GitHub Hosting Custom Domain WordPress – How to Get Started
People tend to think that self-hosting is only for people who need to quickly launch a side-project or a blog. This couldn’t be farther from the truth! GitHub is a versatile development platform that allows you to launch just about anything using its services.
If you’ve ever used WordPress, you know how frustrating it can be to try and maintain a blog that is constantly being bombarded by hackers and spammers. There are tons of free and premium WordPress hosting services out there, but sometimes you want more control than what those platforms offer. When that happens, you can launch your own WordPress instance and make use of GitHub’s powerful hosting platform to give it a try.
In this article, we’ll go over how to get started with hosting a WordPress website on GitHub. We’ll cover topics such as:
What Is GitHub?
If you’re not familiar, GitHub is a code repository and collaboration platform that is used by software developers all over the world. In case you’re curious, you can learn more about it on their website. For our purposes, let’s just say that it’s a very popular place for programmers to store and review their code. It’s basically the Github of code.
While GitHub is a fantastic resource for developers, it also provides a robust platform for non-coders too. If you’ve ever used WordPress, you know how powerful it is as a content management system. You can use GitHub to host your WordPress website or blog. This gives you the ability to take your content anywhere with you. If you decide to connect your blog to your social media accounts (such as Twitter and Instagram), you’ll be able to do so from within the WordPress dashboard.
In the next section, we’ll discuss some of the basics of setting up a WordPress installation on GitHub.
Choose A Hosting Plan That Suits Your Needs
Before you can launch a WordPress website or blog on GitHub, you’ll need to choose a hosting plan that suits your needs. Do you need tons of storage space? Do you need a reliable host that provides backups? How about a free domain? There are dozens of hosting plans available on GitHub, so it’s important to figure out what suits you best. Keep in mind that performance can vary from free plans all the way up to those that are paid for. It’s all based on how much you’re willing to pay. Hopefully, this overview of GitHub’s different hosting plans will help you make the right choice for your needs.
Set Up The MySQL Database And Activate WordPress
To make use of GitHub’s powerful hosting platform, you’ll need to first set up the MySQL database and activate WordPress. Let’s walk through both of these steps in detail.
MySQL is a free and open source database that is commonly used by WordPress and other popular platforms. You can download and install it on your computer and set up a database administrator account so that you can use it to create your WordPress website or blog. Once you’ve downloaded and installed MySQL on your computer, you can create a database named `wordpress` and use the welcome screen to set up a user account with full administrator privileges.
With the MySQL database set up and activated on your computer, you’re ready to move on to the next step. Activate WordPress on GitHub by heading to the dashboard for your account and clicking on the Settings button. From here, you can select the Blog option to launch a new WordPress blog (or you can use the existing TwentyFour theme).
Once you’ve clicked on the Blog option, you’ll see a screen like this:
Set Up Your WordPress Blog On GitHub
WordPress is a very popular content management system (CMS) used for creating blogs and websites. Its popularity is largely due to the fact that it’s very easy to use and provides a flexible environment for users who want to create their own unique website. Once you’ve launched WordPress on GitHub, you’ll be able to access the dashboard, where you can configure the blog’s appearance.
To set up your WordPress blog on GitHub, enter the URL for your blog (not the actual blog page!) in the blog’s URL field. Then, you can select the theme that you want to use from the drop-down menu. Once you’ve made your selection, click on the Set Up button to continue.
You’ll now be taken to the Settings screen, where you can configure many different aspects of your new WordPress blog.
Make sure that the General section is set to Public. This will allow anyone with the URL to view your blog posts. If you’d like, you can also set up automated blog post publishing using Cron jobs. Just remember that this feature can also be used to launch automated attacks against your blog. So, use this feature with caution!
Another great feature of GitHub is that you can connect your blog to various social media platforms. For example, you can connect your blog to your Twitter account and see every new blog post that you publish directly from the dashboard.
Use A Pro-Tip To Get Free Hosting For A Year
One great feature of GitHub is that you can choose to have your blog hosted for free for a year. This is a great way to try out the platform without having to spend a dime. You’ll just need to remember to cancel your subscription afterwards. For more information on how to do this, click on the link below:
Make Sure That You Have A Plan For What To Do With The Hosted Blog Once It’s Launched
Once you’ve set up your WordPress blog on GitHub, you’ll need to take a step back and think about what you’re going to do with it. It’s easy to get excited about launching a blog and seeing how it turns out, but that excitement can quickly turn to frustration if you don’t have a plan for what to do with it. For example, if you’re starting a fitness blog, you might want to connect it to some weight-loss programs or meal-delivery services to gain more traction.
The point is that you can’t just launch a blog without having some sort of direction. If you want to make the most out of GitHub, you need to have a plan!
If you’ve read this far, then you might be thinking that this is a lot of work just to get a basic blog set up! Don’t get discouraged; it takes a little bit of work, but it’s totally worth it. You can always use the Homestead template to easily set up a basic WordPress installation and get started blogging right away. If you’ve never done so, it’s definitely worth trying out the platform. Plus, there’s always the option of upgrading to a paid plan at any time should you need more storage space or a more reliable web host.