The initial wordpress blog/ecommerce website is created and hosted on Google Cloud Platform.. You must be wondering why?? When first started out the journey of trying out using wordpress and woocommerce, the intention is only to try and play around. So Cozy looked for the cheapest way or place to host the website and which is the Google Cloud Platform.

Google Cloud Platform provide 1 year free trial with USD300 and there are several wordpress solutions to choose from. The cost involved are also slightly different. There is a way to create a free website (using smallest cpu and storage space) and it is a good way to start out if you are not going to commit to spending money at the start and able to start with a static ip address as your website. If you feel comfortable enough, you can start to look for domain name. Can buy from Namecheap or Godaddy or many other companies. Personally Cozy prefer Namecheap as it comes with free privacy protection. Cozy had written about it previously. Note: There are many promotion for getting new domain name but renewal fee will be at least more than USD10 per year and depending on the “popularity” of the name too.

If you are interested and adventurous to play with google cloud platform. You can check out this youtube video which Cozy follows to start up their first website. Any questions or issues, you may approach him for help. There might be some latest updates which will happen due to changes in GCP etc, For example setting up the free SSL certificate.

As the website grows or adding more plugins add-ons and storage, the lowest tier CPU will not be enough and it will eat up a bit of the free credit provided by GCP. Earlier have set up two wordpress websites with SSD storage and it seems that it cost around USD5-10 per website hosted. As time passes, the free credits are getting lesser and it is time to switch to another free GCP account and migrate over or to get a proper wordpress hosting platform.

Thus this is when Cozy researched and decided on using Bluehost. What attracted Cozy is the option to host multiple websites under the Choice Plus Plan and it come with free SSL certification, autobackup etc. Namecheap also have wordpress hosting however most of the add-ons are paid separately and it was not cheap except for getting domain name from namecheap as its name implied. 🙂

In addition, Bluehost is also quite well-established. After comparing with Hostgator and Namecheap etc, Cozy finally decided to made the payment and get Bluehost for 3 years.

It comes with a free domain name (it seems to your primary domain too and your username to login), so choose wisely. However, the privacy protection is not free and it cost USD11 per year and you need to subscribe for 2 years to get first year free. If you do not have domain name yet, you can get from them. As Cozy already have domain name under Namecheap, so this step is skipped.

As the start, bluehost will provide a tutorial and start a temporary link as the location for the installation of the wordpress. It is great for a new user and you will immediately see the results of your wordpress been setup. As for migration, Cozy wanted a fresh start but only to port over the blogs that have been created. Bluehost do provide support for migration, you can approach them for help. Have tried using their chatline and in current covid-19 situation, there are still people responding to your queries if any.

Would recommend the use of bluehost for newbies who want to concentrate on creating their own blog and themes with minimum cost. Although Bluehost provide 1 month free office 365 mailbox, you can actually use their internal storage to setup your own email. Office 365 email cost around USD6/mth, similar pricing as using Gsuite. If you are not using any special features or cloud computing services, it will be useless and add up the monthly maintenance cost.

Good luck to all and keep safe at home. Have fun learning while been stuck at home.