How to Get Your Website Online: A First-Day Checklist
To get a new website online, work in this order: point your domain at your hosting (nameservers), install your site or WordPress, create your email accounts, then turn on the free SSL certificate. Doing it in that sequence avoids the two most common day-one problems — DNS that hasn't finished propagating and a padlock warning in the browser.
Step by step
- 1Confirm your welcome email arrived. After your order is paid it contains your control-panel login and, for domains, your nameservers. Keep it handy — everything below starts there.
- 2Point your domain at the hosting. If you registered the domain with us, this is already done. If your domain is elsewhere, update its nameservers at your current registrar (see the domains guide). Allow up to a few hours for the change to take effect.
- 3Install your site. For a WordPress site, use the one-click installer in your control panel. For a hand-built or exported site, upload it with File Manager or FTP into the public_html folder.
- 4Create your email. Add at least one mailbox on your domain (for example you@yourdomain.com) so contact forms and password resets have somewhere to land.
- 5Turn on SSL. Free SSL is issued automatically, usually within an hour of your domain pointing at the server. Once it's active, load your site over https:// and check for the padlock.
How long does it take to go live?
If you bought your domain with your hosting, a basic site can be live within the hour. The one thing you can't rush is DNS propagation — when you change nameservers, the internet needs a little time to catch up, and that can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
While you wait, you can still build your site using the temporary URL in your welcome email, so you're never blocked. When the domain finishes pointing, your work is already there.