How to Free Up Your WordPress Hosting Account to Host More Websites
WordPress is the most popular website creation tool in the world, and for good reason: it’s free, simple to use, and has a large community. However, just like any other free service, there are limits to what you can do with it. One of the more prominent limitations is the fact that you can only host a maximum of two websites with WordPress. This article will walk you through the steps to remove the two-website limit and allow you to host more websites on your account.
The Basics
Before you begin making any changes to your WordPress hosting account, you should first make sure that you have the necessary backups in place. It is never safe to edit any content on a live site. If anything were to happen, you would lose all of the work you’ve done so far. To avoid this, you should always make sure that you have a backup of your site in case you need to restore it later on. There are many free tools like WordPress Database Backup that can help you with this, and it’s even better if you have multiple back-ups.
Another thing you should do is change the username and password of your WordPress account. The default settings for a fresh WordPress installation use a very common word as the username and a simple password. It’s always a good idea to choose a distinct username and password that are not related to your email address or any other account you might have on the web. Changing these two elements will help keep your WordPress account safe and will give you the freedom to log in whenever you want without having to worry about security.
The Two-Websites Limit
WordPress limits your total websites to two, even though you can have as many domains as you want. If you decide to host more than two sites, you will have to choose a different web host. Before you do anything else, you should contact the support team for the web host you are currently using and ask them to raise the limit for your account. They will need to verify that you are a human and are not trying to abuse the system, and it could take a few days to get the approval.
Remove The WordPress Dashboard
Once you have confirmed that you can have more websites on your account, it’s time to remove the WordPress dashboard. The dashboard is actually a collection of several different panels that you can access by clicking on the settings icon in the top-right corner of your screen. Once you have logged in, you will need to click on the “Appearance” tab located along the top and then select “Hide Panel” from the drop-down menu. Doing this will remove all of the panels from the dashboard, except for the one which contains the blog posts.
Change The Default Theme
Even though you can use freely available plugins to change the look of your site, you should still consider changing the theme. The default theme for WordPress is “Twenty Fourteen”, and it is available for free from the WordPress theme repository. If you are unfamiliar with themes, they are essentially the templates that your blog posts are loaded into upon publishing. Changing the theme will help you avoid any issues that you might encounter as you start building your blog.
Activate Single Post Publishing
WordPress’ single-post publishing capability allows you to create a post and then upload multiple images and video content to it. While this may be convenient if you’re planning on writing a long post, it has a downside: if you’re trying to build a portfolio, showcasing your work through a long-form blog post will get you stuck in WordPress’ limited editor. To publish individual posts without any trouble, you should turn off the “Posts grouped into sections” feature and then activate the “Custom Post Type” option in the WordPress registration form. Doing this will give you the option of creating a post with a simple click as you would in any other word processing application.
Minimalism Is The Key
A small business with a limited income always has more important things to spend their money on than a few extra websites. One of the best things you can do for your business is to cut down on the extra websites you have hosting on your account. You should look into the different plans that Voxpro has to offer and choose the one that works best for you—as long as you don’t go over the monthly allocation for your credit card.
WordPress can be a valuable asset to your business, but you have to be smart about how you use it. Make sure to take the time to back up your data regularly and change your credentials whenever they become known. Also, make sure you remove the dashboard when you’re not using it and change the default theme and post type when you’re publishing individual posts or creating a new site. And last but not least, always have a plan B in case the original website gets shut down. Having a backup of your site on a different server is always a good idea, and it’s better if you have multiple back-ups.