Getting a website live on your own domain requires some preparation. This can get a little technical, but stay tuned!
Domain management
Your domain is like your online address: something like angrycreative.com – it’s what people type in to find your website.
To use your own domain with a website, you need to register the domain with a domain registrar. We like hover.com for this, but 123-reg.co.uk and ukreg.com are also common choices and they’re pretty competent when it comes to domain management.
Name server management
Name servers are the internet’s address lookup service. When a computer wants to know where to send someone looking for a website on angrycreative.co.uk, it asks a name server where it can find it – in return, the name server gives the computer an IP address (something like 176.58.125.140) which is the actual server address where the website is located. The computer then sends its message directly to that IP address.
Usually, good domain hosts give you free DNS (Domain Name Server) management tools as part of a domain host’s package using their own nameservers. The bad ones charge extra for this and the worst ones don’t even offer it. So it is possible (and sometimes desirable or necessary) to use another name server provider.
We need access to the domain and/or nameserver management control panel, or you need to make some DNS changes to put your new site live.
We don’t provide domain name management – but we can help you with the whole process, so don’t worry if it was a bit of a hassle!
Web hosting and maintenance
Once you have a domain and your site is ready, you’ll need a web host somewhere and it’s very important to keep WordPress up to date. We offer web hosting and maintenance for WordPress sites. Full details and pricing can be found here.
There are plenty of other web hosting options for WordPress: to run WordPress, you simply need a server that can handle PHP and a MySQL database. But to run WordPress really well, we always recommend using a specialist web hosting provider.
Website backup
It is very important to back up your website. With database-driven sites like WordPress, it becomes even more important because content can change regularly. Regular, rolling backups are the best defence against file corruption, hacking, accidental deletion of content, etc.
There are two options that we recommend:
- We include daily, rolling backups as part of our managed WordPress hosting service – however, this is only available to us, and you will be dependent on us for any restores.
- Use a service provided by WordPress called VaultPress. This will back up (in real time) your database and files as well as providing additional functionality, all accessible via a plugin within your WordPress CMS.
More information about WordPress backups can be found here: http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Backups
Email and other supporting ‘infrastructure’
We can help you set up email and other services for use with your domain or website – just ask!
Executive Summary
The purpose of this article was to clearly explain what you need to organise to run a WordPress site on your own domain. In short, this is it:
- A domain (with DNS management as part of the hosting package)
- Web hosting (which we can provide)
If you’d like to talk about hosting with us or just get help getting all this in place, contact us today!