If you’re planning to go the self-hosted WordPress route, you are going to need a domain and hosting. Nowadays, you can purchase your domain from pretty much anywhere that provides hosting services. This makes it super quick, easy, and convenient to set up your self-hosted sites.
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Luckily, I have decided to go with Bluehost (Affiliate Link) when I set up Nine-Five to Freedom. Partially due to the fact that I wanted to set up Nine-Five with WordPress. Bluehost makes it SUPER easy to set up. I am going to go through the steps to get your Bluehost account set up, and get you rocking your WordPress website in a matter of minutes!
WHAT IS HOSTING?
Bluehost make hosting pretty simple to understand…
“When you set up an online business, you have a series of files, images, and HTML code that make up your website. These files take up space and need a place to live. Without an online home, your files would just sit on your computer and no one would ever see them. Web hosting companies provide a place on a server to store all of your files and are responsible for delivering the files of your website as soon as a browser makes a request by typing in your domain name.” – What is Web Hosting?
You will need both a domain and a host to get your website up and running. Luckily, Bluehost allows you to do both! Don’t worry if you already have a domain. Even if you’ve purchased a domain from some other site, you can still use Bluehost for your hosting.
HOW MUCH IS BLUEHOST?
Bluehost is relatively cheap when looking at the competition.
I would opt for the Choice Plus, package if you can afford that. The SpamExperts, Domain Privacy, and CodeGaurd Basic are worth spending the little extra money. When it’s all said and done, you will be saving a lot of money using the most “expensive” Bluehost package. If you are uncertain about going the self-hosted route because of WordPress.com’s Free hosting, I recommend taking a look at WordPress.com Vs WordPress.org. Here I break down exactly what you get with each, and how much I spent on this website so far. This is in comparison to how much it would’ve cost be me to use WordPress.com’s Business Plan.
CHOOSING A BLUEHOST DOMAIN
After you have chosen a plan for Bluehost (Affiliate Link), you will need to choose a domain (if you don’t already have one).
Just type whatever domain you want, into the search, and Bluehost will tell you if that domain is available. If the Bluehost domain you want isn’t available, you can try various suffix’s as well. You can try searching for Bluehost domains in the box below as well:
NOTE: I would recommend sticking to the more popular
“.com, .net, .org” if you can at all help it. When it comes to SEO or Search Engine Optimization, the .com’s, .net’s, and .org’s tend to be recognized as more trustworthy websites. This isn’t a huge factor in your rankings, but it can have a slight effect.
SETTING UP AN ACCOUNT
Now that you have your hosting package selected and your Bluhost domain chosen, you will need to set up a Bluehost Account.
You can either log-in with Google (which is what I did for my site), or you can fill out the information in the form. If you choose to sign in with Google, these will be the credentials you use for your Bluehost Login. If you choose to fill out the form before continuing on, your email will be your login username.
BLUEHOST PACKAGE INFORMATION AND EXTRAS
Here you will select an Account Plan and any additional add-ons you would like for your Bluehost account.
For the Account Plan, I went with the full 36 Month Plan. This is the cheaper (per month) option and I won’t need to worry about renewing my hosting every year. If you want to see how this compares to WordPress.com’s hosting you can check out the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
Depending on what you plan to use your site for will most likely determine what add-ons you select:
- Will you be monetizing your site?
- Will you be driving a ton of traffic to your site?
- Will you be selling anything on your site?
- Will you be accepting personal and payment information on your site?
At the time of writing this, SSL certification is included with your Bluehost account. If this is no longer included with the package, I would HIGHLY recommend adding this to your package. ESPECIALLY if you are planning to take payments on your website.
SETTING UP WORDPRESS
Now you should have a Bluehost domain and a Bluehost account. The next step is to get logged into your WordPress site.
Getting into WordPress from Bluehost (Affiliate Link) is extremely simple. After you have logged into Bluehost, you should see an option for “My Sites” on the left-hand side of the Bluehost web page.
Here, you will select the domain you purchased and you should be directed to your WordPress site. After you have logged in to WordPress, you can easily get back to your website by going to Bluehost.com, logging into your account, and selecting “Log Into WordPress.”
One important thing to note. After you have your Bluehost account set up and you are logged into WordPress, no one will be able to visit your site just yet (They will most likely see the “WordPress Site Coming Soon” banner).
BLUEHOST – COMING SOON PAGE
After you have finished designing your website and you are ready to take it live for the world to see, you will need to log-in to your WordPress site and go to Settings. There you will select General and scroll all the way to the bottom of the page where it says, “Bluehost Coming Soon Page.” It should currently be set to “Enable – On.” Just click “Off” and your website will be live a view-able to anyone who types in your web address.
SETTING UP BLUEHOST – SUMMARY
If you are planning to run your website for a while, and are hoping to monetize the site in any way, going the self-hosted route is a must! WordPress.com may seem like a valid “Free” option, but it will end up costing you more in the long run (in addition to the limited customization in WordPress.com). You can see my WordPress comparison here.
I highly recommend Bluehost (Affiliate Link) for hosting. If you don’t already have a domain, this can be a simple, cheap way to get your domain and hosting from one service. I prefer Bluehost because I have had issues with GoDaddy in the past. I have had zero issues with Bluehost thus far.
After you have purchased your Bluehost Domain and Hosting, setting up and logging into WordPress is a simple click of the button. As scary as self-hosting sounds, Bluehost has made it extremely easy to get your website up and running within minutes.
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QUESTION OF THE DAY
What has prevented you from getting your website/business started?
I am an entrepreneur and adventure enthusiast, looking to break free from the Nine-Five grind. I'll show you what has worked and is currently working for me, as well as what hasn't worked so well.
Great article. I think this will definitely help a lot of people setting up their site so they dont have to figure it all out by themselves.
I have had very similar issues with go daddy as well. I would also recommend staying away from them.