Hosting your WordPress site on a web server has some significant advantages:
- You can access it from anywhere.
- You can easily share the site with other people if you have questions or get stuck.
- When you’re ready to launch your site, your site is already in the perfect location.
The only real disadvantage to using a web server is that it’s likely to cost you a few dollars a month.
You will need to choose hosting company that use PHP and MySQL. You need PHP because that is the language WordPress is written in, and MySQL because it is the type of database WordPress normally uses. These are the minimum versions recommended:
- PHP: 5.6
- MySQL: 5.6 or above
Most hosting companies now support WooCommerce, but it’s worth choosing carefully. Some hosting companies are much better than others.
Here is some advice before picking your host:
- Search https://wordpress.org/support/ for other people’s experiences with that host.
- Contact the hosting company’s customer support and ask what it knows about WooCommerce. One of our training students actually called the phone numbers of several hosts and evaluated their response. After all, in an emergency you don’t want to be on hold for an hour or to be talking to someone that knows nothing about WooCommerce.
You can install WordPress on almost any server that has PHP and MySQL installed. However, there are hosting companies that specialize in WordPress.
There are many advantages to choosing WooCommerce-specific hosting services:
- They are managed by WooCommerce experts who know exactly what WordPress sites need to run well.
- They can keep your web server up to date, which greatly increases security.
- They provide extra features that make it easier to install and manage a WooCommerce site.
We highly recommend http://nexcess.net as a company that really knows what they’re doing with WooCommerce. They offer great hosting, excellent support, and a ton of extra services.
- Click to visit Nexcess’ WooCommerce hosting services.
- Click to see instructions on installing WooCommerce with Nexcess.
Nexcess will install automatically install WooCommerce for you as soon as you sign up.
If you are not using Nexcess, this video will show you how to install WordPress on a server:
https://vimeo.com/291204022