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A website in a weekend: from domain to a working WordPress site
You don’t need a developer or a project that drags on for weeks. A weekend is enough: on Friday you order a domain and hosting, on Saturday you install WordPress, and on Sunday you add your content and launch. Below is the whole path step by step, with a time estimate for each stage.
What you need before you start
- Text. Who you are, what you offer and how people can reach you. A draft is enough – you can easily polish it in WordPress later.
- A few photos and your logo, if you have one.
- A computer with a browser. No software to install and no code to write.
The weekend plan
Domain and hosting. Order in the evening so your domain is up and running by morning.
SSL, one-click WordPress installation and a theme. By the evening your site will be live and have its own look.
Pages, email and launch.
All steps done – your website is live. Congratulations!
Tick off the steps as you go. Your progress is saved in this browser, so tomorrow you can pick up where you left off.
Friday evening · ~30 min
Domain and hosting
These two steps are worth doing the night before: a new domain starts working within a few hours, so you can get going on Saturday morning.
Step 1 · 10 min
Choose a domain
A domain is your address on the internet, e.g. yourcompany.com. A good name is short, easy to say out loud and has no hyphens or special characters.
Choose the extension based on your customers: a local one such as .lt, .lv, .ee or .pl if you work in one country, .eu or .com if your audience is wider. If the name matters for your brand, consider registering several extensions.
Step 2 · 15 min
Order hosting together with your domain
Web hosting is all a WordPress site needs. The E-COMMERCE plan suits most websites; choose PLUS if you’re building several sites or expect heavy traffic.
For most websites
E-COMMERCE
from €6.99/mo
- Up to 5 websites
- 400 concurrent visitors
- 25 GB NVMe disk
- 25 email accounts
For several sites and heavy traffic
PLUS
from €24.99/mo
- Unlimited websites
- 600 concurrent visitors
- 200 GB NVMe disk
- Unlimited email accounts
Prices exclude VAT, for 12–36 month orders. Both plans include a free SSL certificate and automatic backups.
In the order window, select a 12, 24 or 36-month period and enter the domain you want. Once the order is paid, the service appears in your Redfox Cloud control panel.
Already have a domain elsewhere? Change its nameservers in your domain provider’s settings to these:
ns1.rfox.cloud
ns2.rfox.cloudThe change can take up to 48 hours, so do it on Friday. More details in the tutorial How to point and redirect a domain.
Want full server control and root access? Choose a VPS – but then you’ll need to set up the web server, PHP and database yourself. This guide is for web hosting.
Saturday · 1–2 h
SSL, WordPress and a theme
Today is about the technical part and the look of your site. If your domain doesn’t open yet, give it an hour or two – new domains sometimes take a little longer.
Menu language. The menu items below are given in English. If you installed WordPress in another language, they’ll be translated but in the same place.
Step 3 · 10 min
Enable a free SSL certificate
In your Redfox Cloud control panel, open your hosting service and click the button that opens DirectAdmin. This is where you manage SSL, databases, files and email.
In DirectAdmin, open SSL Certificates, choose the free Let’s Encrypt certificate (ACME), select your domain with and without www and save. Then turn on Force SSL so visitors always land on the secure https:// version.
Why before WordPress? With SSL enabled first, WordPress installs with an https:// address straight away, so you won’t have to fix links later.
Full details with screenshots in the tutorial How to install a free SSL certificate.
Step 4 · 10 min
Install WordPress in one click
In your Redfox Cloud control panel, open your hosting service and go to the Installations tab. Click INSTALL next to WordPress.
In the form, choose your domain and enter the site name and administrator details. The installer prepares the database and files itself.
Administrator account. Don’t use the name admin, and save the password in a password manager.
Once it’s installed, log in to the WordPress dashboard at yourcompany.com/wp-admin.
Installing manually? Then you’ll need a database first – see the tutorial How to create a database.
Step 5 · 15 min
Set up the basic settings
- Settings → General: site title, tagline and time zone (your city).
- Settings → Permalinks: choose Post name for clean addresses, e.g.
yourcompany.com/contact. - Delete the sample “Hello world!” post, the sample page and any plugins you won’t use.
Step 6 · 30–60 min
Choose a theme
The theme decides how your site looks. Under Appearance → Themes → Add New you’ll find thousands of free themes. The default WordPress theme or popular free themes such as Astra or Kadence are a good start – they come with ready-made templates you just fill with your own text.
Don’t get stuck. Give yourself an hour at most to choose a theme. You can change colours, fonts and the logo later without switching themes.
Sunday · 2–3 h
Content, email and launch
Your site is already running and has its look. Today you’ll fill it with content and launch it.
Step 7 · 20 min
Install only the plugins you need
Every plugin is extra code that needs updating. Three are enough to start with:
- LiteSpeed Cache – for speed. Redfox Cloud web hosting runs on LiteSpeed, and this plugin makes use of its cache.
- A contact form, e.g. Contact Form 7 or WPForms Lite.
- An SEO plugin, e.g. Yoast SEO or Rank Math. It helps you write page descriptions for search engines.
You don’t need a backup plugin – backups are already included in your hosting plan.
Step 8 · 1–2 h
Create your pages and menu
Most small business websites need just four pages: Home, About, Services and Contact. Create them under Pages → Add New.
- Under Settings → Reading, set “Home” as your homepage.
- Add the pages to your menu: Appearance → Menus or, in newer themes, Appearance → Editor → Navigation.
- Publish a privacy policy – WordPress already has a draft under Settings → Privacy. If you’ll use analytics or advertising cookies, add a cookie consent banner too.
Step 9 · 15 min
Create email on your own domain
In DirectAdmin, under E-mail Accounts, create an address such as [email protected] and use it in your contact form. That way enquiries from your site land in your own mailbox.
To keep your emails out of spam, check your SPF, DKIM and DMARC records – we covered them in the article Business email on your own domain. Steps with screenshots are in the tutorial How to create an email address.
Step 10 · 30 min
Check and launch
- Open the site on your phone and check that everything looks right.
- Send a test enquiry through the contact form.
- Under Settings → Reading, make sure Discourage search engines from indexing this site is not ticked.
- Add your site to Google Search Console and submit the sitemap
yourcompany.com/wp-sitemap.xml. If you installed Yoast SEO, the address issitemap_index.xml.
That’s it – your website is live. From here you can add to it bit by bit, not all in one sitting.
FAQ
Do I need to know how to code?
No. Every step in this guide is done in your browser: you click buttons and fill in fields. You won’t write any code.
Is WordPress free?
Yes, WordPress is open source. You only pay for hosting and the domain. Only some premium themes and plugins cost money.
How many WordPress sites can I have?
Up to 5 on the E-COMMERCE plan and unlimited on PLUS. Each site needs its own domain or subdomain and its own database.
My domain is registered elsewhere. Can I use it?
Yes. Change its nameservers in your domain provider’s settings to ns1.rfox.cloud and ns2.rfox.cloud. The change usually takes effect within a few hours, sometimes up to 48 hours.
Can I install something other than WordPress?
Yes. The same Installations tab also offers other systems, such as PrestaShop or OpenCart for an online store, Joomla or Moodle.
What if something goes wrong?
Contact the Redfox Cloud support team. We’ll help you work out what happened with DirectAdmin, SSL or the database.
Start this Friday
Order your hosting today and your domain will be working by the weekend, so you can start straight away. Until 8 November, the first year of the domain is free.
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