Initial Setup: Hosting And Domain Name
You can get started for as little as $5 / year! The Websavers Helium hosting plan is free; it's just the domain name registration you'll be paying for.
The only catch with Helium is that it includes no support from us, so we strongly recommend starting with the Carbon hosting plan to ensure we'll be standing by to answer all your questions. It's just $60 CAD per year + the domain name registration, which is typically just $5 - $25.
You can always start with Helium, then upgrade to Carbon if you find you require our help with anything. If you decide to pre-pay for two or three years you will receive an even larger discount. All of these 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 already have a domain name registered you can opt to either "Transfer your domain from another registrar" or choose "I will use my existing domain and update my nameservers" if you wish to keep your current registrar. Note that Helium plans do not have the latter option: you must register anew or transfer your domain.
Most of you probably won't have a domain name already, so simply enter the domain you would like to useunder "Register a new domain". It will show you a list of available extensions (also called TLDs) for you to select from. If you can get a .com, go with that, otherwise you can pick just about any other TLD you'd like.
Once completed scanning, 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 selected 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.
Consider the Platinum Shared Hosting Management. It's completely optional, but having it ensures that Websavers staff will be taking care of all WordPress updates, including plugins and themes. Even better, you'll get 30 minutes of hands-on maintenance every month!
Prefer to do all that yourself? No problem, and no need for Platinum.
Without Platinum Management, you can ask all the questions you like and we'll be happy to provide advice but with Platinum Management, you'll get both advice and action; we'll take care of things like code changes, content updates, plugin installations and integration, etc.
For example, let's say you get a couple plugins installed and they're working great, but they don't 100% fit in with your design style. No problem! With Platinum Management, you can ask us to tweak the code 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. The same is true of "SiteMigrator Transfer Service".
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.