Best Web Host of 2023 – How To Set Up Your Website Using Cloudways

Why use Cloudways?

I can name a lot of reasons, but to start, it’s extremely reliable, extremely fast, easy to set up, and they offer free plugins as well to optimize your website right out of the box. Best of all, you can try it out for free for three days!

Check out some of these amazing features Cloudways has to offer.

  • 1-Click launch for multiple apps (including WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento).
  • Unlimited apps per server.
  • A choice of 3 top-notch cloud providers (AWS, Google Cloud, and DigitalOcean), all ready to launch in a single click.
  • Free SSL certificates.
  • Built-in CloudwaysCDN
  • High-performance stack for WordPress, WooCommerce, and Magento
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing.
  • Built-in, free cache plugins for WordPress and Magento
  • 1-Click operations, including server launch, server/app cloning, monitoring, and many more.
  • Dev-friendly staging environment.
  • Managed security and backups.
  • Effective team collaboration features.
  • Easy Github automation for developers.
  • Flexibility to scale server size.
  • Easily transfer servers and billing to your agency clients.

Ready to get started?

If you like the video, drop a comment below!

If you’d prefer to follow along with a written guide, I’ve also written the steps to setting up your account below.

How to Setup Your Cloudways Account and First Server

Firstly, navigate to Cloudways using the button below.

Once there, click the button that says “Get Started Free“.

You will now be prompted to enter your name, email, password, business type, and budget.

After clicking “START FREE“, you will now see the following screen.

Before creating your cloud server, you must verify the email you used at sign-up. Once your email has been verified, click “Launch Now”.

Click the dropdown menu to select the application you want to install on the new server.

In our case, we will use the standard WordPress installation with Cloudways optimization plugins.

From here, you will now select what cloud hosting provider you like to use.

Think of Cloudways as the middleman for your server. They set the servers up at your preferred host, install WordPress (or other applications), and manage to install additional features such as caching, security, and SSL certificates. They manage your cloud hosting so you can focus on creating your website.

For this instance, we have chosen a DigitalOcean Premium Server with 4GB of RAM.

It is recommended that you have at least 2GB of RAM or more for a production site.

You will notice in the bottom-left of the screen, a cost-per-month for the server you select. This varies greatly for different hosting providers, so be sure to check to make sure you stay within your own monthly budget.

When you first create your account, you will have a free 3 day trial. With that, you will be able to create and test out 1 server without ever having to enter credit card information. In order to continue using the your new website and server after this trial, you must enter billing information.

Lastly, you must select a location for your server. This location should be closest to your intended target audience. If your audience is nationwide, just select a centralized location for the best results.

In our case, we chose New York, NJ.

Finally click “Launch Now” in the bottom-right of the screen.

You should now see that the server is being created. This process usually takes between 5-15 minutes to complete. Once finished, it should look like this!

Click on “Applications” in the top navigation bar to view your newly created WordPress Installation.

Click on the Name of your application to enter its access details and setting.

Here, you can see how to access the new WordPress installation. You are also given the generated password for the admin account which is shown below.

Leave this page open, as you will need some information from it in the next step.

The next thing you will want to do is link a domain name to this WordPress installation.

How To Link Your Domain Name Using DNS Settings

If you haven’t purchased a Domain Name yet, you may do so at GoDaddy or any other domain name registrar.

We will be showing the steps for GoDaddy in this example. However, if you use another registrar, you should be able to access your domain’s DNS records with that provider as well. If you need help finding that with your registrar, contact them to get further assistance editing your DNS settings.

How to access and change DNS settings in GoDaddy:

  1. Go to GoDaddy.com
  2. Login to your account
  3. In the top-right corner, click your name to see the account dropdown
  4. Click “My Products
  1. On the following page, scroll down until you see the “All Products and Services” Section
  2. Next to the domain you would like to use, click “DNS
  1. On the DNS Settings Page, find the A Record that has an @ symbol as the name.
    • This is the record that points your root domain to wherever you are storing your website. In our case, we are storing it on Cloudways.
  2. Click on “Edit“.

For the next part, we must return to that Cloudways tab I said to leave open!

  1. On Cloudways, click to copy the Public IP Address.
  1. Head back to GoDaddy and paste that in the “Value” input box.
  2. Ensure you TTL is set to the lowest possible time your Domain Registrar allows. For GoDaddy, It’s 600 seconds.
  3. Save your changes.
  1. Back on Cloudways, we have a few more steps to finalize the connection. Click on “Domain Management” in the left-hand navigation menu.
  1. Under “Primary Domain” type your domain name. In our case, we typed “www.evolve.graphics“.
    • Note: If you want your primary domain to include www, you must type it here.
  2. Click Save Changes.

Next up, we need to install the Free SSL Certificate!

How to Install a Free SSL Certificate

  1. In the left navigation menu, select “SSL Certificate
  2. On this screen you will choose a “Let’s Encrypt” Certificate from the dropdown.
  3. Next, type the email you would like to use for expiration notices.
  4. Type in your domain name.
  5. Click “Install Certificate“.
    • If you would like to cover all subdomains with this SSL Certificate you can choose a Wildcard SSL Certificate. Note that this requires an additional DNS record to be created for domain verification.

Once that installs, you are all done!

You may now go back to the “Access Details” tab and click to view your new website!

I hope that you have found this walkthrough helpful. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please reach out to [email protected].

Drop a comment below letting us know how your setup went!

Take care and stay safe!

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