. SPanel is a user-friendly control panel that packs all the features you need to set up and manage your company’s email communication. 

Both the account administrator and individual users can manage their email accounts and set forwarders and autoresponders. The service comes with advanced spam protection and also provides browser-based access to the inboxes.

SPanel’s in-house development is more cost-effective for us, allowing ScalaHosting to offer this advanced service at very competitive prices. Given the extra features and reliability offered by the VPS infrastructure, it’s definitely worth considering.

Conclusion

A reliable email service is essential for any organization. If you’re going to run a business, you must ensure all incoming and outgoing messages are delivered to the right place at the right time. Choosing an email hosting solution that guarantees this could play a major role in maintaining a healthy relationship with your customers and partners.

But for once, things might not be quite as complicated as they seem.

Table of contents:

• What is Reseller Hosting?
• Picking the Right Reseller Hosting Plan
• Activating a Reseller Hosting Plan
• Creating Hosting Packages with WHM
• Creating a New cPanel Account
• Managing Accounts
• Customization and Branding
• SPanel VPS – the Reseller Alternative
• Conclusion

What is Reseller Hosting?

By purchasing a reseller hosting plan, you effectively lease some storage space, bandwidth, and hardware resources from the hosting company, which you then offer to end-users. In a way, the hosting provider is the wholesaler, you are the retailer, and the website owners who choose your services are the buyers.

Your price rates and profit margin are entirely up to you.

Mind you, reseller hosting is suitable not only for people who are trying to launch their very own web hosting businesses. Web development and web design studios can offer hosting as an additional service as well.

Picking the Right Reseller Hosting Plan

ScalaHosting offers three different reseller hosting plans. They are all controlled through the Web Host Manager (WHM) dashboard and offer individual account management via cPanel. Our reseller solutions are based on a shared environment and support private nameservers. 

Which one you’ll pick largely depends on the number of customers you have (or expect to have). You can easily upgrade to a more powerful plan at any point, so if you’re just getting started, your best bet would probably be to get the entry-level Scala1 package, which gives you up to 20 cPanel accounts, 1TB of bandwidth, and 25GB of storage.

Activating a Reseller Hosting Plan

Since reseller hosting plans utilize ScalaHosting’s shared servers, the activation of a reseller package is practically instantaneous. After the payment is successfully processed, your account will be activated, and you will receive a welcome email with more information on what your next steps should be.

The email includes the nameservers you need to set if you’re using an existing domain and the settings you need to use when configuring an email client.

If you have an active hosting account at another provider that uses WHM and/or cPanel, we can transfer all your websites completely free of charge. What you need to do is open a support ticket with the login credentials for your old host.

After the new nameservers propagate successfully (this can take around 24-48 hours), your WHM control panel will be available at yourdomain.com/whm. From there, you can start managing your reseller hosting plan. By default, WHM’s homepage shows you three key shortcuts: Create a New Account, List Accounts, and Add a Package. As a reseller, these are the shortcuts you’ll be using most often.

Creating Hosting Packages with WHM

Different websites have different needs, and if you’re serious about your hosting business, you must ensure the services you offer are suitable for as many of them as possible. If website owners are to consider using your service, they must have a range of hosting plans to choose from. Creating them with WHM is fairly straightforward.

Go to Add a Package under the Packages menu in the sidebar. First, you need to pick a name for your package and then choose the amount of resources it will pack.

You have quite a few options here.

By default, the package comes with 10GB storage and 1TB bandwidth per month, but you can lower or raise these limits depending on what you plan to offer. You can choose how many FTP and email accounts your customers can create and then control many other aspects of the service, including the maximum number of mailing lists, SQL databases, addon domains, parked domains, etc.

All your hosting plans will be based on cPanel, and you can customize what sort of features your clients get depending on the plan they choose. This happens through the Feature Manager available under the Packages section in the sidebar.

You need to create feature lists that you’ll assign to different plans. Doing it is as simple as picking a name for the list, clicking Add Feature List, and selecting the cPanel functionality that it’s going to provide.

With your feature lists ready, you can choose which one you’ll include in the plan you’re creating on the Add a Package page.

Before you save the hosting package, you have a few other options to play around with. You can select whether the hosting plan will offer the ability to execute CGI scripts, enable Digest Authentication support, and even choose the theme and language of cPanel’s interface.

When you’re ready with these settings, click Add to create the hosting package.

Creating a New cPanel Account

With the hosting packages taken care of, you can start creating cPanel accounts for your clients.

You can start with the Create a New Account page, which gives you usage statistics for your reseller plan. You can see how many of the available cPanel accounts you’ve already created, how much disk space they’re using, and how much bandwidth you have left.

Below it, there is a list of hosting plans you’ve already set up as well as information on how many cPanel accounts you can create under each package before you reach your service limits. The Limiting Factor column indicates which of the resources might act as a bottleneck.

The fields you need to fill in to create an account for your client are available below the usage statistics.

You first need to set a valid domain for the new cPanel account. WHM automatically assigns a username based on the domain name (the default username for example.com will be example). Still, you can change it to a custom one, as long as it contains only lowercase letters and numbers and is less than 16-characters long.

Next up, you’ve got the password fields. To help you secure the account with a strong password, WHM gives you a password generator that automatically generates a strong password for the account.

You now need to choose the hosting plan for the new cPanel account. Either pick one of the packages you’ve already created from the drop-down menu or click Select Options Manually to choose custom limits for the new client.

By clicking Save Manual Settings as a Package, you can also create a new plan with the settings you’ve just picked.

Further down, you can also change cPanel’s theme and UI language and manage the SpamAssassin spam filter (enabled by default).

The next section configures the email setting for the account you’re creating. If you leave them in their default state (with the Local Mail Exchanger option selected), the user emails will be handled by their cPanel account. Should they need to use an outside service like Gmail, for example, you can select Remote Mail Exchanger and configure the domain MX records.

To ensure the account’s email communication is secure, double-check if the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender Policy Framework (SPF) are activated (they should be enabled by default). 

Once you’re happy with the configuration, click Create to activate the cPanel account.

Managing Accounts

As a reseller, you need certain control over your customers’ accounts. Everything you need to know about them is available in the Account Information section, and below it, in the Account Functions section, you get all the tools needed to manage the accounts.

If you suspect a potential cyberattack and you think some of your clients may need to change their passwords, for example, you can click Force Password Change, select the accounts you want, and click submit. The accounts’ cPanel features will remain inaccessible until their owners change their passwords.

You can also change an account’s password yourself through the Password Modification tool. It’s as easy as selecting the account you want to modify, entering and confirming the new password, and clicking Change Password. Once again, WHM lets you use a password generator to ensure that the account is adequately protected.

Тhrough the Upgrade/Downgrade an Account page, you can change an account’s hosting plan, while the Modify an Account page lets you change everything – from the allocated resources to the contact email address.

The Skeleton Directory page shows you where you can upload files and folders that will be present on all cPanel accounts upon activation.

Within the Web Template Editor, you can modify and customize the default pages that user accounts will display.

Then you have the Manage Account Suspension page, which lets you suspend and unsuspend accounts. When an account is no longer needed – you can terminate it through the Terminate Accounts page. Bear in mind, however, the account termination is an irreversible action, so make sure to use it only when you’re 100% sure.

Customization and Branding

Your customers don’t necessarily need to know that you’re buying the hosting service from us and reselling it to them. You can use WHM’s Customization options to present your own brand and proudly display it in your clients’ cPanel accounts.

WHM lets you enter your own company name and set help documentation URLs, which will be accessible through cPanel. Your logo can be configured in the client cPanel, and the webmail login page lets you upload your own favicon.

The Customize Style lets you change cPanel’s default theme. There are a few themes available by default, but you can upload more if you want. Those of you with some coding experience might even want to customize cPanel’s look and feel completely.

You should take a look at the Public Contact tab as well. It lets you update the contact information that appears on default webpages, aiding your clients how to get in touch with you more easily.

SPanel VPS – the Reseller Alternative

In addition to our specialized plans, we have another solution for people who want to delve into the reseller business. Our managed VPS solutions give you all the functionality and ease of use of the reseller plans plus a few additional extras like the ability to integrate LiteSpeed for blistering performance.

The architecture is completely different. Instead of a shared environment, your clients will be hosted on a virtual server with guaranteed resources available at all times. As a result, the performance gets a great boost, and you’ve got enhanced scalability when it comes to adjusting the resources on your VPS plan.

Instead of the WHM/cPanel combination, you will control your reseller business through our proprietary SPanel management platform. It was designed especially for VPS hosting solutions and is much more streamlined toward novice users.

SPanel gives you everything you need to run a reseller business. This includes the ability to create and manage separate accounts for your customers, brand customization options, and tools for real-time usage statistics and server health information. You get more or less all the functionalities offered by WHM/cPanel at a significantly lower price.

Even the entry-level VPS solutions give you the ability to create as many accounts as you wish at no extra cost. As the two platforms are fully compatible, our support specialists can transfer all your data from your old WHM/cPanel host to your new SPanel VPS completely free of charge. 

Conclusion

The hosting industry would be quite different without reseller services. They offer a brilliant solution for entrepreneurs who are confident they can build a successful business but don’t have the experience and resources to do it alone. They also enable website designers and developers to become a one-stop-shop for users who want to have their website designed, built, and maintained by specialists.

Most established hosting companies offer reseller solutions, and you could say that customers are spoiled for choice. With SPanel and our VPS plans, we’ve given users one more viable option that could be worth looking into.

Table of Contents: Getting Started With SSL Certificates

• What is an SSL
• Why You Need an SSL Certificate
• Installing an SSL Certificate on Your Site
• Understanding SSL Certificate Types
• Securing Multiple Sites and Subdomains
• Where to Get Your SSL Certificate
• If You Need Help

What is an SSL

SSL is a secure protocol used for communication between a web browser and server. In the context of websites, they help safeguard the data that passes between visitor and website. When an SSL connection is established, all information between the two points undergoes encryption.

Although SSL may seem very abstract to most users, understanding them is not that difficult.

When a web browser first tries to communicate with a web server, it needs to ensure it got in touch with the right one. This first step forms the basis for the connection.

The SSL certificate acts as a guarantee of authenticity, assuring the web browser that it is, in fact, the correct destination point by displaying the server’s credentials. This credential display is digitally signed and cannot be forged.

To establish this level of trust, SSL certificates are typically signed by a handful of companies (known as Certificate Authorities or CAs) that web browsers know and trust. In short, they are the means that allow web browsers to trust the destination they are heading to is assuredly the correct one.

Why You Need an SSL Certificate

Caption: web browsers today indicate website SSL status clearly

Without the level of trust SSL certificates help establish, the Internet can be a much more dangerous place. Fake or malicious websites may try to impersonate valid ones in an attempt to steal information from visitors of the real site.

As an example, imagine if a hacker sets up a fake website impersonating your bank or other financial institution. If you arrive there by mistake, you will be prompted to enter login and billing information that can later be misused.

This is the reason why major browsers today prominently display the security status of websites users are visiting. It serves as a quick first line of defense to safeguard their users. 

At the same time, search engines give very low priority to sites without SSL certification, affecting the ability of these websites to rank well in search queries. Because of this, all webmasters should pay attention to their SSL certification status, not just sites that handle sensitive user data.

Installing an SSL Certificate on Your Site

Owning an SSL certificate is not enough – you also need to ensure it is properly installed on your website to take effect. In most cases, this can easily be done via your web hosting control panel. The main difference is the type of SSL certificate you want to install.

ScalaHosting makes SSL certificate installation easy with our state-of-the-art SPanel web hosting control panel. The Graphic User Interface (GUI) is simple and easy to navigate. To install your SSL certificate, click on the ‘SSL Certificates’ option from the main menu.

This will open up a sub-menu, allowing you to make changes to the SSL certificate associated with your website.

Clicking on the ‘Actions’ dropdown menu will give you two choices – Install custom SSL or Install free SSL. Depending on which type of SSL certificate you have, click on the appropriate choice.

Custom SSL

This option is for purchased SSL certificates. If you have bought a commercial SSL certificate or are migrating one from another host, choose this option. You will need to have the information for the certificates to fill in on the next page after clicking Install.

When you buy an SSL certificate, you will get a file from the issuer, typically in the format: your_domain.crt. This file can be opened using a text editor to view the information inside. 

You will need to fill in that data in the associated fields in the Custom SSL installation screen. Once you’ve done that, simply click Install to complete the process.

Free SSL

If you do not want to purchase a private SSL certificate, ScalaHosting offers free Let’s Encrypt Certificates. These can be used effectively with all types of websites, but we do not recommend using them for commercial purposes, such as online stores.

To utilize the free option, you simply need to click Install, which will automatically start the process once you confirm this is what you want to do. Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates also come with an expiry date, but this is automatically renewed for you before it actually expires.

Once you’ve installed your SSL certificate, you should be able to access your website via HTTPS instead of HTTP. The former is another indication that your website is secure.

How Does SSL Certificates Work

Although SSL certificates are named after the Secure Socket Layer protocol, they actually use TLS. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security and it’s an evolution of the SSL protocol that uses a combination of symmetric and asymmetric cryptography to ensure that your browser communicates with the correct server and all the information you exchange with it is protected.

After you type a domain name in the address bar, your browser connects to the web hosting server where the website is located. The SSL certificate installed on the server responds with a unique message authentication code, which confirms that you are communicating with the correct server.

The next step is the so-called TLS handshake. During it, the server and the browser use asymmetric encryption to establish the connection and set up the secure session. Asymmetric encryption means that there’s a public key available to anyone and a private one that is kept secret. Information encrypted with the public key can only be decrypted using the private one, and vice versa. This means that the information exchanged between the server and the browser isn’t visible to anyone else.

During the TLS handshake, the server and the browser negotiate the encryption algorithm for the session and exchange data that helps them create a symmetric encryption key that will be used to protect the flow of information.

Thanks to the TLS handshake, you can be sure that you’re communicating with the correct server. Meanwhile, the symmetric encryption used after it means the data is protected by a mechanism that is both quick and reliable.

Understanding SSL Certificate Types

Although most users generally know SSL certificates as either ‘free’ or ‘commercial’, there are actually clear distinctions between different types of SSL certificates. That mostly has to do with the extent the CA goes to verify the identity of their site visitor.

The main types of SSL certificates are:

Domain Validated (DV)

These are typically the cheapest SSL certificates. The issuer will only check to see if the one applying for the certificate actually owns the domain name and has the right to operate it. There are no other checks aside from this one.

DV SSL certificates are the most widely used for personal sites such as blogs, portfolios, and other similar non-commercial sites. Let’s Encrypt, which is a company issuing free SSL certificates, offers DV SSL as well.

Organization Validated (OV)

For those who want extra assurance for their website visitors, a better option would be an OV SSL certificate. Issuers who sell OV certificates will need assurance not just of the domain name ownership but also some company information.

Extended Validation (EV)

Among SSL certificates, EV are the most expensive and difficult to obtain. While the process is not exactly complicated, extensive documentation needs to be submitted to issuers in order to form a strong guarantee of authenticity.

Information that needs to be verified includes:

• Actual existence of the business, legally, operationally, and physically
• Record matching from official sources
• Exclusive rights for domain ownership from the business
• Proper authorization for the EV issuance

Because of this stringent process, it can be relatively expensive and time-consuming to get an EV SSL. However, it’s money well-spent as this is the most secure SSL option in case of eventual hacker breaches.

Securing Multiple Sites and Subdomains

If you own a number of websites you may need to look for another specific type of SSL certificate. Usually, other certificates cover the exact domain name and nothing else. 

But what about your subdomains or other websites?

To handle this, you need to look for either a multi-domain SSL or Wildcard SSL.

Multi-domain SSL

This type of SSL certificate is specifically for websites or even web applications that connect with multiple domain names. They are always commercial in nature and generally more expensive than single-domain SSLs.

WildCard SSL

If you intend to split your site into sections using subdomains, a WildCard SSL would be your best bet. Examples of subdomains include blog.yourdomain.com, shop.yourdomain.com, and news.yourdomain.com.

Where to Get Your SSL Certificate

SSL certificates are available with various providers. ScalaHosting offers the use of free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificates that are suitable for general use. If you need something more secure, we also offer commercial SSL certificates on behalf of two highly trusted issuers – GeoTrust and Symantec.

Under each of these brands, you can choose from a range of options that cover all your needs. This includes EV, OV, and even WildCard certificates.

Pricing starts from as little as $30/year and goes up depending on which option you choose.

If You Need Help

For those who are unsure about what type of SSL you need or simply need assistance for the installation process, ScalaHosting customer support will be happy to talk this through with you. You can get in touch with the support team either via Live Chat or the Ticketing System on the support page.

How To Point a Domain Name To a Web Hosting Provider

Table of Contents: Getting Started with Self-Managed VPS Hosting

• What is Self-Managed VPS hosting
• Choosing and Customizing Your Plan
• Account Activation
• Handling the Initial Server Setup
  Logging in to Your VPS
  Creating a New User Account
  Basic Account Security
• The LAMP Stack
  Deploying Apache
  Installing MySQL/MariaDB
  Setting up PHP
• Setting Up Your Domain Name
• If You Need Help

What is Self-managed VPS Hosting

VPS plans come in two main variations – Managed or Self-managed. The latter is where you get complete customizability of your VPS account. Aside from the choice of Operating System (OS) you make during sign-up, you need to handle everything else on your own.

This includes installing a web hosting control panel (if you choose to use one), a database, web applications, and anything else you might need to run your website.

Despite needing to do this, Self-managed VPS accounts offer you greater flexibility in customizing your environment. You can set it up to fit your exact needs while omitting anything else that may needlessly take up resources.

Choosing and Customizing Your Plan

All ScalaHosting Self-managed VPS plans come completely configurable. From the Self-Managed Cloud Server Hosting page, you can choose your exact configuration. Here are your options:

Resources: Using the slider bar, you can adjust how much of each resource type you will need. This includes CPU cores, RAM (memory), and SSD Space (storage). The resources are not tied to each other, meaning you can choose to only adjust one of them when needed.

Data Center: ScalaHosting operates self-managed servers out of three data centers. We have two US locations – in Dallas and New York, and one in Europe. We recommend you pick a location that is closer to your target market. The closer the data center is to your visitors, the lower the latency (delay caused by data having to travel over distance).

Operating System: We offer a choice of Linux distributions. You can choose between Ubuntu, Debian, Rocky Linux, Alma Linux, CentOS, and OpenSUSE.

Bandwidth: You can choose how much bandwidth your VPS will have. The options start at 3,000GB and go all the way up to 10,000GB.

Additional services: Although you have root access and can set up anything you want on your self-managed VPS, you can opt for having a few useful tools pre-installed upon deployment. These include cPanel/WHM, R1soft backups, and the LiteSpeed web server.

Account Activation

Once you’ve made your selections and completed the payment process, you will be sent a confirmation email. This will be followed by a separate welcome email containing information about your VPS account, including access links and other important notes.

The entire account activation process should take no longer than a few minutes since it is mostly automated. In some cases, a user may be required to undergo manual verification to complete the process, but this is relatively rare.

Handling the Initial Server Setup

ScalaHosting Self-managed VPS plans come with only your choice of OS in place. When you first receive your welcome email, it is recommended that you handle a few initial configurations as part of your setup process to increase the security of your server and make it more user-friendly.

Logging in to Your VPS

Your welcome email will include the credentials for Root Access to your VPS account. This powerful administrative access will give you very granular control. If you don’t have any previous experience, it’s advisable to avoid using it for now. However, you will need root access to do the initial setup for Self-managed VPS plans.

Because of this, the first thing you should do with the root access is to create a regular account. To do this, you will need an application such as PuTTY to create a secure connection to your VPS server.

Once you’ve installed the application, use the Root User credentials provided in your welcome email to log in.

Creating a New User Account

Once you’ve logged in, you can use common Linux commands to create a new account. This is a three-step process and includes creating the user account, associating it with a password, and granting the appropriate permissions.

The exact commands and process may vary depending on the OS you’ve chosen. For example, in CentOS:

# adduser newusername 

(Creates a new user account called ‘newusername’)

# passwd newusername 

(Allows you to assign a password to the ‘newusername’ account)

# gpasswd -a newusername wheel 

(Adds ‘newusername’ to the ‘wheel’ group)

Linux has a few user groups with various permissions by default. To understand the permissions that each user group has, refer to the documentation for the distribution of Linux you’ve chosen as your OS.

Basic Security

Once you’ve created your new user account and granted it the appropriate permissions, you should take steps to secure your VPS account. Again, the process for this will vary depending on which OS you’ve chosen.

For example, in CentOS, you will need to set up Public Key Authentication, while Debian will require you to manage the UFW Firewall settings. It is recommended that you initially disallow all connections aside from SSH. Once this is done, remember to add access for the new user you created earlier.

Once you have completed these steps, you will be ready to log in with your newly created user account. Disconnect your SSH application and reconnect with the new user account before proceeding further.

The LAMP Stack

The LAMP stack is what most servers use to handle web hosting accounts. It stands for Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP and is the combination that most web applications need to run. Since the ‘Linux’ portion of the LAMP stack is already taken care of, you will have to install the other portions.

Note: This is a manual process and will involve multiple steps. If you would rather skip this and use a web hosting control panel, we highly recommend you opt for one of our Managed VPS Hosting accounts instead. 

Deploying Apache

One of the most important parts of your VPS will be the web server. This is the engine that will power the sites you create on your VPS. Among the choices available, the Apache web server is extremely popular and one of the most widely used.

Installing Apache on Linux OS is relatively simple. Like Windows, Apache has its own application installer called a ‘Package Manager.’ These will allow you to retrieve and install various applications from a repository maintained by the various Linux OS distributions.

We will be demonstrating an example of the Apache installation using CentOS:

sudo yum install httpd 

sudo systemctl start httpd.service

The first command will install Apache, while the second starts the Apache web server service. To verify that it’s working correctly, use your web browser, and navigate to the IP address assigned to your VPS account. You should see the result of the Apache server installation displayed there now.

Installing MySQL/MariaDB

While you can technically choose from a variety of database servers, MySQL (and the MariaDB fork of it) are very popular choices. WordPress, for example, will require the use of this. The installation process is, in fact, similar to Apache.

sudo yum install mariadb-server mariadb

sudo systemctl start mariadb

sudo mysql_secure_installation

The first command installs the MariaDB server, while the second starts the service. The last command is technically optional but highly recommended. It serves as a first line of defense by handling some of the basics of securing your database for you.

Finally, you will need to make sure the database server will restart on its own if you reboot your VPS server. To do this, enter:

sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

Setting up PHP

With your OS, web server, and database server in place, the last step of the LAMP Stack deployment will be to install and set up PHP. This is the engine that will help process the programming code, which is one of the elements needed to configure dynamic content.

sudo yum install php php-mysql

sudo systemctl restart httpd.service

This basic procedure will install the PHP engine as well as start it as a system service.

Do note this is only the default installation of PHP. If you have specific requirements for your site, you may need to install additional PHP modules later on.

Setting Up Your Domain Name

So far you’d have been accessing your VPS server through its IP address. Your next move would be to assign a domain name to your server for easier access to the website you’ll be setting up. 

How this is done depends on where you obtained your domain name. If your domain name was registered from ScalaHosting, you do not need to do anything – it will be done already. If not, you will need to change your domain nameservers from the registrar.

The nameservers are what point the domain name to the right website content location. This is done from the control panel where you obtained the domain.

Simply log in to your control panel dashboard and change the nameservers to the ones provided to you in your ScalaHosting welcome email.

Bear in mind, nameserver changes can take between 24 to 48 hours to propagate completely. During this period, your domain name may not still properly point to your server. 

If You Need Help

Setting up and maintaining a Self-managed VPS account can be intimidating, especially for first-time users. If, at any point during the process, you need help or even simply some advice, do get in touch with the ScalaHosting customer support team. 

The best way to do this is either via Live Chat or using our Ticket System. Live Chat offers near-instant access to first-line support but may not always be able to resolve your query in the most comprehensive manner.

For greater depth in response, we recommend you make use of our internal ticketing system. The ScalaHosting operators take pride in a 15-minute average response time, so you will always get technical assistance promptly.

Table of Contents: Getting Started With WordPress Hosting

• What is WordPress Hosting
• Choosing and Configuring Your WordPress Hosting Plan
  • Billing Cycle
  • Data Center Location
    
  • VPS WordPress Hosting
• Understanding the SPanel Interface
• Setting Up Your Domain Name
• Installing WordPress Using SPanel
• Using SSL With Your WordPress Site
• Creating and Using an Email Address With Your Domain Name
• If You Need Assistance

What is WordPress Hosting

WordPress is a web-based application used to build, deploy, and maintain websites. Before you can build a website with it, however, you need a web hosting account.

There are various types of web hosting available. Each of these presents its own set of characteristics. For example, Shared Hosting is often cheap but unsuitable for hosting high-traffic websites.

If you want to run a WordPress website, you will still need to decide what type of hosting plan suits your needs. ScalaHosting offers two main types of WordPress Hosting plans – Shared and Virtual Private Server (VPS).

Choosing and Configuring Your WordPress Hosting Plan

The type of hosting service you choose can greatly affect how well your WordPress site performs.

If you’re running a small blog or website, Shared Hosting is typically sufficient. Online stores or those expecting more visitors should consider using VPS Hosting instead. Once you’ve chosen your plan type, you will have to decide on a number of other options:

Billing cycle

You can choose the duration of your billing cycle when signing up for your WordPress Hosting plan. This ranges from one month up to a maximum of 36 months. Longer billing cycles often benefit from higher discount rates. To maximize your savings, we recommend you sign up for the 36-month plan.

Data Center Location

Once you’ve chosen your billing cycle you will need to decide on your data center location. This is especially important if you have a specific target market in mind. 

The closer your data center location is to where you expect your visitors to come from, the faster your site will load for them. ScalaHosting offers a choice of two data centers in the USA and one in Europe, and if you want to get an SPanel VPS, you can deploy it in one of 21 additional locations provided by our partners from AWS and DigitalOcean. 

VPS WordPress Hosting

If you have decided to go for more powerful VPS Hosting to run your WordPress site, there are more considerations aside from billing cycle and data center location:

• Management: For those less skilled in the technical management of servers and networks, we highly recommend you opt for Managed VPS Hosting. These plans come with pre-installed applications that make it easier for you to build and run your WordPress site.
• Control Panel: The control panel is used to configure and maintain your VPS Hosting account. ScalaHosting offers a choice between SPanel and cPanel, both of which are extremely powerful and Graphic User Interface (GUI)-driven. Do note that cPanel licensing is relatively expensive and comes at an extra cost, while SPanel is completely free of charge.
• Server Customization: Since VPS Hosting is flexible in nature, you can choose the exact configuration of your account. This means you will get the exact amount of resources you need – CPU cores, SSD (storage) space, and RAM (memory). You can also choose your backup cycle or opt to have ScalaHosting engineers monitor your account 24/7.

Once you’ve completed the payment process, you should receive a confirmation email almost immediately. This will be followed shortly after by a welcome email, providing you with the information you need to access your web hosting account. Use that information to log in to your web hosting control panel.

Understanding the SPanel Interface

SPanel is extremely easy to use. It’s divided into two sections – the Admin Interface and the User Interface. You can use the Admin Interface to create user accounts and change certain settings related to your server. However, since you’ll be managing the website via the User Interface, this will be the one you work with the most.

 SPanel’s tools are neatly organized into their own categories (e.g., Files, Databases, Emails, etc.). There are plenty of tooltips and helpboxes to explain what you need to do.

On the right side of the page are information displays that show basic information about your account. The upper box contains general information about your hosting plan, while the resources box shows your account resource usage.

Setting up Your Domain Name

In the welcome email you received, part of the information will pertain to nameservers. This information is needed for you to link your domain name to your web hosting account. To do this, log in your domain name dashboard and enter the nameserver information that was included in the email.

You only need to do this if you obtained your domain name from somewhere other than ScalaHosting. For those who have gotten their domain name from us, it is automatically linked to your hosting account already.

Installing WordPress Using SPanel

Note: The following instructions are intended for new installations of WordPress. If you’re migrating an existing WordPress site to ScalaHosting, contact our support team. We can assist you in the migration process.

SPanel comes with an automated management tool called SWordPress Manager. This allows you to not just quickly install and configure WordPress, but also to manage it once your site is up and running.

Clicking on this option will bring you to the installation display. Here, you will need to fill out the various fields in order to commence the installation. 

This includes:

Domain/Path – Since web hosting accounts may have more than one domain name linked to it, you need to select which domain name to associate with this installation of WordPress, along with the folder where you want the files for your website to go (if you want to install it in the document root directory, simply leave the field blank).

Username – Choose a username to create for your WordPress installation. This will be used for you to access the WordPress dashboard later on.

Password – You can decide if you want to create a password on your own or have the installation manager generate one for you. If you’re choosing your own password, make sure it is a strong one of at least 8 characters comprising a mix of uppercase, lowercase, special characters, and digits.

Email Address – This will be the email address that your installation of WordPress will send updates to.

Once you’ve completed filling out the fields, click the ‘Install WordPress’ button, and wait for the process to complete.

The installation process should take no more than a few minutes. Once complete, the system will send an email to the email address you specified earlier.

Using SSL With Your WordPress Site

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates are important in this day and age since search engines now consider them a ranking factor. At the same time, if your site isn’t SSL-enabled, this will be indicated to visitors who visit your site.

All ScalaHosting plans – including WordPress Hosting – come with free SSL included so you do not have to worry about this. Once you point your domain to the correct nameservers, SPanel will automatically install a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate on it.

If you have a custom SSL certificate, you can install it yourself via the tool on SPanel’s homepage.

Creating and Using an Email Address with Your Domain Name

All ScalaHosting hosting accounts come with email handling. To create a custom email address for your domain name in SPanel, use the ‘Email Accounts’ option the User Interface’s homepage.

You need to type in the username and associate it with any of the domains you have linked to your account. Choose a password to go with it, then simply click the ‘Create Email’ button and you will be done.

To access your email account, click on the ‘Webmail’ option and you can then sign in using the username and password created. Alternatively, you can set the account up for access using an email application like Microsoft Outlook.

If You Need Assistance

Although setting up WordPress on a new account is relatively simple, it can be a bit intimidating for those new to web hosting. If at any point you feel you need assistance, get in touch with the technical support team.

The ScalaHosting operators are highly experienced and trained to handle all your needs effectively. Don’t worry about asking them anything you need to – they are friendly and ready to help you at all times.

Let’s begin!

SECTION 1

What is a WordPress website?

In order to answer this question, let’s take a step back to understand the core concept of a website.

What Is a Website?

A website is a collection of web pages that can be accessed by typing a domain name (ex: yourname.com). They can have any kind of content – text, images, videos, audio players, photo gallery, forms, and so on. 

As the internet evolved, so did the way websites are structured. The usual process of downloading your web page, editing it on your computer, and then uploading it back online, became too inefficient.

A new approach for managing website content was needed and Content Management Systems (CMSs) came to the stage.

What Is a Content Management System?

The web page you are currently reading, is what came known as the public-facing side of a website – the front end. And just as every theater needs a stage, the front end is where the show happens on any website. Meanwhile, behind that stage, there is a whole crew making the magic happen. In website lingo, this is known as the backend.

The backend provides website authors and editors with the tools they need to manage the content of their pages. To do that, they often utilize all-in-one web building tools, known as Content Management Systems. It allows for changes submitted on the backend to appear on the frontend so your visitors can see the finished product.

Content Management Systems vary in their purpose and underlying technologies. WordPress, for example, is a general-purpose CMS based on PHP and MySQL.

So, what have we learned so far:

A WordPress website is a collection of web pages that are being managed by the content management system of the same name.

SECTION 2

Why Choose WordPress as Your Website Platform?

When we’re looking to pick a tool, we naturally lean toward something popular and battle-tested as those are good signs of reliability. In that essence, WordPress is often regarded as the king of CMS, having more than a third of websites on the internet running with its help.

How Many Websites Use WordPress?

According to a survey by w3techs.com WordPress is being used in 63.6% of websites that run on a known CMS and a grand 37.6% of all the websites on the internet. As you might have already thought – that’s a lot! 

And there is a good reason for the mainstream adoption.

Benefits of Using WordPress

1. Short Learning Curve

The learning curve is considered one of the shortest when it comes to understanding how to create a successful website using WordPress. 

2. No Coding Skills Required

Unless you want to heavily customize the tiniest details, there is absolutely no need for you to know programming code. The WordPress functionality can easily be extended with plugins and the looks of your website – changed completely with a wide variety of beautiful themes. Everything here is plug-and-play.

3. Loved by Search Engines

The WordPress code has been written with all the best practices in mind, thus improving the user experience of your visitors. And this is just the kind of thing search engines like Google want to prioritize in their search results. 

Of course, just using WordPress is not going to magically rank you #1 on Google. But is a great starting point for your SEO efforts and brings great potential for increasing your traffic.

4. Reliable

When it comes to software, there is always a (small) possibility that something might go wrong. Instead of searching for a platform with zero points of failure (which is practically non-existent), it’s much more productive to choose a platform that has a huge user base and an active community that is always ready to help. 

5. Free

Aside from web hosting and domain expenses, WordPress is a free website platform thanks to the open-source code under the GNU General Public License. This is a software license under which WordPress is distributed, that allows you to own a copy completely for free and modify it in any way you see fit.

6. Countless Customization Options

Using the world’s most popular platform draws in another benefit – a ton of WordPress website themes and plugins, readily available and completely for free via a one-click installation process.

At the time of writing, there are 7,544 themes and 56,995 plugins available. 

Recently, WordPress devs have also introduced Commercial Themes. These are WordPress website themes and just like the others, can be used or customized however you see fit. But this specific template type includes paid support services by the teams and organizations behind them. If you would like to have someone providing you with support exclusively for your project – this is easily the option for you.

Bottom line: With the right tools, you can be running a completely custom WordPress website in a matter of hours.

7. Start With a Blog, Grow Into Anything

Put enough effort into anything and you can make a business out of it. When the time comes to start your WordPress business website, make sure there are enough plugins available to meet your specific needs and business model.

Whether you want to enable your visitors to be booking events, compare products, or search through your content – odds are there is a plugin for it. You just have to dig a little.

WordPress Website Examples

WordPress is the go-to solution for many types of websites – blogs, magazines, business pages, online shops, news outlets. Its versatility allows for the core app to be customized so heavily, that it would take a detective to find out what the site is built with.

Here are some examples of notable brands that decided to trust WordPress for their online presence:

1. Sony Music

2. The New York Times

3. Beyonce

4. The Walt Disney Company

5. Sweden’s Official Website

These websites can easily be considered among some of the best WordPress websites on the Internet. And while some of them have had a lot of customization and development work done, you would be surprised as to how easy some changes can be made even without any technical experience. 

SECTION 3

How to Pick a Website Name and Buy a Domain and Hosting

Before we go into how to create a WordPress website, we need to make sure you have three essential components:

• A brand or website name
• Registering that name as a domain
• Ordering web hosting

Brand or Website Name

First things first – your new home on the internet needs a name to go by. This should be relevant to your project and your business name as well. If this is a hobby or personal project, the name can be practically anything, your creativity is the limit.

Whatever project and name you decide to go with, remember you can always register a different one later on and have your website tied to this new domain.

What Is a Domain?

The contents of the internet are stored on a vast network of computers. In order for anyone to access this content – the address of this computer must be specified. Every computer operates under its own unique, numeric address, known as an internet protocol (IP) address.

An IP address looks like this:

173.237.190.136

Can you imagine having to remember the addresses of your favorite websites in such a way? Thankfully, that’s where domain names come in!

A domain name is the human-readable name that is assigned to a computer’s address on the internet. For example, if you open up your browser and in the address bar type scalahosting.com you will actually be going to 173.237.190.136.

Domain names also include a domain extension. Let’s say we’re registering “yourname.com.” In this example, “yourname” will be the name of the domain, and “.com” is the extension.

Based on the extension, domain names can generally be:

1. generic (.com, .net, .org, .info, .biz)
2. country-specific (.es, .de, .jp)

All domain names and IP addresses are regulated by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – ICANN.

Due to the large number of registered domain names, several years ago ICANN introduced additional generic domain name extensions such as .club, .site, .xyz, and many others. Still, the most sought-after are the “classic” extensions such as .com, .net, .org as they have the biggest recognition among the general public. 

What is Web Hosting?

Just as a domain will give people easy access to your content, you need a computer to store that content as well.

That’s where web hosting companies come in.

Hosts basically store your content on their robust computers (called servers) in exchange for a yearly or monthly fee. Configuring a web server manually requires a myriad of settings, so the fee is often an investment well spent. 

Web hosts are also responsible for the “health” and performance of the server, so your website can be up and running and loading quickly at all times.

With your web hosting package you also get an ever-growing list of tools and services. Such include email services, spam protection, website usage statistics, app installation, and quite a few others.

What is a Web Hosting Plan?

Every web hosting company breaks down its services into plans. These packages cover different performance options and tools so they can better serve different business models. 

Generally speaking, the types of web hosting can be:

1. Shared web hosting – Renting a small portion of a very powerful server, which you share with many other website owners.
2. VPS hosting – Renting a virtual private server is the closest to owning your own dedicated machine. The VPS technology allows you and a few others to share the same machine, but in a much more efficient and secure manner, providing considerably higher performance.
   The virtual server can either be managed by the hosting company or operated by you (self-managed). The managed services include constant maintenance, optimization, monitoring, software installation, issue resolution, and more.
3. Dedicated servers – As the name implies, this is an entire server, dedicated to you and your project. Completely managed by yourself and fully customizable, this solution definitely tales some technical skills to master.

Choosing The Web Hosting Plan For You

When starting out, it’s perfectly okay to purchase the most basic web hosting plan and as your website grows – to upgrade accordingly. Most of the time, moving up the ladder is seamless, and you don’t risk having your WordPress website going offline during the process.

When choosing your new hosting provider, consider your specific needs and the requirements of your chosen software.

In fact, this rule applies to any website platform you might be using. Different software requires different server settings, so it’s only beneficial to pick a hosting plan specifically optimized for it.

How to Buy Hosting and Register a Domain Name

We’re now getting to the first essential step of setting up a WordPress website! Here is how to register your WP hosting plan and get a domain name for 1 year completely free of charge:

Stage 1 – Pick a WordPress Web Hosting Plan

1. Head over to ScalaHosting.com/wordpress-hosting.html and pick your desired WordPress website hosting plan.

2. Once you have selected a web hosting plan and a period for it, you will be redirected to the domain registration page.

Stage 2 – Register a Domain Name

1. Use the field on that page to enter a desired name and click the blue Check button to see its availability. You can also experiment with different domain name extensions in this step.

2. Once you click the Check button, if the domain name is already taken, you will be presented with alternatives based on your query.

3. Once you have picked a domain name, click Continue at the bottom of the page to proceed.

Note: Always check your spelling when registering a domain. Once registered, the name cannot be edited.

Stage 3 – Create Your Account and Complete Checkout

1. If you are already a customer, use the blue button at the top right corner of the page Already Registered? to log in and have the name associated with your existing account.

If you’re just starting out, you can either sign up with Facebook or Google, or fill out the fields in the Personal Information section and have your account created with those details.

Take your time and make sure to pick a password with a strength of at least 50%. Write it down to a safe place. A good practice is to use a two-word phrase that has capital letters and features a number or a special symbol (!!@#$%^&*) after each word.

2. In the Domain Registrant Information section make sure you enter valid information. The registrant information is your ID card on the internet and is required by ICANN to be valid at all times. Failure to do so can lead to many problems with potential domain transfers or ownership cases.

3. Below is the Order Summary section. Double-check your order to make sure the spelling of your domain is right. Once registered, it cannot be changed. 

You can pay for your new hosting plan by either:

• Credit or debit card
• PayPal
• Bank transfer

4. Before clicking the blue Complete Order button at the bottom of the page, make sure to read the Terms of Service (link opens in a new window) and check the associated checkbox as a confirmation.

5. Check the email you specified for the order with a sales receipt. Once your payment has been processed, you will receive a Welcome email with more information on how to log in to your web hosting control panel.

SECTION 4

How to Install WordPress

In this section of the tutorial, we will go over the steps on how to set up a WordPress website and how to create backups for it. 

Install WordPress on VPS Hosting

On ScalaHosting the VPS Hosting Plan is managed through SPanel. This is our free and lightweight alternative to the popular web management solution – cPanel.

In order to begin setting up WordPress, refer to the email you received from Scala when your account has been created.

1. Follow the link to SPanel. It should be something like this: https://yourdomain.com/spanel

2. Log in with your email and password. They should be available in the Welcome email as well.

3. The SPanel dashboard features a number of tools, menus, and indicators. What we are looking for is the Create an Account link.
You will find it first thing in the Quick Links section or in the vertical main menu under Accounts Management.

Creating a VPS Account

4. This page features four fields that are required to continue:

1. The Domain name field is the name of your website. Enter it in the format: yoursite.com
2. In the Username field, specify any name that makes sense to you.
3. The Password and Repeat Password fields are next. Refer to the strength meter below the fields to choose a strong passkey that contains upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and special symbols.
4. The last two fields of the page – Disk Space Limit and Inodes Limit – are a bit more advanced options. It’s easier to just leave the default values. Modify them only if you’re sure what you’re doing

5. Click the Create Account button to finish the account creation process.

6. As a confirmation of the account creation, you will be presented with something similar to the following:

Logging into your VPS Account

7. To access the newly created account, locate the Accounts Management section in the vertical main menu to the left side of the page. Select the List Accounts option.

8. On the next page, you should see a table with the accounts created on your VPS host. To the right end of the table row, there is a blue Actions button. Click on it and select Login from the menu that appears.

9. You are now logged into the account we previously created. Scroll to the bottom of the page and locate the Tools section. Click on the SWordPress Manager icon located within that section.

Installing WordPress via SWordPress Manager

SWordPress Manager is another one of ScalaHosting’s in-house developed tools. Its purpose is to simplify many of the essential actions related to building a website with the world’s most popular CMS.

Within the SWordPress Manager, we are presented with a very straightforward interface comprised of two sections: 

1) Install New WordPress Site

2) Existing WordPress Installations
Let’s begin the installation by focusing on the first field – Install New WordPress Site:

10. Since we are working with a single domain name, leave the Domain/Path field as is.

11. The following fields in this section – username, password, password confirmation, and email address – are for creating the administrative user with which you will use to manage your new WordPress website. Fill them out accordingly and click on the Install WordPress button to continue.

Note: The email address you specify here is used for admin notifications from the website (new comments, updates, password resets, etc.)
Also note: The Install WordPress button will remain gray until all fields are properly filled out.

12. Once you click the blue Install WordPress button, allow a moment for the installation to complete in the background.

13. Upon the successful end of the process, a confirmation message will appear.

Managing Existing WordPress Installations

Before navigating away from the SWordPress Manager, let’s take a moment to review what you can do within the Existing WordPress Installations section.

This section is basically a table, listing your active WordPress installations, one website per row.

There are two On/Off buttons to the right of the row. 

The Security Lock feature is used to prevent any changes to your website done by third parties. Once no one would be able to “write” code to your website as its contents will be “read-only”. Be advised that this protects the website from any changes, and this includes You! While this feature is active, you won’t be able to make theme modifications, plugin installations, and any updates.

The Auto Updates feature is used as an easy way to enable or disable updates for your website, including the WordPress core, themes, and plugins. It’s best to keep your Auto Updates options to On unless you’re having custom work done to your website. In that case, consult with your web developer about what will be the best approach.

The blue Actions button to the far right of each row will open a new menu for you.

The menu contains:

1. Change password – change the WordPress admin password
2. Clone – clone your entire website to a new folder
3. Uninstall – remove the corresponding WordPress website

Logging in

For further instructions, please refer to the section below, titled: WordPress Initial Setup

Steps for Installing WordPress on a Shared Web Hosting Account

1. To log in to your shared web hosting cPanel refer to the Welcome email for instructions or type your domain name in your browser and add a /cpanel after that.

Note: If you have just recently pointed your domain to your nameservers, accessing the control panel via the domain won’t work until the changes propagate globally. In such cases, refer to the welcome email for more instructions.

Your screen should look like that:

2. Type in your account username and password.

3. Upon successful login, you will see the main page for your cPanel. It is loaded with apps and various options.

4. Scroll down, to the very bottom of the dashboard and look for a section titled Softaculous Apps Installer.

5. Now that we’re in, all you need to do is click on the WordPress icon to enter the setup wizard.

6. On the WordPress Installer page, please locate the horizontal menu right under the WordPress logo.

7. On the blue Install button, click the triangle pointing downwards to open up the additional menus.

8. Select Quick Install from the menu.

The next page requires just a few fields to set up for the installation.

9. By default, the installer sets WordPress to a sub-folder called wp. If you wish to install the CMS in the root folder of your domain name – leave this field blank.

10. In the Admin Account section, enter the desired username and password for your admin user. As a rule of thumb, make sure your password is at least at 50% difficulty.

11. In the Admin Email field, type in the email where you would like to receive notifications on updates, comments, and other events related to your website.

12. There are two additional sections here – Select Plugin(s) and Select Theme where you can add a desired template and add-ons to include in the installation.

13. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. You can enter the same email, you used for the Admin user in the field below the blue Install button.

14. Press the blue Install button to initiate the installation. You will be presented with a progress bar to monitor how the installation is going. Please allow a couple of minutes for it to complete.

Once your WordPress setup is completed, you will receive an email with your login credentials and website address.

Logging in

For further instructions please refer to the section below, titled: WordPress Initial Setup

SECTION 5

WordPress Initial Setup

Now that your WordPress website is up and running, it’s time to customize it and make it your own. 

In this section, we’re going to work with some of the core adjustments for your website, its search engine visibility, page settings, and so on.

WordPress is designed to cater to people from any skill level and, for this reason, the administrative area includes both advanced and beginner settings.

Let’s check them out so you can get started with creating your content as soon as possible.

Logging Into the WordPress Admin

1. To enter your WordPress dashboard, just type your domain name followed by a /wp-admin at the end. The full address should look something like this: https://yoursite.com/wp-admin 

2. Now, enter the username and password you specified in the WordPress setup wizard and hit the Enter button on your keyboard.

3. Upon successful login you will be redirected to the dashboard – the place where you’ll be building your website. Welcome to WordPress!

Site Title and Tagline

1. Now that you are at the dashboard, locate the Settings link at the bottom of the main menu on the left hand side of the screen.

2. Clicking the Settings link will redirect you to the first sub-page of this menu – General Settings. This is where you will set the name and tagline (catchphrase) of your website.

Note: Different designs for your website, also known as Themes, might display the tagline differently or hide it altogether.

3. At the bottom of every settings page in the admin there is a blue Save Changes button that you must always click whenever you change anything.

Timezone

1. On the same General Settings page, you can scroll down to the Timezone drop-down. It looks like this:

2. Use it to pick the appropriate timezone for your location. This is an important setting related to tasks like post scheduling.

3. Remember to save your changes once you’re set.

To Search Engine or Not to Search Engine?

Since you are just starting out with your website, it’s important to keep search engines in mind from the very beginning and design your pages in a way that will complement your SEO efforts.

So, before you are fully ready to publish your project online, it’s best to discourage them from displaying your pages in the search results. To do this:

1. Locate the Settings menu to the left and click the Reading sub-page.

2. At the bottom of the page, there is a Search Engine Visibility checkbox.

To prevent search engines from indexing your site, make sure this checkbox is checked.

3. Click the Save Changes button.

4. Make sure to put a note somewhere that your site is currently not indexed and you should change that as soon as you’re ready to go live.

Allowing and Disallowing Comments

Comments on posts can be of great value to your blog, but can also be an unnecessary distraction or an easy gateway for spam. In WordPress, comments are enabled by default. To set up your commenting options:

1. Go to Settings and then Discussions on the left-side menu.

2. The first option here is the Default Post Settings which includes all the basic settings for the WordPress commenting system:

•  Attempt to notify any blogs linked to from the post
  When you write a post and you place a link within your text, that leads to another post on another WordPress site, the “recipient” will also receive a notification that you have linked to their blog post. This is known as Pingbacks.
•  Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks) on new posts
  If you leave this setting On, a notification will automatically appear in your blog post whenever someone links to it.
•  Allow people to submit comments on new posts
  Toggle this to enable or disable comments on your blog posts. Note that this setting can be overridden by the comments setting on your individual blog posts.

3. Click the blue Save Changes button to confirm your settings.

Permalinks

Permalinks are the bread and butter of your website’s structure. Every post and page on your WordPress website has a web address, also known as a URL. Permalinks define the structure of your URL.

To access Permalinks settings:

1. Click on the Permalinks link located near the bottom of your Settings menu.

2. There are quite a few options to pick from here and all of them are intended for different types of WordPress websites. If you are unsure how they work, avoid leaving the Plain setting on. Day and name and Post name are the most common ones.

3. To select a Permalink scheme, simply click on the name or the radio button on the left.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the Save Changes button to confirm your permalink changes.

Note: Permalinks practically change the addresses of your posts and pages, so it’s best to avoid changing them often. Once you change the structure of your permalinks, the old URLs will become invalid.

Viewing the Website as a Visitor

As we discussed at the beginning of this WordPress tutorial, visitors view content in the front end and administrators manage it on the backend.

From this point on, you will be making lots of changes that will affect the front end, so you will need a fast and easy way to alternate between the user and admin parts of your website.

1. Have a look at the top left corner of the WordPress admin dashboard.

2. There is a button with your website name (My Blog in our case) with a house icon next to it. Click on it.

3. You are now transported to the front end. Notice how the icon changed. It is now showing a gauge.

4. Click on the gauge icon to return to the WordPress admin (a.k.a. the backend).

SECTION 6

Working With Content

Types of Content in WordPress

The content of your website is divided into six major types:

1. Posts
   – appear as content displayed within a Category or a Tag on your blog;
   – can also be displayed as links on your website menus and sidebars;
2. Pages
   – appear as links on your website menus and sidebars;
   – unlike posts, can only be organized into pages and sub-pages;
3. Files
   – appear as download links in the content of your site;
   – inserted into posts and pages as a gallery of images;
4. Categories
   – used to group posts together;
   – can also contain other sub-categories, filled with their own posts;
   – each post must belong to at least one category;
   – posts can belong to multiple categories;
5. Tags
   – are used as a more fine-grained method for grouping posts together;
   – cannot contain items other than posts;
   – are optional for grouping posts, unlike categories;
   – posts can have multiple tags;
6. Comments
   – appear under posts as content submitted by your website visitors;
   – like files, comments do not have categories, tags, and parents.

Creating and Managing Content

Posts

To begin working with your content, click on the Posts option in the main menu.

When working with the other content types you will notice that the screens for Posts and Pages are very much alike, the same way it is for Categories and Tags.

Creating a Post

1. To start creating a post, click on the Add New button, located right next to the Posts title of the page.

2. Welcome to the Post Edit screen. You will see a welcome screen that tells you more about the Block Editor.

You can start the tutorial by clicking on the blue Get Started button or simply check it at a later point.

3. We can focus on adding text content by simply selecting one of the blocks and typing in it. 

4. On the right-hand sidebar you will see two tabs: Document and Block. Whenever you click on a block to add text, the sidebar will switch to the Block tab. Analogically, the global post settings are in the Document tab. For our current needs, we need to navigate to the latter.

5. Adding the post to a category is important for your website structure. You can assign any post by clicking on the Categories drop-down.

6. When the drop-down expands you will see there is only one category – Uncategorized. This is the default category where all posts without an assigned category go automatically.

7. Click on the Add New Category link to create a more specific category.
This will expand the section with two new fields:

8. Under the New Category Name label, type the name of your new category.

9. Click the Add New Category button to apply the changes. Our new category is now created and we have assigned our post to it.

10. Adding a tag to a post is even more straightforward. Click on the Tags drop-down, located right under the Categories section.

11. If you want to include multiple tags, you can separate them with commas. Hit Enter once you are done adding tags.

Note: When you are entering the name of a tag that already exists, WordPress will auto-complete it for you based on the first three characters you have entered.

12. When you are done creating your post, click on the Publish button at the top right corner of the page.

13. Once you choose to publish, you will need to confirm your choice. Make sure you are okay with the changes you’ve done on the post and press the blue Publish button once again.

14. The post is published and you can leave the Block Editor by clicking on the black and white WordPress-themed button.

15. Clicking on it will redirect you back to the Posts screen.

Updating a Post

Updating a post uses the very same mechanics we’ve been through in the previous section with the only difference that we will be addressing an existing post.

1. In the Posts screen locate the post you just created and move your mouse over its row.

2. Four links appear below its title. Click on Edit

3. You are now back at the Block Editor. Notice the top right corner where the blue Publish button was? It is now replaced by Update.

4. To test, make any minor change to trigger the Update button. It will turn dark blue once active.

5. Click on the Update button. A notification will appear in the bottom left corner of the page.

6. You can either click on the View Post link or move back to the WordPress Admin by clicking on the black and white WordPress logo, located at the top left corner.

Deleting a Post

Deleting a post is quite easy through the Posts screen. You can remove posts in two ways:

1. Deleting a single post is done by pointing at its row and clicking on the red Trash icon.

2. If you want to delete multiple posts, click on the associated checkbox and select Move to Trash from the Bulk Actions drop-down. 

Managing The Trash

Once a post is deleted, it goes to the Trash bin where you can either restore the post or delete it forever (just like the Trash on your personal computer). It is accessible only when there are posts or pages in it.

To visit the trash once you have deleted a post, refer to the corresponding link that is now visible under the title on the Posts screen.

The Trash screen uses the same mechanics to manage posts as the Posts section with the only exception of the Empty Trash button. The option is visible right above the posts list. Use it to empty the entire trash.

You can also remove single posts by clicking on the checkbox at the beginning of each row or delete them in bulk from the Bulk Actions drop-down.

Categories

The Categories screen can be accessed by clicking on Posts from the left-side menu and then following the corresponding option.

The post edit screen is comprised of two parts:

1. Add New Category section to the left
2. Existing Categories list to the right

Note: The Categories list is identical to the posts list and works in the same way when it comes to editing and deleting existing categories.

Adding a New Category

1. In the Add New Category section, type in the desired name of your category in the blank text field, labeled Name.

2. You can skip the Slug text field – this one is populated automatically.

3. Use the Parent Category drop-down if you would like to turn the category you are creating into a sub-category of another one.

4. The Description field is usually skipped as well – it is utilized by the WordPress themes for displaying a category description on the frontend but many templates don’t show this information anyway.

5. Once you are done filling out the text fields for the new category, click the blue Add New Category button at the bottom of the page.

Editing Categories

1. You can edit a category by moving the mouse cursor over its row and clicking Edit.

2. You are now at the Edit Category screen

3. Once you are done making any edits to the contents of the fields, click the blue Update button.

Deleting Categories

Just like your posts, categories are deleted either by hovering over their row in the Categories screen and clicking Delete or by using checkboxes and the Bulk Actions drop-down.

There is one difference, though.

Categories and tags do not have a Trash. They are permanently deleted.

Tags

The Tags screen is accessible by clicking on Posts → Tags.

Tags are managed the same way as categories. When creating a new tag, you will see fewer fields as tags are not hierarchical like categories.

It’s also worth pointing out that tags are best created when adding them to a post, in the Post Edit screen.

Files

To keep things beginner-friendly, we will only go through the process of attaching an image to a post and then removing it – both from the post and your file library.

Attaching image to a post

1. Start a new post by going to the main menu → Posts → Add New

2. In the block editor, note the two lines of text. The first one is the title of the post and the second one is the first block of the content. Click on the second line that says: “start writing or type / to choose a block”

3. The blinking text cursor will replace the text. Click on the circular button with a plus on it, to the right of the blinking text cursor.

4. The block menu will appear. Click on the Image icon.

5. The block in the post content now displays the image uploader. Pick an image from your computer by clicking the Upload button.

Removing Image From a Post

1. To remove the image block, click on the image and choose the option with 3 vertical dots.

2. Another menu will expand. Press the Remove Block button located at the bottom of the menu.

The block is now removed. Keep in mind the actual image remains stored on your website.

Removing Image From the File Library

1. Click on the main menu → Media

2. This will display the Media Library screen. You can switch to the content view by clicking the first button from the horizontal bar located under the title of the screen.

3. Now that we switched to a familiar interface (resembling the Posts screen), point to the row of the uploaded image and click on the red Delete Permanently link that appears underneath.

4. Upon clicking the link, a pop-up requesting your confirmation will appear. Click the Okay button to confirm the removal.

Pages

Pages are created, updated, and deleted the same way as posts.

To start working with them, click on the Pages link, located in the left-side menu. Once you are redirected to the next screen, you will notice everything is pretty much identical to what we’ve seen in Posts.

The main difference is that instead of setting category and tags, you can set an optional page parent.

SECTION 7

Changing the Structure of Your Custom WordPress Site

Setting the Homepage and Posts Page

By default, your WordPress website lists the last 10 posts on its front page.

In this section, we are going to take a look at a popular alternative – a static front page and a separate Blog page that lists the latest posts.

1. Click on Pages in the main menu.

2. Select the Add New option.

3. In the Add Title field enter the desired slogan for your page. You can change it or add content later on.

4. Expand the Page Attributes drop-down, located at the bottom right corner of the screen.

5. From the Template drop-down, select Cover Template.

6. Click the blue Publish button in the top right corner. Then, hit the Publish button once again to confirm the changes.

7. Once the post has been published online, go back to the Pages screen.

8. Repeat the previous steps to create a second new page, titled Blog, but don’t select a template for it.

9. Next, click on Settings at the bottom of the main menu.

10. From the expanded menu, select Reading.

11. The first option on this page is Your Homepage Displays. Switch the radio button from Your Latest Posts to A Static Page (select below).

12. Use the Homepage drop-down menu to select the slogan we created earlier.

13. Use the Posts page drop-down to select Blog from the list.

14. Click on the blue Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.

15. View the results of your work by switching over to the front-end – click the button with a house icon at the top left corner of the screen.

Please switch over to the WordPress admin before continuing to the next section of this tutorial.

Working With Menus

The Menus screen is accessed by clicking on Appearance → Menus.

The screen consists of two columns – Add menu items (for pages, posts, and other items) and Menu structure.

1. By default your website has no menus created. Start by entering a name and then click on the blue Create Menu button on the right.

2. Now that we created Main Menu, note that the Add menu items column turned active and Menu Settings appeared near the bottom.

3. Let’s start by adding a page to the menu. From the Add menu items column, click on the checkbox labeled Sample Page.

4. Now, click the Add to Menu button to confirm your choice.

5. The page titled Sample Page is now present in both the Menu Structure column and the Main Menu.

Make sure to click Save Menu after making any changes or they will be lost.

6. In order for the menu to appear on the front end, it needs to be assigned to a display location. Similar to sidebars, display locations are areas around your site that can have a specific type of content assigned to them, in this case – menus.

Click the checkbox labeled Desktop Horizontal Menu to assign the Main Menu to this location.

7. Click the Save Menu button again to confirm your changes.

8. Switch over to the front end.

9. Take note of the newly added link located in the top right corner of the page.

Working With Sidebars and Widgets

Sidebars are areas where Widgets are displayed. Widgets are pieces of content that can be pretty much anything – from your top 10 most commented posts, a search field, an email subscription form, or a calendar with dates when you posted.

The majority of themes use sidebars. When you visit the Appearance → Widgets page,

you will see a list of available widgets to the left and one or more sidebars to the right.

In the example below, these sidebars are called Footer #1 and Footer #2. 

Every WordPress theme includes:

1. a top section called a Header.
2. a bottom section called a Footer.
3. in some cases, there is a vertical section to the side, known as a Sidebar.

Assigning a Widget to a Sidebar

There are two very easy ways to assign a widget to a sidebar, both with their own use cases.

The first option is via drag-and-drop:

1. Just click and hold the left mouse button on a widget you choose.

2. Then, drag it over the chosen sidebar and rearrange the widgets there. A dotted line will appear to point out the location where the widget will be added once you release the mouse button.

3. Unlike most settings pages, rearranging widgets does not require you to save the changes manually.

If you are not a fan of the drag-and-drop functionality, you can try a different approach with widgets:

1. Just click on the widget of choice. It will expand with a list of the available sidebars, marking the first one by default.

2. Click on the sidebar name where you want the widget to appear.

3. Click the blue Add Widget button to confirm your choice.

4. The widget will now appear in the desired sidebar.

Common Widgets

As you can see there is a variety of widgets available out of the box that you can expand with an ever-growing amount of WordPress plugins. All widgets apply to different use cases and scenarios, so it’s up to you to test them out and decide for yourself.

A common approach for WordPress websites is having a Categories widget at the top of the sidebar, complemented by a Search widget at the bottom. The idea is that when a user looks through the entire sidebar and doesn’t find what they are looking for – they reach the search bar at the bottom.

SECTION 9

Backups and How to Backup a WordPress Website

Now that we are about to venture into a bit more technical part of the tutorial, let’s take a moment to talk about backups.

Data backups are an essential precaution when doing changes to your website, especially when you’re not 100% sure of the outcome. Nearly every time you install a new theme or plugin, you install different pieces of code, written by different people. This can sometimes create conflicts and cause things to break

For example, adding complex plugins to an existing WordPress website with more than 10 active add-ons, can easily cause a conflict in the database and break everything. Same goes for testing out different themes.

There’s also the security aspect. If a hacker gains access to your website and makes a mess – you are completely lost without a previous working version of your pages in another location.

That’s why you have to make a habit of backing up all your data regularly. If you are working on a live site, keep a recent backup file ready to restore at a moment’s notice.

Backups are available through plugins you can get for free from the WordPress plugin repository. Note that you need to refer to the plugin documentation for the specifics on how to backup and restore your website. 

SECTION 10

How to Choose a WordPress Website Theme

A big part of the process of how to make a WordPress website is focused on the theme. And there is a good reason for that.

What Are WordPress Themes?

Themes or templates, are WordPress website designs intended to be easily customizable. They provide a consistent change of the look and feel across your entire site. While it’s worth noting that not all themes are equally aesthetical and functional, with more than 7500 themes available in the WordPress theme catalog alone, it’s safe to say you can easily find something suitable for your needs.

Finding a WordPress Theme

As we mentioned at the beginning of this tutorial, the WordPress developer community is huge. There are dozens, if not hundreds of new website templates uploaded every day.

There are also plenty of places to browse WordPress website themes, both Paid and Free. You can start with the popular themes on WordPress.org.

Various studios that focus on WP site development, entered this space and along with them – even bigger platforms were created, known as marketplaces.

Types of Theme Licenses

Free

Free themes are usually shared under a type of GNU General Public License (GPL). This is a free software license that is intended to serve such open-source products without a proprietary owner.

Usually, software solutions with a GNU GPL license are free to edit and used either for commercial or personal purposes.

As can be expected, there is no exclusive support, but some developers and agencies actively maintain forums and groups intended for troubleshooting. A good resource for free themes is the various collections with free WordPress website templates in web design blogs such as ThemeForest and TemplateMonster.

Premium

Paid themes usually feature an online demo and a free trial. They have become an economy of their own and many places online offer visually stunning designs for WordPress websites.

First, there are the marketplaces – Theme Forest, which is currently the largest, and some of its alternatives – Mojo Marketplace and Creative Market.

Then there are web design agencies that have put out their own theme as a flagship product.

Such themes are:

• Astra (900,000+ users)

• Divi (700,000+ users)

• StudioPress (500,000+ users)

It’s worth mentioning that the price for a theme includes technical support from its creators. If you encounter a compatibility issue, it’s good to have someone to turn to instead of googling for a possible solution.

Freemium

The freemium business model allows users to download a premium WordPress theme with part of it’s features cut out. Practically a fully functioning demo version of a WordPress theme. 

In order to have the complete package, website owners are required to make a license purchase. Freemium themes are usually the highest quality in the “free” category as developers want to impress their users in order to drive a sale.

As for the support, you can most likely rely on online forums and groups for extra assistance. There is a chance they might be moderated by the theme creators since your feedback improves their product. 

It’s a win-win. And, of course, if you become a paying customer – you can expect exclusive support.

Installing a Theme Through the WordPress Themes Catalogue

1. From the WordPress Admin screen, head on to the main menu → Appearance → Themes

2. Similar to creating a post, click on the Add New button located near the title of the screen.

3. On the next page, you are presented with several ways of filtering themes. Head over to the search bar and type in Twenty Sixteen as this will be the theme we will use for this exercise. 

4. Move the mouse cursor to the desired result and the blue Install button will appear.

5. Clicking the button will trigger the configuration process. Wait for it to finish.

6. A blue Activate button should have appeared in place of the Install button. Click it to finish the installation.

Customizing Your New Theme

You can customize your new theme using the Theme Customizer.

The Theme Customizer is the first thing you need when you are wondering how to design a WordPress template yourself.

Access it by clicking on Appearance → Customizer in the main menu.

You will be redirected to the following screen:

When you create a WordPress website, the Customizer is a go-to tool as it allows adjusting the settings of the design and layout side by side, displaying the front-end of your website. This means that you get to see how every change looks without having to switch between the admin and the front end.

The only downside of the Theme Customizer is that it rarely includes all the options needed to fully customize the website. 

As an example of how the Customizer works, we will update the description on your site:

1. At the Customizer screen, click on Site Identity. The column will slide left, revealing a new one. You can always return to the previous column by clicking the back arrow near the title.

2. Change the content of the Tagline field to anything you like.

3. Once you are done editing the field, take note of how your website description changes in the left-hand part of the screen.

4. Save the changes by clicking the blue Publish button, located at the top of the column.

You can also click the X button at the top left corner of the Customizer column to return to the WordPress admin.

Security Considerations

The most important thing you need to know as a WordPress website owner is that every time you add a theme or a plugin to your website – a new piece of code is applied and hackers love to exploit code for their own malicious purposes. 

Therefore it’s a good security practice to delete themes you are no longer using. Same goes for your plugins and any third-party products you are not actively utilizing

SECTION 11

Working With WordPress Plugins

What are Plugins?

Imagine you’ve written a piece of code for your site that turns the background color to black every time there is a Black Friday. Now, you want to make it available to everyone running a WordPress project. 

Plugins are just that – add-ons you can apply to your WP site and change some of its underlying functionalities.

It’s worth mentioning that when major online retailers decide to release an official plugin offering integration between your site and theirs – WordPress is often first on the list.

Common Roles for WordPress Plugins

There are more than 56,000 plugins available in the WordPress plugin repository alone. With numbers like that, you can make a safe guess that whatever you need to add – there are tools for the job a couple of clicks away.

To give you a general idea of what you can expect, we’ll mention some of the more common areas where plugins are often employed:

• Content Design and Layout
  – Give your content a captivating and interactive look with sliders, multi-column layouts, drag-and-drop functionalities, and much, much more.
• System and Administrative Tasks
  – Make your website faster, set up automatic backups, protect your site from hacker attacks and spam, etc.
• E-Commerce
  – Serve customers and charge them for whatever goods or services you are offering regardless of their geolocation.
• Marketing
  – Collect email subscriptions, optimize for search engines (SEO), increase leads through your store, and track visitor activity.

Website Performance Considerations

Many plugins are built using software frameworks. Roughly speaking, those are collections of tools and components that save a lot of time and hassle when building software. They are usually bundled in a single package that is required for the software to run.

In the WordPress context, that means if you download a plugin built with Framework A and later encounter a different one that uses the same solution but a different version – the software framework will be loaded twice on your site in order to function. This causes redundancies in the size of your website and causes it to slow down and consume more resources than it normally would.

All you need to remember is that even if the add-ons are free – you are still paying for them with the performance of your site. 

A good practice when adding plugins is to always look for a more advanced solution that combines multiple functionalities instead of installing an extra tool for each.

Plugin Licenses

Just like themes, plugins have free, premium and freemium licensing.
Support goes the same way as with WordPress themes:

• forums and groups for free plugins
• exclusive email or ticket support for paid ones
• both if you are a paying customer of a freemium plugin.

Needless to say, these vary a bit, case by case.

Free

It can easily be said that most of the WordPress plugins are free. Whether someone is gaining experience as a developer or a studio is making a name for themselves – free add-ons are available to serve nearly any purpose. Just make sure the plugin you choose is actively updated and has a high user rating and you should be good.

Paid

Premium plugins usually offer an entire suite for your website or a service you can make money from, designed professionally and with exclusive ticket or email support.

Freemium

There a lot of advanced plugins. Examples includes plugins that allow you to run a fully-featured real estate agency on your site or a page builder that gives you a thousand templates and components to pick from.

Such plugins often offer a base package that is free and allow you to buy separate extensions to complement the specific needs of your project.

Finding the Right WordPress Plugins

When we talk about distribution, WordPress plugins and themes can often be found in the same place.

You can start off with the one-stop-shop for all your needs – the WordPress plugins catalog for free and freemium plugins. 

You can then explore marketplaces such as CodeCanyon, which is currently the biggest marketplace for premium plugins on the web. 

An alternative that’s been around since the early days of the internet is HotScripts.com. HotScripts offers a good collection of free and premium plugins. 

Lastly, a couple of smaller marketplaces that are still gaining traction, but worth checking out  – CreativeMarket and MOJO Marketplace.

Installing a Plugin via the WordPress Repository

1. Go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Plugins.

2. On the next screen, click the Add New button.

3. You are now browsing the WordPress plugins catalog. Use the search field on the right to find your desired plugin. For the purpose of this tutorial, let’s type “wordpress importer” into the search field.

4. WordPress Importer enables you to import previously exported content from another website. Click on the Install Now button, at the top right corner to add this plugin.

5. Observe the Install button plugin installation. Once configured – it will turn blue and change its name to Activate. You should click the button to successfully add to your WordPress website.

6. You are now back on the Plugins screen with a notification below the page title “Plugin activated.” The installation process is now completed and you can see where in the admin the plugin has registered.

In the main menu, click on Tools → Import and you will see the options for our WordPress Importer at the bottom of the page.

Note: Plugins usually appear in obvious places, such as the Settings menu, or they get their own link for easier management. If you are unsure where to find a plugin – always check the plugin documentation.

Managing Plugins

Now that we learned how to install plugins, let’s see what else can we do.

Deactivation

1. Return back to the Plugins screen by clicking main menu → Plugins → Installed Plugins.

2. On this page, you will find a table with the plugins on your website, both active and inactive. Locate WordPress Importer and click on the Deactivate option below its name.

Removal

1. The page will refresh and the row with WordPress Importer will no longer have blue background. You can now click on the red Delete button if you wish to completely remove it.

2. A pop-up window will appear as a confirmation. Make sure to click Okay. Once you confirm, the row in the table will display a confirmation message:

Settings

To avoid browsing through countless menus to find where your new plugin has registered, you can use the Plugins screen and directly switch over to its settings page.

1. Locate the row where your plugin resides
2. Make sure the add-on is active – its row will have a blue background
3. Click on the Settings link below the plugin title

Security Considerations

As with WordPress themes, a good security practice is to delete plugins you are not using. If you use some of them occasionally – at least keep them disabled until further needed.

7 WordPress Plugins to Get You Started

Unlike themes, which can be picked simply for the aesthetic appeal, plugins play a variety of roles in your website and we just can’t let you go without some recommendations. Of course, you still need to keep your website lightweight, so pick your add-ons wisely.

1. Elementor Page Builder
Usage: 5+ million active installations
Main Purpose: content editor

Rightfully advertised as “the best FREE WordPress Website Builder”. Page builders provide you with a palette of blocks you can drag and drop on your page to create complex layouts and interactive pages with various menus and animated components. Makes creating home pages and promo pages a piece of cake.

2.Contact Form 7
Usage: 5+ million active installations
Main Purpose: displays contact form to your visitors

A reliable plugin that enables you to create a contact form with custom fields and attributes.

3. WPS Hide Login
Usage: 600,000+ active installations
Main Purpose: hides the WordPress admin login page

The WordPress admin login page is the most commonly attacked part of your WP website. This add-on changes the default address for accessing the admin to anything you like.

You can turn that address into a password of your own. Once active, the original /wp-admin address will bring a Page not Found error message to anyone who tries it.

4. UpdraftPlus WordPress Backup Plugin
Usage: 2+ million active installations
Main Purpose: creates and manages backups

As we discussed, backups are crucial when you are working on a live site and UpdraftPlus is one of the best tools to manage them. You can schedule automatic backups or create archives manually. Make sure to carefully read the plugin documentation on how to create and restore backups.

5. WP Fastest Cache
Usage: 1+ million active installations
Main Purpose: website performance improvements

Every time a visitor loads a page on your site, WordPress needs to load dozens of files and piece them up into a single web page. This process makes visitors wait and wastes precious server resources.

With this simple, yet powerful plugin, you can have your visitors access directly the ‘assembled’ web page, cutting down the page load time dramatically.

Note: Might not work well with JetPack.

6. JetPack
Usage: 5+ million active installations
Main Purpose: easier website management

Created by WordPress themselves, this toolkit is what you need to: 

• improve website load times
• protect against spam
• monitor uptime
• visitor analytics
• website monetization with PPC ads
• PayPal button integration

7. Classic Editor
Usage: 5+ million active installations
Main Purpose: text editing

WordPress now works with the Gutenberg block editor we used earlier. Still, if you are one of those people that still isn’t used to the new interface – the Classic Editor is the plugin for you.

Note that if you decide to use page builders such as Elementor – you might need this plugin as well.

SECTION 12

How WordPress E-Commerce Works

Whether you are looking to start your first online business or to supplement your brick-and-mortar store – combining one of the most disruptive technologies ever created with the most popular content management system is certainly a good idea.

Some E-Commerce Basics

Electronic commerce (or e-commerce) is the transaction of goods and services over the internet. Nowadays you can order nearly anything online – from clothes, furniture, and medicine to tickets, consultancy services, and art. 

E-commerce websites can be retailers (Amazon) that allow you to order directly from their warehouses or marketplaces (eBay, Etsy) that provide a platform for buyers and sellers to directly connect for a sale.

Types of WordPress E-Commerce Websites

There are quite a few plugins out there that allow you to create a WordPress business website. To give you an idea of the variety, here are a few things you can sell with the appropriate add-on:

• event and travel tickets;
• apartment and office rentals;
• bookings for guided tours and weekend getaways;
• retail products (anything from computer parts to flip-flops);
• appointments for consultancy services;
• software and music (digital products that can be downloaded after purchasing);
• subscriptions for streaming services.

Marketplaces and classified sites are not part of the list above for a good reason. They fall in a bit of a gray area, compared to the standard ecommerce shopping process. They are actually more of an intermediary service where the owner provides a place for buyers and sellers to interact and charges the seller a small fee for each transaction.

The WordPress E-Commerce Process

We can now focus on the transactional process between a happy shopper and the e-commerce website they are visiting. There are some specifics in the e-commerce process for some of the business models we mentioned, but the general gist is that your WordPress shop consists of:

1. A page on your website that serves as a products/services catalog

2. Shopping cart where you add purchased items

3. A checkout processor to calculate delivery and collect customer data

You will also need a payment processor to:

1. Offer different payment methods (ex: debit card, PayPal, Skrill)

2. Deposit the processed payment to your account

3. Redirect the customer to a “Thank You!” page as confirmation for the successful order

All of the above are possible with…you guessed it…the right WP plugin!

7 WordPress Plugins for E-Commerce

WordPress plugins for e-commerce are bit different than the rest. They can range from simple product catalogs to more complex ones that estimate delivery time or manage availability for events and apartment rentals.

Here are 7 e-commerce plugin recommendations, based on the goods and services we mentioned at the beginning of this section. We are including e-commerce-only plugins that allow you to sell your own product or service.

The list excludes business models such as dropshipping and affiliate marketing. 

1. WooCommerce

The most widely used WordPress e-commerce plugin. While most similar solutions come as an out-of-the-box product with a singular purpose, WooCommerce has its own developer community and a variety of plugins and themes, specifically designed for it.

It’s like WooCommerce acts as a separate platform within the WordPress platform.

2. BigCommerce

BigCommerce is an enterprise-grade e-commerce platform, powering one of the biggest retailers on the web. Offers integration with WordPress via a free plugin. A lot of your e-store is handled by the BigCommerce servers which allows you to take a load off your WordPress hosting to ensure optimized security and performance.

3. The Events Calendar

Free and feature-rich plugin for booking virtual and in-person events. It comes with its own search engine and Google Maps integration. The Events Calendar offers a proprietary library of paid and free extensions that you can use to collect ticket payments via PayPal and start your own community, enabling members to submit to their favorite events and performers.

4. Appointment Hour Booking

The Appointment Hour Booking plugin comes with a free and several commercial versions, starting from €5.99 per month. It’s intended for booking consultations, trainings, courses, and similar services over a predefined schedule and calendar. Features add-ons for integrations with popular platforms such as Zoom, reCaptcha, MailChimp, and SalesForce. 

Supports a number of payment providers: 

• PayPal Standard
• PayPal Pro
• Stripe
• Skrill
• Authorize.net
• TargetPay/iDEAL
• Mollie/iDEAL
• SagePay
• Redsys

5. Paid Member Subscriptions

An excellent plugin if you are running a WordPress website focusing on member-only content. Paid Member Subscription is advertised as a complete membership solution allowing you to manage members, create subscription and hierarchical plans (ex: Free, Silver, Gold), and restrict access to premium content.

Paid Member Subscriptions collects payments from your members via PayPal and is free to download.

6. Easy Digital Downloads

Easy Digital Downloads is a very popular solution for selling downloadable products on WordPress. Features a shopping cart, checkout form, detailed reporting, and a number of thoughtful extensions. One of its best perks is the product file protection, which you can use to prevent unauthorized access. 

Supports payments through PayPal Standard and Amazon Payments. Additional 11 payment processors are available as premium extensions.

7. Easy Property Listings

A freemium plugin intended for real estate agents and agencies. Easy Property Listings features a number of customizations, making it adjustable to the market you operate in. This is the only plugin on the list that doesn’t feature a payment processor.

Easy Property Listings can be used to generate a list of available properties based on your client criteria and offers professionally designed listings, among a number of other features. Extendable with 25 paid extensions.

SECTION 13

Editing the Code of Your WordPress Website

Since this tutorial is for beginners, we’re assuming you are not familiar with things such as HTML, PHP, CSS, and JavaScript.

Editing the code of your website is a technical undertaking and is not recommended for novice users as it can break your website completely. It’s not just about knowing how to edit a WordPress website, but also being familiar with various programming concepts and best practices.

Of course, if you’re feeling adventurous you can do some minor edits such as pasting your Google Analytics code. Just keep in mind the following:

1. Changes will be overwritten if your theme is updated.
2. Always back up your website before making changes.
3. Have your backup ready to be restored at a moment’s notice.
4. Always have a single copy of a certain javascript, loaded on your page.

When Do You Need a Developer?

When you hire a developer to work on your site, they will copy your website on a staging area. They will make all the required changes, test, and fix technical issues. Once everything is properly working – the developer copies these changes over to your live site.

This approach allows for complex changes to the code without risking the performance of your online project.

Introduction to the WordPress Theme Editor

This section is provided as a brief introduction on how to edit your WordPress website directly from the admin dashboard. Note that edits you make here will be overwritten by updates.

You can find the Theme Editor at the bottom of the Appearance section in the main menu.

When visiting the Theme Editor for the first time, WordPress will display a warning message:

Click the blue I understand button to continue and permanently disable the warning.

The Theme Editor is basically a text editor with a list of files next to it. The main column to the left, titled Selected File Content, is for editing files. You can also use Theme Files to select the desired piece of code. 

Every time someone visits a page on your website, WordPress takes most files from the Theme Files list and combines them together into one – our web page.

The Theme Editor also displays the currently active theme for your site. If you want to edit another template – use the drop-down menu to the top right of the screen, labeled Select Theme to Edit. Once you have picked another theme, make sure to click the Select button to switch over to it.

Working With JavaScript Tracking Codes

Most commonly, the Theme Editor is used for placing JavaScript code provided by various counters and trackers that website owners utilize. This could be Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, or any other website analytics or marketing service.

When pasting custom code, always make sure to carefully read the installation instructions beforehand.

Usually, JavaScript code is placed in either: 

• the header.php file containing:
  • the <head> section of the web page.
  • the beginning of the <body> section of the web page
• or the footer, at the very bottom of your page.

The <head> section is at the very top of the web page’s code and contains technical information, such as the page title. 

The <body> section is responsible for holding your content together on the screen and making it visible to you and your visitors.

Bear in mind that when we talk about tags and files, we assume that whichever theme you are editing, it is created in accordance with WordPress’ Developer Handbook.

Not all templates are designed the same way, so there is a chance your layout doesn’t have a <head> or <body> tag.

Testing for Editing Capabilities

It’s becoming more and more common for the Theme Editor to be disabled by your web hosting provider for security reasons. After all, anyone who gains access to the admin, can do a ton of damage to your hosting account.

To test if the Editor is enabled just make sure you:

• haven’t done any changes to the code
• are at the Edit Themes screen

Press the blue Update File button located at the bottom left corner of the screen, right below the editor.

If you receive an error message after updating the file, it’s best to contact technical support and request this restriction is lifted for your hosting account.

Working With JavaScript

For the purpose of this exercise, we are providing you with a JavaScript code that will display a small window with an OK button on it upon page load.

Sample JavaScript Code

<script>alert(‘This is JavaScript’);</script>

Note: Most of the HTML page elements have an opening and a closing tag. In the sample below, we are looking at <script> and </script>.

Locating Files In The Theme Editor

By default, you start out with the Stylesheet (style.css) of your selected theme. This file will be selected every time you visit the Theme Editor.

The more important files of any WordPress theme follow a specific naming logic, such as:

• Stylesheet, for the style.css file
  
• Theme Header, for the header.php file
  
• Theme Footer, for the footer.php file
  

Each one of these is present only once in your theme. As you can see, their name is always followed by the filename, in brackets below. 

Updating Header.php

If you’re wondering where to place a JavaScript code in the header – it can be either before the closing </head> tag or right after the opening <body> tag.

HTML follows a tree-like structure of indentations, meaning if a tag is contained within another one, in most cases, it will be indented with a few spaces:

Use this knowledge to your advantage and read through the beginning of every line until you locate the closing </head> tag and the opening <body> tag.

To open a new line, simply click in front of the </head> tag and hit Enter on your keyboard.

Now copy the JavaScript sample from this article and paste it in the new line we just opened.

Your code should look something like this:

Previewing Changes in the Front End

Now, press the blue Update button below the text editor and proceed to the front end of your website. Refresh the web page and you will be presented with a pop-up window that features the text This is JavaScript and an OK button.

Depending on your browser and operating system, the pop-up should look something like this:

1. Now let’s switch over to the back end and revert the changes.
2. Go to Appearance → Theme Editor and load the Theme Header (header.php) file from the list on the right.
3. Select the entire line and delete it. Double-check that you haven’t deleted any other characters by accident as this will break your web page.
4. Hit the Update File button to save the changes.
5. Always test what you’ve done, just to be sure. After heading back to the front end and refreshing the page, there should be no pop-up this time

SECTION 14

Conclusion

We hope you found this guide on how to build a website using WordPress useful. Your WordPress journey is just beginning as is a lot more to be learned. 

For more information, check out our growing archive of WordPress articles in the ScalaHosting Blog.

Table of contents: Getting Started with Shared Hosting

• What is shared hosting
• Activation of your account
• Accessing your hosting Control Panel
• Set up your domain name
• Create a new website or transfer an existing one
• Set up your free SSL certificate
• Set up your email
• Getting support
• Refer friends and get $50 per signup

What is Shared Hosting?

Shared hosting means that you will be using the same server as other website owners. Your websites are situated on the same physical machine, and you share its resources (CPU, RAM, disk space, network). That’s why, shared hosting is the least expensive type of hosting in the world. 

At the same time, it is an ideal solution for personal websites such as: blogs, portfolios or forums. Shared hosting is also easy to manage, since no technical skills are required. 

Activation of Your Account

Your shared hosting account will be automatically activated upon receiving payment, and you can immediately start using the service. A negligible number of orders get flagged for manual verification where action on your behalf is required before we can activate the service.

Accessing Your Control Panel

The login details to access your shared hosting control panel are provided in the Welcome email, which we send to you right after your service gets activated. That control panel is the place where you manage your hosting account and where you can:

• add/remove emails, databases or domain names
• create/remove email forwarders and autoresponders
• generate/restore backups or just get information about the account such as disk usage
• manage files
• create and manage databases
• set up SSL certificates
• and many more.

With our shared hosting plans you will be using cPanel – a popular control panel used by around 90% of all web hosting servers.

Log in to cPanel

1. Go to the Login URL from your Welcome email
2. Type the username from you Welcome email in the Username field
3. Type the the password from your Welcome email in the Password field
4. Click Log in.
5. You will be redirected to the cPanel homepage.

Set up Your Domain Name

The domain name is the address of your website which people type in their web browser in order to visit it. Each website needs its own domain name. 

To configure the domain to work with your website, you need to register it and point it to your hosting account. That is done by setting the proper nameservers for the domain name at your domain registrar and allowing up to 24 hours of propagation time for the change to take effect globally.

The nameservers are included in the Welcome email of your hosting service and you need to set them to your domain. After you do that, each time someone types in your domain name in the browser’s address bar, they’ll actually load the website from the right server (your server).

If you ordered your domain name from ScalaHosting, you don’t need to do anything, as we have already set the correct nameservers for it. If you ordered your domain elsewhere, you need to log into your domain registrar’s control panel to set the nameservers found in your Welcome email. If you are migrating an existing website from another server, you can wait for the transfer to complete before switching the nameservers. That way, you can avoid downtime.

Create a New Website or Transfer an Existing

If you are creating a new website, you need to bear in mind that some applications require a correctly pointed domain to work. You can point the domain following the steps outlined in your Welcome Email, or you can use other techniques (e.g., editing your hosts file or setting up an Under Construction page) to develop the website before launching it publicly.

If you are uploading your website manually via FTP, you need to upload the files to the public_html directory (the document root of your account’s primary domain). Alternatively, you can use the Softaculous 1-click Script Installer in the control panel to install your desired application such as: 

• WordPress
• PrestaShop
• OpenCart
• Magento

If you want to transfer an existing website, you should be aware that we can do that for you at no extra cost, without downtime. The only thing you have to do is to provide us with the login details to your old server via a ticket to our technical support team. 

We’ll use this information to copy all the data including files, databases and emails. After the data is successfully migrated, we’ll verify that your website loads correctly from the new server. Then, you can change the nameservers to the ones provided in your Welcome email and complete the transfer without even a second of downtime.

To request the migration of an existing website you simply open a ticket from your Client Area, include the login details to your server, and specify the date and time when you want the migration to take place.

Set up Your Email

Before you can start sending and receiving emails, you need to create an email box and configure it on your favorite email client. Alternatively, you can use the webmail that is accessible from any browser.

To create an email account, simply log into cPanel, click on Email accounts – Create button and follow the on-screen instructions.

To configure your email in your mail client, use the information below:

• POP3/IMAP/SMTP server: mail.yourdomain.com (the option “My SMTP server requires authentication” must be enabled)
• Username: enter the whole email address e.g. john@yourdomain.com
• Password: the password you specified when you created the email
• Ports information
  • SMTP: 465 (with SSL), 25 (without SSL)
  • POP3: 995 (with SSL), 110 (without SSL)
  • IMAP: 993 (with SSL), 143 (without SSL)

The exact details are also available in your Welcome Email, which you can find in your Client Area under the My Details > Email History.

We recommend configuring your email client with the SSL encrypted ports for maximum security.

You can access your email box via webmail at yourdomain.com/webmail.

Getting Support

ScalaHosting provides round-the-clock technical support via two channels: 

• Live chat with instant response
• Ticket system with 15-minute average response time

We’ll try to resolve all issues via our live chat system. However, if a more detailed instructions is needed, opening a support ticket may be a better option. Sometimes, to verify your identity, we may ask you for your Support PIN code, which is available under the My Details > Account Details menu in your Client Area.

On both live chat and tickets, your issue will be looked into immediately. We strive to respond to any queries within 30 seconds to customers contacting us via live chat and 15 minutes to those posting a ticket.

Refer Friends and Earn $50 per Signup

Tell your friends about ScalaHosting so they can enjoy great hosting too. You’ll get $50 per signup. More information is available in the Referral Program section of your Client Area.