Whether you’re starting a new project or your existing blog has moved beyond the WordPress.com or Medium world, at some point you’re going to want to dive into the world of hosting. This is a one-stop shop that’ll give you the information you need to get started.
Whether you’re deciding whether to take the hosting plunge at all, comparing your options, you’re focused on trying WordPress or you’re looking at more advanced tooling and systems, here are the best written resources we could find.
Introductions and Comparisons
- OK, so all you know is you need a website, and it needs something called “hosting”. Here’s everything you need to know about “hosting”.
- Why self-hosting your website can be a bad idea.
- The pros and cons of cloud-hosting.
- To www or not, that is the question.
- The ultimate beginners guide to setting up and running a WordPress site.
- A review of SiteGround, our recommended hosting choice.
- A beginner’s guide to website staging.
- How and why to create disaster plans for your sites.
- An intro to multi-domain and reseller plans.
- Or maybe what you really want is an online store – here’s how to choose the right hosting to make that a success.
WordPress
If the project you’re hosting is a blog or portfolio site, chances are you’ll opt for the world’s most popular content management system, WordPress. We have a whole section on the site that explores WordPress in detail, but here are some initial resources to make that experience pleasant and effective.
- Already have a WordPress site on WordPress.com, but want to go for the full WordPress experience? Here’s how to migrate from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.
- How to migrate a WordPress site to a new hosting provider.
- If you’re rather not delve into the code yourself, here are 5 of the best WordPress site builders.
- How to synchronize WordPress live and development databases.
- Essential WordPress plugins for Solopreneurs.
- How to optimize a WordPress site’s performance.
- Why staging environments are critical for WordPress sites.
- 7 tips for setting up WordPress, for beginners
- The 5 best WordPress themes for SEO visibility.
Maintenance and security
- Once you’ve got a WordPress site you love, you’ll need to keep it safe, sound, and working well:
- Here’s your regular WordPress maintenance checklist.
- And here’s how to keep it secure
- And when all else fails: how to back-up your WordPress site.
Slightly More Advanced
- Which browsers should your site support?.
- Wait, what’s HTTP/2?
- How to make your site lightning fast, with prefetching
- If you’re on WordPress, an outline of 5 ways WP-CLI automation can save you time.
With these resources under your belt, you should be able to get your next project up and running and out to your audience with no trouble. But if you still have questions, drop us a line in the comments!
Adam RobertsAdam is SitePoint's head of newsletters, who mainly writes Versioning, a daily newsletter covering everything new and interesting in the world of web development. He has a beard and will talk to you about beer and Star Wars, if you let him.
