Understanding Your Website’s Infrastructure
WordPress itself is open source software, so you’ll need to install it somewhere before you can use it. This is not to be confused with WordPress.com or equivalent like WP Engine, which SaaS platforms, that comes pre-packaged with WordPress on it. If you’re looking for the most cost-efficient, scalable solution that you actually own, self-hosting your WordPress is the way to go.
The 3 Types of Website Hosting
Dedicated Hosting / Cloud / VPS: This gives you an entire server dedicated to your website, offering better performance, security, and customization options. It’s ideal for high-traffic websites or those requiring extensive resources.
Shared Hosting: This is a cost-effective option where multiple websites share the same server resources. It’s suitable for small websites or blogs with moderate traffic.
Managed Hosting: An in between option for shared and dedicated hosting. A service is provided that makes managing WordPress easier for you, but ultimately gives you control over most things related to your website. This gives you more freedom than shared hosting, typically, and with greater resources like CPU and Memory like dedicated hosting, but usually at a premium that is higher than both. This is sometimes a good option for medium to large businesses that need more control but still require an element of support as a cushion in case things go wrong.
Choosing right host impacts every aspect web application’s success from performance to reliability. Additionally, it determines the type of control and scalability of what you can do if your business needs grow.
Resources:
Figure Out What The Website Needs To Do
Before diving into development, it’s essential to outline what your website should achieve.
Most Common Use Cases
- E-commerce: Platforms like WooCommerce enable you to sell products online.
- Blogs: WordPress is renowned for its blogging capabilities.
- Portfolios: Showcase your work with professional themes and galleries.
- Business Websites: Provide information about your services and capture leads through contact forms. Also known as a brochure site, where you showcase a mix of blog resources, portfolio, and other media items.
- LMS: A learning CMS where customers can sign up to various courses and track their progress.
Install & Configure WordPress
Setting up your own server can be a tricky process, even for experienced users, but has its advantages. For most, however, it is likely that you will want the simplest option in a bundle so it is easier to manage. Generally, the easier it is to manage (managed hosting), the more expensive it is to maintain – but the less there is for you to worry about like updating the server, PHP versions, Database updates, server security and ports, caching mechanisms, etc. Conversely, if you do everything from scratch, there are still some great options to make things easier, but you will spend a lot more time doing these things while costing half or sometimes even a third over managed options.
Some requirements you need to consider with managing WordPress on your own:
- DNS Registrar: Crazy Domains, GoDaddy, VentraIP
- Hosting Provider: Shared, Managed, or Self
- Server: PHP 8+
- Application: WordPress
- Database: MySQL or MariaDB 10+
- Proxy & Cache: Apache, NGINX or combination with proxy, Litespeed
- Redis or Memcached for object cache (speeds up internal operations)
- Backup solution – Ideally handled at both the server and application layer, so you can restore the entire server your WordPress application is on and in WordPress using a plugin like Updraft or equivalent, which helps you easily navigate the UI and restore previous states of your WordPress install specifically.
Resources:
- Apache vs Nginx – comparison and consideration of both
- Beginner’s Guide for Redis (video)
- Download WordPress from wordpress.org
1. Purchasing a Domain (DNS)
2. Choosing a Hosting Provider
Shared Hosting
I won’t go into the details of how to setup WordPress in shared hosting environments too much as these are generally quite straightforward, with options to pay for them to do it or one click installers from a graphical UI. It’s usually quite easy and it will setup everything for you. There is more info on how you can tweak your WordPress performance and setup later on that you may or may not be able to apply, based on the restrictions of your provider.
Additionally, I don’t typically recommend any shared hosting options like Crazy Domains, Bluehost, Siteground, etc. for anything mission critical as they all fail to adequately fulfil the minimum requirements for a business such as:
- Resources are shared, massively limiting performance of your website and making it susceptible to peak times
- Security vulnerabilities due to a shared architecture
- Limited control prevents most configurations needed for a properly setup WordPress site
- Support is usually abysmal and not worth using
- Not a scalable solution if your business grows
Managed Hosting
For many, managed hosting is a good starting point. It has a good balance of performance / cost, an easy learning curve, and often takes out most of the technical headache of managing your website. With a good provider, you can often expect the following:
- Moderate initial costs, with high scaling costs (but they can scale)
- Flexibility in server configuration
- Dedicated CPU, Memory, SSD, and backup solutions
- Decent performance
- Decent initial security
- Better support, but definitely not great
- Can easily support multiple installs of WordPress on a server, or in other cases multiple servers separately so you don’t have to worry about sharing resources between projects
Examples of decent providers, in no particular order, are Cloudways, Kinsta, or WPEngine (despite some recent controversy). Although many shared providers also offer managed hosting, but I encourage you to do your research first as most mainstream providers struggle to actually deliver decent performance / price.
Self-hosted
For the very elite few, this is the best option for those that can manage it. It often entails the highest level of responsibility, but offers the best price/performance. Cutting out the middle man will also yield better control over your server, website, and any additional features you may need. I can be fairly easy to still spin up a instance on your own using Docker, for example, but whichever methods you use, you will have the following considerations:
- Lowest cost of all options
- Control over server distribution like Brisbane, Australia, or Seattle, USA, for example
- Complete control over system architecture and very scalable
- Best performance
- Minimal to no support if using cloud providers directly, like GCP, AWS, or Oracle
- Minimal initial security configuration
- Backup solutions can be configured but are generally DIY
3 – 5. Setting Up Your Web Server
6 – 7. Setting Up Your Caching Layer (Performance)
Caching can significantly improve site speed by storing copies of pages in static form, reducing server load during traffic spikes.
Recommended Caching Plugins
W3 Cache
This plugin offers extensive customization options to optimize various aspects of site performance including caching, minification, and CDN integration. Of all the recommendations here, it is the most well balanced and importantly, free.
Pros:
- Great page speed results
- Lots of features, with almost all high impact ones being free
- Supports importing settings, so you can re-use common settings across multiple sites easily
- Fairly quick to setup
- Great CDN support
- Reliable
- Free, can be upgraded
Cons:
- UI is very busy and hard to use for beginners
- Hard to debug when incorrectly configured
- Often requires more manual configurations that the others
- Support only decent if paid
WP Super Cache
A user-friendly caching plugin that serves static HTML files instead of processing heavy PHP scripts on each page load.
Pros:
- Great page speed results
- Default settings work pretty well right away
- Simple and easy to use
- Decent CDN support
- Free
Cons:
- Doesn’t offer many options outside of page caching
- Has known hosting compatibility issues
- No upgrades available to get more features
WP Rocket
Known for its simplicity and effectiveness, WP Rocket automatically applies numerous performance optimizations without extensive configuration needed from users.
Pros:
- Good page speed results
- Very easy to use, has best UI
- Lots of features (more than the others and not all related to caching)
- Great CDN support
- Extended features that are complex like critical CSS and removal of render-blocking resources (hit-and-miss when used)
- Reliable
- Decent support
Cons:
- Requires subscription to use
- Doesn’t always have best real-world performance
8. Finding a Backup Solution
Highly Recommended (Optional)
Create Custom Post Types to Organise Your Content
Custom post types help you categorize content beyond just posts or pages—ideal for portfolios, testimonials, events etc.
Use a CDN to Bolster the Security and Performance of Your Site
A CDN distributes content across multiple servers globally so visitors access data from the nearest location—enhancing load times & security against DDoS attacks.
Install an SEO Plugin to Handle Most Semantic SEO Out of the Box
An SEO plugin like Yoast or Rank Math ensures each page follows best practices through automated checks & suggestions improving search engine visibility organically.
Install a Security Plugin (WAF) To Help Fight Bots / Bad Guys
Web Application Firewalls (WAF) add an extra layer between visitors & server—blocking malicious traffic before it reaches core files ensuring robust protection against hacking attempts etc..
Configure Your Server Resources for PHP
Proper PHP configuration ensures stability during high-load scenarios—allocate optimal memory limits & execution times depending upon specific needs avoiding unexpected downtimes/errors.
