Hosting Service

These notes assume that you do not have your own virtual or physical server but will instead use the SiteGround web hosting service. (https://www.siteground.co.uk/)

It is suggested that you sign up for the basic StartUp package for 36 months assuming that the introductory offer is still available which gives you a 60% discount for the first bill and 36 months is the longest you can take. They claim to make a full refund within the first 30 days if you find the service is not suitable.

If you don’t already have a domain for your club then you can specify the name of the domain you would like. This will take the form of a name of your choosing without spaces, dots or special characters and a standard suffix. The most appropriate suffix is probably .org.uk. For example Blewbury Croquet Club is blewburycroquetclub.org.uk allowing their website to be seen at https://blewburycroquetclub.org.uk.

You could use another company such as fasthosts (https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/) who are typically cheaper but you will then have to alter the name server settings to reference the SiteGround servers and to be careful that you only buy the domain and not any hosting services. This is typically referred to as domain parking. It is simplest to get everything from SiteGround then the name servers will be correct and if you have problems then only one company is involved.

Complete the sign up process and a few seconds later you will be ready to go.

Click on the MyAccounts tab

You will presumably have only one account – otherwise you would already know what you are doing – so you should see four inner tabs: Information and Settings, Extra Services, Installations and SiteBuilder. The SiteBuilder tab would allow you to build a static website – however these instructions are for the WordPress software. Installations will currently be empty. Go to the Extra Services tab and ensure that the first item Let’s Encrypt SSL is enabled. Press the Manage button and set both HTTPS Enforce and External Links Rewrite to on.

Then go to cPanel which is available in many places via a red button. cPanel gives you a large number of operations divided into sections. The second section is AUTOINSTALLERS and the first shown here is Softaculous. Select this then click on the big WordPress icon and select install
The protocol should already be set to https://
The domain should be correct already
The directory should be left blank
The Site Name should give the name of your croquet club – it can be edited later
The Site Description should be around ten words – it can be edited later
Leave multisite unselected
You can change the admin username to something you can remember – but don’t use “admin” as it makes the site more open to brute force attacks.
Make a note of the admin password – though it can be recovered
Change the admin email to your normal email – this is where you will receive messages when you wish to recover a lost admin password
Leave the rest alone and press install
You will be given the URLs of your website and the URL to administer it which is the main url with /wp-admin after it. Click on the administer link and enter the username or email and the password.
Now go back to cPanel and in the bottom section ADVANCED there is a button Optimize Website – press this button. Then select Compress All Content and press Update Settings.