Using such a robust and versatile CMS like WordPress, it sure is very easy to start and launch a website fast. Once you get the hang of it, you will be able to create and launch beautiful and amazing WordPress websites for businesses, organizations, or personal projects with no hassle.
In this short tutorial, you will learn how to create and launch a WordPress website using a free learning sandbox environment provided by InstaWP. Next, we will discuss how you can migrate your finished WordPress sandbox website to a live site (to your hosting provider or InstaWP Live).
InstaWP: What is it?
InstaWP is an online WordPress solution for WordPress users that allows users to create and launch WordPress sites, create staging websites, build sandboxed product demos, create monetizable templates, and lots more.
Here are some of the pretty amazing things you can do with InstaWP:
Build a new site with different WordPress and PHP versions
InstaWP affords users the freedom to build WordPress instantly with any version of PHP, WordPress, and Plugin and Theme combinations. You get to build WordPress sites from scratch or using templates from the store. With just the click of a button, the domain, SSL, database, and setup are all done for you within seconds.
Create staging site
This user-friendly all-in-one developers toolset provides a completely customizable and safe staging environment that caters to all your needs. You can use the InstaWP Connect WordPress staging plugin to easily clone your site in staging. Plugin allows 2-way sync, i.e., transfer of the data between staging and production sites.
Migrating a site to any hosting provider
InstaWP has built-in tools to help you migrate any WordPress site you created from your InstaWP dashboard to any hosting provider of your choice. Website migration typically involves copying all the files and databases associated with the website and then adjusting the settings so that the WordPress website can function on a new server.
Saving a site as Template
InstaWP is all about helping you build instant WordPress websites, and the template feature takes this bottom line to the next level. With templates, you can reproduce a website in split seconds (as many times as you wish) while still maintaining the original site’s customization, configuration, and WordPress settings.
Templates aren’t only for you. If you are a WordPress product creator, this is a great tool to help you provide product demos to your potential clients to increase conversion and leads.
InstaWP for Beginners: How to Build a WordPress Site with InstaWP?
Installing WordPress can be done with just a few clicks from InstaWP’s dashboard. You will be able to create and launch a WordPress site in just a couple of minutes!
Here’s how to install WordPress on InstaWP:
Step 1: Create an InstaWP Account
You need an InstaWP account to create a WordPress site. If you don’t already have one, you can click here to create a free InstaWP account.
On the first page, you will be required to fill in your name, email, and role. Accept the terms and privacy and click the Next Step button.
On the second page, select I just need a free account with temporary sites (expires in 7 days) at the bottom and click the Sign Up button.
Step 2: Create a WordPress Site from Your InstaWP Dashboard
Once you have successfully signed up for your free InstaWP account, you will have your InstaWP dashboard. Please ensure you verify your email address before proceeding. You will also find your InstaWP password in the email.
From your dashboard, click on the Add New button. Alternatively, you can click on the New Site button from the middle of the interface.
A modal/popup will come up with the following three options for creating your new WordPres site:
From Scratch: You have the freedom to craft your WordPress site by customizing different settings. From choosing the site type (default, Multisite, WooCommerce, or Devstack) to selecting specific plugins and themes, InstaWP offers the unique ability to bulk-select and pre-install these components onto your fresh WordPress site. This feature sets it apart from conventional WordPress installations on web hosting platforms.
From Template: This option is for users who have already created a site in InstaWP and turned it into a reusable template, allowing you to save time. If you haven’t created any template, you can do so later.
From Store: This option allows you to build WordPress sites from already made templates by other vendors or users, either for free or for a purchase fee.
Once you select your preferred method of creating your new WordPress site, you have to provide the following configurations at the bottom panel:
- WordPress version: To select different versions of WordPress for your site ranging from 3.7 to Nightly.
- PHP version: To select different PHP versions for your site ranging from 5.6 to 8.2.
- Enter Site Name: Enter the name for your WordPress site.
Note: Once a website is created from a template or store, the WordPress version remains unchangeable as it was initially set during the template’s creation.
You can then proceed to create your site by clicking the Create Site button from the bottom right corner of the window.
You will be redirected to your dashboard with the message “Your new WordPress website is ready!” alongside with the website URL and your login credentials.
Step 3: Access Your WordPress Site
You can view your newly created WordPress site by clicking on the website URL or entering it manually on your web browser.
You can launch your WordPress site admin panel by clicking on the Magic Login button or with the login credentials provided alongside your website Admin URL.
You can also log into your WordPress site from your InstaWP dashboard by clicking the Auto Login icon adjacent to your site.
Step 4: Customize your WordPress Site
When you get to your WordPress dashboard, you can start building and customizing your website to your taste.
Here are some WordPress settings you should configure after creating a fresh WordPress site:
- Site Title & Tagline: Go to Settings > General and input or update your site title and site tagline.
- Site Language & Timezone: Go to Settings > General and select your site language and timezone.
- Permalink Settings: Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose your preferred structure (usually “post name”) and save changes.
- Homepage & Blog: Go to Settings > General > Your homepage displays and select the page you want to set as your homepage and the page you want to set as your blog.
- Logo: Go to Appearance > Customize > Site identity > change logo and upload your logo.
- Site Icon: Go to Appearance > Customize > Site identity and navigate on “site icon” to upload the image you want to use as your site icon (favicon).
You can also customize and configure themes and plugins, create beautiful pages with page builders like Elementor or Maxi Blocks, create intuitive forms, etc.
To install a theme, hover over the Appearance tab, select Themes, and click on Add New. Search for the desired WordPress theme and hover over it, then click the Install button.
To install plugins, follow these steps:
1. Go to the Plugins section in your WordPress dashboard.
2. Click the Add New button at the top of the page.
3. In the search field, type the keyword of the specific plugin you need and press the Install Now button next to the plugin. Alternatively, if you’ve already downloaded the plugin, click Upload Plugin. Then, choose the plugin archive from your computer and click Install Now.
4. After the installation process, click the Activate Plugin button to activate the plugin.
Now you see how easy it is to create a WordPress site using InstaWP!
How to Launch and Migrate a WordPress Website with InstaWP?
IntaWP makes creating a WordPress site very instant and easy. When you want to create a new site, you can multi-select the plugins and themes you want to use on your site and have them pre-installed while InstaWP sets up your website.
After creating and customizing your site, you can launch it using InstaWP Live for hosting or migrating your WordPress site to our hosting partners like Pressable, RunCloud, ServerAvatar, etc.
How to migrate your WordPress site from InstaWP to a hosting provider
Step 1: Log into your InstaWP dashboard
Step 2: Click on the More actions button and select the Migrate V3 option from the dropdown list corresponding to the site that you wish to migrate.
From the modal/popup, select Create a new live site.
Note: If you already have an existing site you want to migrate your InstaWP sandbox site to, select Existing live site instead.
Step 3: Click on Connect Hosting from the middle of the dialogue, and you will be taken to the Hosting page of your InstaWP account.
Step 4: Click on the Connect Hosting button to continue. This will open up a list of hosting providers that you can migrate to. Here, you can select InstaWP Live hosting or any of our hosting partners like Pressable, RunCloud, or ServerAvatar for a seamless migration.
You can purchase hosting directly from our live partners without even creating a hosting account and manage your hosted site directly from InstaWP.
Step 5: Connect to your selected hosting provider by filling out the connection form by entering a new Alias name as your DNS hostname. After entering a new Alias name, click on the Connect button.
You will be navigated to the Hosting page with the newly created hosting provider which allows you to add a new WordPress site.
Alternatively, you can use the SSH/SFTP feature that comes with the paid plans to transfer your website over a secure connection from InstaWP servers to other web hosting servers or your computer using simple commands.
What Makes InstaWP a Perfect WordPress Development Tool for Agencies?
There are many ways to build a website, but WordPress is one of the most popular options because of its versatility when it comes to meeting business needs, customization, and ease of migration. That is why there are so many successful agencies that make use of WordPress.
If you are one of those agencies, InstaWP can turbocharge your productivity, improve your work process, and help you meet and even exceed your bottom line with templates, easy migration, and staging capabilities. With it, you and your team will deliver fast!
InstaWP offers several features that can be beneficial for your website development and testing needs. These features provided by InstaWP can help streamline your website development process and make it more efficient. They include:
Pre-Configurations
Directly spin up new WordPress sites in seconds with preferred configurations.
During set up you can choose your PHP version and other parameters, and pre-install your favorite plugins or themes. You can configure your site performance, speed, and run optimizations. InstaWP also supports multisite setups, allowing you to run proper tests between different PHP versions and plugin configurations.
You can then reuse configurations to make more WordPress sites by saving sites as templates and speed up the development process.
Templated Sites
Create instant staging sites and product demos sandbox sites and convert them into templates that give you the opportunity to recreate copies of your WordPress site to test your product. This allows you to reduce a ton of friction when creating new projects, attend to multiple clients simultaneously with less effort, and generate income by selling your templates.
Create Staging of your Live Sites
With the InstaWP Connect WordPress staging plugin, you can easily clone and copy a live website into your InstaWP dashboard to make and test new changes away from your website before applying those changes to your live site.
It functions within a secure environment, allowing users to experiment with different themes, plugins, and codes without any risk of disrupting the live website. This process helps you protect your website from unwanted breaks and malfunctions.
In-built tools such as Code Editor, Database Editor, and Log Viewer
These tools let you directly modify your plugin or theme codes and database seamlessly and see logs of your changes, making it easier to track the modifications you have made and debug any errors.
- Code Editor: The code editor allows you to directly write and edit WordPress source code files for your site.
- DB Editor: InstaWP allows you to use the “Adminer” SQL management tool for creating and managing the contents of SQL databases quickly and easily.
- Log Viewer: InstaWP allows you to view various types of logs related to running your WordPress site. Error Log shows the PHP/Apache-related error logs for the site, Access Log shows the live hits to your website with IP address, URL, HTTP status code, etc, Command Log shows the logs related to running Commands or Git Deployments, and Debug log shows the logs from the debug.log file when you have switched on WP_DEBUG mode.
Conclusion
Creating a WordPress website doesn’t have to be overwhelming, especially with InstaWP. With InstaWP, you don’t need to start from scratch.
You can get started and build a WordPress site for business, blog, portfolio, or online store right away, even if you have no prior knowledge of saved templates or a pre-configured list of plugins/themes. Thereafter, you can launch the site and host it anywhere. In fact, if you do not have a host, you can launch your site with InstaWP itself.
Try InstaWP today to launch your WordPress website and start your online journey!
