Initial Setup: Hosting And Domain Name
You can get started for less than it costs to eat out these days! The Websavers Helium hosting plan is free; it's just the domain name registration you'll be paying for.
Step up to our Managed Troubleshooting Support Level for just $95 CAD / year to have our staff standing by to jump in and help get you started at any time! Even without Managed Troubleshooting we'll still be standing by to answer your questions and point you in the right direction.
If you decide to pre-pay for two or three years you will receive an even larger discount. All of our hosting plans are the cheapest hosting of their kind that you'll find for the high quality and high performance service that is provided.
Click below to get your order started, then either opt to watch the video guide or scroll through the text and photo guide that follows.
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Step 1: Choose an available domain name
If you're going with Helium and already have a domain name registered you'll need to choose "Transfer your domain from another registrar". If you don't already have a domain registration, you're all set to register a new one!
If you're going with Carbon or Titanium hosting you can either register a new domain or choose the second option and leave it registered where it is now.
You'll be presented with different TLD options to select from, like .com, .net, .me, .ca, etc. You can add as many of these TLDs as you would like to your order, but just one is all that's necessary.
Tip: If you select the Titanium hosting plan on a 1, 2 or 3 year cycle, the domain will be free!
Step 2: Select Add-ons and Config
When configuring the hosting plan, you have the option to "Preinstall WordPress". This will save you a ton of time: by choosing this option, once your order is completed, WordPress will be automatically installed for you, allowing you to skip most of the installation process in step 2! I highly recommend it.
If you love figuring things out yourself, then stick with the DIY Support Level because we'll still be standing by to help answer your questions - we just won't step in to help make any adjustments to the account for you.
If you'd prefer to have us step in and take care of issues for you when they arise, I'd recommend choosing the Managed Troubleshooting Support Level - it helps to avoid potential frustration as you're getting started, but if you're the patient trial-and-error kind of personality, then you don't need it!
With just DIY Support you can ask all the questions you like and we'll be happy to provide advice but with either upgraded Support Level, you'll get both advice and action!
Here's some examples:
- With Managed Troubleshooting you let's say you have some difficulty getting some plugins to play nicely with your website, you can have us take a look and see what's going wrong.
- With Hands-On Support, let's say get a couple plugins installed and they're working great, but they don't 100% fit in with your design style. No problem! You can ask us to tweak the code and styles to make it better fit in.
Since you're setting up your own site, you can simply ignore the "SiteMaker Professional Website Set-up" option. BUT if you'd prefer to stop after placing this order, and simply let us take care of the entire rest of this guide for you, SiteMaker is exactly what you need!
Step 3: Enable ID protection and click "Update Cart"
ID protection is what will hide your personal information when someone does a public "whois" lookup on your domain name. It's free, so we recommend it for all domains, since many spammers now scan the WHOIS directories for new registrations, enabling it will prevent an influx of spam shortly after you register the name. It's automatically included on .ca domains with the "Canadian Citizen" type selected.
Step 4: Fill In Your Account & Billing Details
You can pay by Credit Card or Paypal. Fill out all the payment information and click on the green "Complete Order" button.
Be sure to save your password! You will need this along with your email address to log in to your Websavers account in the future.
If you don't make use of one, we strongly recommend using a password manager, like LastPass. Then save your Websavers login details in your password manager.
To get to your account, after completing your order, you can click on the button that says "Proceed to the Client Centre" or click here.