Hello and welcome to this tutorial on how to start your WordPress website on a cloud hosting server without any coding or technical knowledge. WordPress is one of the most popular platforms for creating websites.

In this tutorial, we will guide you through the step-by-step process of setting up your WordPress website on Cloudways.

We’ll cover everything from selecting a hosting plan and launching your server to installing WordPress and configuring your website.

So whether you’re new to WordPress or looking to migrate your existing website to a better hosting solution, this tutorial will help you get started with Cloudways and take your online presence to the next level. So, let’s get started!

Step 1: Register on Cloudways

First, you have to register on Cloudways to start. You can use the link in the article to register, and you will get a free $25 credit for testing this platform.

Once you go to this page, click the “Start Free” button. You will be redirected to this page, where you can enter your name, email, and password and choose from two drop-down menus to fill out your information.

Also, you can use quick signup options like the GitHub account, the LinkedIn account, or the Google account. I already have an account, so I log in here by entering my email and password.

Step 2: Setup the Cloud Server

After you enter this platform, you will be automatically redirected to this form, where you can deploy your server.

They provide 5 cloud server providers to choose from, DigitalOcean, Vultr, Linode, Amazon Web Service, and Google Cloud Platform.

We are going to host a WordPress website on this cloud server. So select the latest version of WordPress as the application. Once you select it, 3 text boxes will appear; here you have to name your application, server, and project. You can use any name you like.

Next, we have to select a cloud server provider to host your WordPress site. You can select a server size according to your web traffic.

If you are a beginner, you can select a low-power server. When your site starts to grow, you can easily upgrade your server. I will show you how to do that later in the video.

You can see the prices at the bottom of the page; AWS and the Google Cloud Platform’s servers are much more expensive than those of other providers.

After you select a server size, you can select a server location as well. You can choose a location based on your needs. If you are going to run a local website, you can choose the location nearest to your service area.

Now all you have to do is click the “Launch Now” button and wait a few minutes until it finishes the deployment.

Step 3: Server Features and Configurations

When you see this green dot, that means your server is up and running. Next, we have to connect a domain to our website.

Before that, let me show you some server features and settings that might help you manage this server.

Here you can stop, delete, and restart your server when you need it. Also, you can add a new application to it, transfer the server, and make a clone.

Server Management

When you click on the server, you will be redirected to the “Server Management” section.

Here you can see your server credentials, including SSH, IP address, and a feature to run a web terminal without connecting through an SSH connection.

Monitor Section

Next, you have a monitor section that has server parameters like RAM usage, CPU usage, and storage usage.

Manage Services

In the Manage Services section, you will see some important services that are needed to run a WordPress server. You can restart, enable, and disable these services from here without any coding or server management knowledge.

Settings and Packages

The next section is “Settings and Packages”. In this section, you can customize the upload size and memory limit and turn on and off some services like MySQL, NGINX, and PHP. As an example, I am changing the PHP version to 8.2 and saving it.

Security Section

In the “Security” section, you can block or whitelist IP addresses regarding SSH, SFTP, and MySQL data-based servers.

Vertical Scaling

This “vertical scaling” section is very important because you can gradually scale out your server with your web traffic and performance. As with other cloud hosting platforms, you don’t need to worry too much about scaling; this is very straightforward.

You just need to select the memory size and click the “Scale now” button, and everything is configured automatically without damaging your website. You can also increase your block storage.

Backup Section

Next is the Backup section, where you can schedule backup frequencies, retention durations, and on-demand backups. With this, your server data will be secure, and there is no need to worry about issues occurring during an update or when adding new features to your website.

SMTP Mail Settings

The last section is SMTP; here, you can use your external SMTP mail server or create an email server inside this server. You need to add an addon called “Elastic Email” for that.

Step 4: Add a Custom Domain

Ok, let’s go to the WordPress application. You can navigate to the application tab by pressing the “WWW” icon at the top. Here you can see all the access credentials for your WordPress site.

This is the primary domain of the website; you can click to see your website and log in to the admin panel using the credentials given here.

We can add our custom domain to this website. First, go to your domain name provider and navigate to the DNS section there.

Add an “A record” to the DNS. If you wish to point out the root domain, type the “@ symbol” as the name and add the server’s IP address. You can get the IP address from the access details page of Cloudways.

After that, navigate to the “Domain management” section of Cloudway. Here, click the “Add domain” button and enter your domain name in the text box.

The new domain will be added as an “alias” domain. to set it as the primary domain. Click the “modify domain” button, then confirm it.

Now that it is on our custom domain, you can check it by typing your domain name into the browser. It was changed successfully.

Step 5: Get a Free SSL Certificate

Your site is now working properly through your custom domain, but you may notice your web browser shows some warning messages and says this site is not secured.

Now we are going to remove that by adding an SSL certificate that encrypts your connection with your server.

Go to the “SSL certificate” section of your website. In this section, you can add your existing SSL certificate or add a new certificate for free with “Let’s Encrypt“.

Enter your email address and domain name here. If you wish to get an SSL certificate for the “WWW” version of your root domain, checkmark the “Apply Wildcard” check box.

After that, you can click the “install certificate” button. Then you will get this message; it says to add a “CNAME” to your DNS server.

You have to copy the CNAME and go to your DNS server. Add a CNAME record with the copied name, then copy and paste the target as well.

After you added it to the DNS, click the “Verify DNS” button. Sometimes, propagation may take a few minutes; if it is not verified on the first try, check back.

If your DNS record is verified, you can install the certificate. It will automatically add an SSL certificate to your website. Now you can refresh and see whether the SSL certificate was installed properly. If so, the warning message will disappear.

Step 6: Cloudways WordPress Features

I am going to quickly show some important features of Cloudways.

On the application side, you have the option to block bot traffic. It is a major issue that most website owners face because it has an impact on your website’s advertisement, SEO, and performance.

The next important one is the migration tool; using it, you can easily download your website content as a whole and migrate to another cloud platform when need to.

Cloudways Affiliate Program

They have an affiliate program you can join to earn extra commission by promoting it through your website, social media, or paid ads.

They have an interesting commission system, including a lifetime recurrent commission method. There is a commission calculator; you can calculate the commission using that.

I hope you get some idea about this cloud hosting platform. If you have any questions, ask them directly on the forum. We will try our best to help you. Thank you.