iPage Hosting Review: How to Start a Blog on iPage in Under 15 Minutes
iPage Review: This Is The Best Hosting Plan for Beginners Starting Their Blow on WordPress
In this section, I’m going to show you how to setup your blog:
- How to get a domain name
- How to sign up for the best hosting plan (with our discount)
- How to install WordPress in just one click
1,000s of people have used this guide to start a blog, and you can too.
P.S. If you get stuck anywhere, send me an email and I’ll help get you up and going.
Important: iPage changes their signup process slightly, but the steps are always the same.
Step 1: Click here to visit iPage in a new window, then click “Sign Up Now”
Visit the iPage signup page: https://wisestartupblo.wpengine.com/go/step2
Once on this page, click on “Sign Up Now” and proceed with filling out your contact information.
Remember: I’ve negotiated a special deal to get your blog setup for just $1.99, so make sure to use my link when signing up.
Awesome! You’ve unlocked our promo code granting you the $1.99/month hosting plan. Now click on “Sign Up Now” to continue.
Step 2: Choose Your Domain Name
Already have a domain name?
Enter it into the box, and you can move to the next step (iPage will help transfer your domain name over for free!).
Need a new domain name?
Enter in the name of your website, iPage is going to help you purchase the domain name along with helping you host it online for everyone to view it. In step 1, I covered ideas for thinking of your domain name.
In my case, I selected “Wisestartupblog.com” to show you when I purchased my domain.
If your domain name is taken, you will be given a list of suggestions and alternate endings.
Step 3: Enter Your Billing Information
This is our final page. On this page, you need to enter your billing information. The page is 100% secure, so you know your details are safe.
Important: iPage offers a 30 day money back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose by signing up.
Step 4: Choose Your Hosting Plan
To receive your $1.99/month discount, make it’s selected under the Purchase Information section. We recommend choosing the yearly billing, otherwise you’ll be paying $3.99/month (double).
If you’re hesitant about paying for an entire year upfront, don’t be. I’ve owned WiseStartupBlog.com for over 10 years, and wish I could have paid for all 10 years in advance, as it would have saved me $1000s over the years.
You’ll notice that with your hosting package you’re getting $450 in marketing credits which can be used to drive traffic to your site. So your hosting plan will pay for itself for basically forever 🙂
I recommend a couple of their Website Essentials to go along with your basic hosting plan.
I’ve experienced my website crashing and losing all my data, so I do daily backups on all my sites, and for $1 per month, it’s a no brainer.
Also, if you plan on having users visit your site with their mobile phones (this site receives 50% of its traffic from mobile devices), I recommend installing the $2.99/month mobile phone optimizer.
Now click “Check Out” and you’re done!
Next Section: Setting Up WordPress on iPage
Step 5: Check Your Inbox & Setup Login Info
Now that you’ve completed your order on iPage, they are going to send you a confirmation email.
Look for the subject line: Your iPage Order Confirmation & Login Info.
This email contains a link you need to click to setup your username and password for iPage.
If you have bought a new domain name, check your inbox for a second email with the subject line Important: Please validate your domain name.
Click on the link in the email, and verify that your contact information and domain name is correct (it will be pre-filled for your automatically and should be correct).
Step 6: Install WordPress
Now that you’ve got your login information setup, your next step is to login to your Control Panel which can be reached by this link:
https://secure.ipage.com/secure/login.bml?err=12
Once logged in, navigate to the Website section and click on WordPress.
This is going to take you to the Wordpress installer.
To install WordPress you can use the free package or you can pay $199 to have iPage set it up for you.
I recommend going with the free option, but if you’re unsure, click on the $199 option, and you are done reading this guide 🙂
If you’re going ahead with setting up WordPress yourself, enter in the domain name you want to install it onto (which should be your domain name you just purchased).
Go through the installation steps, and click agree, and then Install Now.
The installation should take about 3 minutes, during which you can browse the themes available for WordPress.
Themes are design packages which control what your website looks like. The themes available from iPage are awesome, but if you want free themes, checkout our collection of the best free WordPress themes.
Step 7: Enter Your Login Credentials
Once your installation is finished, click on the top bar on View Credentials.
Your credentials will have already been created for you, and use them to enter into your WordPress dashboard.
To get to your WordPress login page, add /wp-admin/ to the end of your URL.
For instance, to reach my dashboard I visit: https://wisestartupblo.wpengine.com/wp-admin/
Yours would be: yourdomain.com/wp-admin/
Use the credentials created for you to login to your WordPress dashboard.
