Get a server to host a website

How to host a website?

Got your domain name sorted! Got your website idea! Watched 10 hours of WordPress tutorials on YouTube!

You’re all good to go right?

Nope! You need a server to host the website you nut!

When it comes to getting a website server you can;

  • Pay someone for hosting like here at Digital Projects
  • You can rent a Virtual Private Server (VPS)
  • Buy your own server and run it from home

If you do not have a lot of bandwidth at home and don’t have a static IP address from your ISP and dont like mucking around with DNS, Ports & Backups etc…I do not recommend trying to self-host your website from home on your own server.

A VPS is a cheap and easier option. You dont need any expensive equipment, you just tap into a big server farm that has a good internet connection and realible power. The usually cost $5-10 per month and you can run multiple websites off that one VPS.

You have full control which is much better than having to get upsold on everything from SSL certs, email and sub-domains. Here you can run the lot for multiple websites.

Which VPS provider?

That is your choice. There is many out there for you to research just watch out for hidden pricing….Amazon loves to sting you for shit.

I have used;

The process is the same for most > Sign Up > Verify account > Set up billing > Go to dashboard.

You can then pick the size and location of your VPS. Every VPS provider has a differant cute name for their different VPS options. You are mainly paying for the CPU, RAM & Storage size. There is also differnt payment brackets for shared CPU and dedicated CPU.

The smallest option will run your website but as you build on the content and have more visitors, you may have to upgrade or add on block storage.

Which is usually an easy process.

When starting out, I just used the smallest plan and practiced building, fixing, re-building, etc before getting a larger plan to run multiple websites.

When it comes to location you can either pick the location closest to you or the location closest to the audiaction that you are targeting for your website. If they are in the same location/country….easy.

For OS choices, unless you are going to run certin apps that only work on a certian OS, I reconmend Debian. I found Debian easy to learn and fun to use. Can’t beat the classic right?

What is next?

Connect your domain and DNS records to your server.