Domain, hosting and taking your WordPress site live

Selection Guide: Domain Name & Reliable Hosting

Before you can move your website, you need an 'address' (domain name) and a 'digital parcel' (hosting) on ​​the internet.

What should you look for in your domain name?

• Keep it short and recognizable: Preferably choose your own company name or a very clear description of your service.

• Avoid complicated punctuation: It is better not to use hyphens or difficult spellings that you constantly have to explain over the phone.

• Choose the right extension: Are you targeting the Dutch market? Then always choose a .nl domain name for the best trust among your visitors and search engines.

The pitfall of 'budget hosting' costing just a few cents

Many startups opt for the cheapest hosting provider of €1 or €2 per month. In practice, this often turns out to be an expensive mistake:

• Slow loading times: Cheap hosting providers cram hundreds of websites onto a single physical server. If one site attracts a lot of traffic, all other sites on that server become slow.
• Poor customer service: If something goes wrong, you often only receive a response days later via a generic ticket system.

• No automatic backups: Should your site be hacked or display an error message, you are responsible for the recovery yourself.

Moving step-by-step with Akeeba Backup

With the steps below, you can move your website safely and without data loss to your live domain name.

Step 1: Create a complete backup with Akeeba Backup

To transfer everything you have built on your PC into one reliable file, we use Akeeba Backup for WordPress.

1. Log in to your local WordPress dashboard on your computer.
2. Go to Plugins > Add New Plugin and search for Akeeba Backup. Install and activate the plugin.
3. Click on Akeeba Backup in the menu and run the automatic configuration (Configuration Wizard) the first time.
4. Then click on Default Backup (or Backup Now). Akeeba will now create a single compressed file with the .jpa extension in which your entire site and database are stored.
5. Download the generated .jpa file to your computer via Manage Backups.

Step 2: Prepare the online environment and Akeeba Kickstart

1. Log in to the control panel of your chosen hosting provider (for example, via cPanel or DirectAdmin).
2. Create a clean MySQL database. Keep the database name, username, and password safe.
3. Ensure that the SSL certificate (HTTPS) is activated on your domain name.
4. Download the free Akeeba Kickstart utility from the official Akeeba website (akeeba.com). Extract this zip file on your PC; you specifically need the kickstart.php file.

Step 3: Upload the files and start the ANGIE migration wizard

1. Open an FTP program (such as FileZilla) or use your hosting provider's online 'File Manager'.
2. Upload your .jpa backup file and the kickstart.php file to the root folder (public_html or www) of your domain name. Open your browser and navigate to your domain name, followed by /kickstart.php (for example: www.yourcompanyname.nl/kickstart.php).
3. Press the spacebar to close the notification and click Start at the bottom. Akeeba Kickstart will now extract the .jpa file on your server.
4. After extraction, click the large green button Run the Installer. The built-in installation wizard (ANGIE) will now start.
5. Follow the steps in ANGIE: in the database step, enter the details of your new MySQL database. ANGIE will automatically adjust the database and all internal web addresses for you.

Step 4: Check and clean up

1. At the end of the ANGIE wizard, click the button to complete the installation and close the tab.
2. In the Kickstart screen, click the Clean Up button. This automatically removes the .jpa file, kickstart.php, and temporary files from the server.
3. Log in to your live site via the usual method: www.yourcompanyname.nl/wp-admin.
4. Click through your pages and check if all internal links and images load correctly under your new website.