Tutorial · June 2026
How to Set Up WordPress on Cloudways: Step by Step
The full sequence — server, application, domain, SSL, caching — with the settings that are wrong by default.
Server creation to a live WordPress site with SSL is a single sitting on Cloudways — under fifteen minutes on the documented path. Here is that path step by step, including the handful of settings that are wrong by default and cost people the other forty-five minutes.
- Why Cloudways? (30-second pitch)
- What You'll Need
- Step 1: Sign Up for Cloudways
- Step 2: Create a New Server
- Step 3: Add a WordPress Application
- Step 4: Point Your Domain
- Step 5: Install Your SSL Certificate
- Step 6: Install Essential Plugins
- Step 7: Basic WordPress Settings
- Troubleshooting: Common Issues
- What's Next?
Why Cloudways? (30-Second Pitch)
Skip this section if you already know. The short version: Cloudways puts your WordPress site on real cloud infrastructure — DigitalOcean, AWS, Google Cloud — without requiring you to manage servers yourself. You get managed cloud performance at a price that isn't managed-cloud-insane.
The reason to leave a cheap shared host is structural. On shared hosting your site competes for CPU with every other tenant on the box, so time to first byte degrades exactly when traffic rises. A Cloudways application sits on its own DigitalOcean instance, so it doesn't. For an SEO-focused site that difference lands in Core Web Vitals; for anyone who has watched a shared host throttle a traffic spike, it lands somewhere more painful.
Entry price is $14/month for DigitalOcean 1GB. There's a 3-day free trial with no credit card required. Good enough to actually test before committing.
What You'll Need
Before you start, here's everything to have ready. Total time: 15 minutes, assuming DNS propagates quickly (more on that later).
| Item | Details |
|---|---|
| Cloudways account | Free 3-day trial — sign up here. No card required to start. |
| Domain name | Any registrar works. Namecheap, GoDaddy, Google Domains — doesn't matter. You'll need access to the DNS settings. |
| 15 minutes | Actual hands-on time. DNS propagation can take up to a few hours — but you're not sitting there watching it. |
| Coffee | Optional but strongly recommended. The setup is fast enough that you'll have time for one cup. |
Steps
Go to Cloudways via this link and click Start Free. Fill in your name, email, and a password. You'll get a 3-day free trial automatically — no credit card asked upfront.
After confirming your email, you'll land in the Cloudways dashboard. It looks a little different from cPanel — there's no file manager in the traditional sense, no email setup screen, none of that. What you see is a clean dashboard with two things you care about: Servers and Applications. That's the whole mental model.
Tip: If you're migrating an existing site, Cloudways offers one free migration as part of your sign-up. You can request it from within the dashboard. Their team handles it — usually done within 24 hours.
From the dashboard, click Launch (or Servers → Add Server). You'll see a setup form asking you to pick a cloud provider and server size.
For most solopreneurs starting out, here's exactly what I'd choose:
- Cloud Provider: DigitalOcean — best balance of price and performance. Compare the AWS and Google Cloud rows on the Cloudways pricing page before choosing: for equivalent RAM they are priced well above the DigitalOcean and Vultr options.
- Server Size: 1GB RAM / 25GB SSD — plenty for a new site. You can scale up later with zero downtime, so starting at 1GB and moving to 2GB when traffic justifies it is the cheaper order.
- Server Location: Pick the region closest to your primary audience. US-based traffic? New York or San Francisco. European audience? Amsterdam or Frankfurt. This one genuinely affects load time.
Give the server a name. A pattern like sitename-do-nyc encodes the project, the provider and the region, which is worth the ten seconds the first time you have two servers. Then click Launch Now.
Server provisioning takes about 5–7 minutes. Cloudways is spinning up an actual cloud server — not putting you on a shared host. A progress bar tracks it. Good time for that coffee.
A note on pricing: DigitalOcean 1GB runs $14/month all-in as of 2026. No separate "Cloudways fee" on top — what you see is what you pay. The hourly billing model means you only pay for what you use, and you can delete the server anytime.
Once your server is ready (status shows Running), click into it and go to the Applications tab. Hit Add Application.
In the form that appears:
- Application: Select WordPress from the dropdown. You'll see options for plain WordPress, WooCommerce, WordPress + WooCommerce, and a few others. Pick plain WordPress unless you're building a store.
- Application Name: Something descriptive —
sitename-mainworks. - WordPress Admin Credentials: Set a strong username (not "admin") and a real password. You'll use these to log in to your WordPress dashboard. Write them down somewhere.
Click Add Application. Cloudways installs WordPress on your server in about 30–60 seconds. When it's done, you'll see a green status and an application URL — something like 123.456.789.012.cloudways-sites.com. That's your temporary URL. You can already log in to WordPress at that address — go to [your-temp-url]/wp-admin to verify it's working.
Tip: Log in to WordPress admin at the temp URL before pointing your domain. Confirm the dashboard loads, the theme is active, and there are no errors. This takes 30 seconds and saves debugging time later.
In Cloudways, go to your application → Domain Management. Enter your domain name (e.g., soloforgetools.com) and click Save Changes. Cloudways now knows which domain should route to this application. The next step happens at your domain registrar.
Option A: Update Nameservers (easiest)
Cloudways provides nameservers you can point your domain to. This is the simplest option if you want Cloudways to manage everything. In your domain registrar's DNS settings, replace the existing nameservers with Cloudways's nameservers. These are listed in your Cloudways dashboard under DNS Settings for the application.
Option B: Update A Record (more flexible)
If you want to keep your DNS at your registrar (common if you have email or other subdomains there), update the A record instead:
- In Cloudways, find the server's public IP address — it's listed on the server's main dashboard page.
- In your registrar's DNS settings, find the A record for your root domain (
@or your domain name). - Set the value to your Cloudways server's IP address.
- Set TTL to 600 (10 minutes) for faster propagation.
- Add a second A record for
wwwpointing to the same IP.
Option B is the right choice if you keep email (Google Workspace, say) on the same domain and want to manage the MX records separately. It's slightly more manual but gives you full control.
DNS propagation takes time. Changes can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 48 hours to fully propagate. In practice it's usually under an hour. During this window, some visitors may see the old host and some may see the new one — completely normal. Don't panic.
This is genuinely one-click. Once your domain is pointed and DNS has propagated, go to your Cloudways application → SSL Certificate tab. Enter your domain name, toggle Auto Renew on, and click Install Certificate.
Cloudways uses Let's Encrypt free SSL. It takes about 30 seconds to issue. When it's done, your site is live at https://yourdomain.com with a valid SSL certificate that auto-renews every 90 days without you touching anything.
Important: SSL installation will fail if DNS hasn't propagated yet. The domain needs to actually resolve to your Cloudways server before Let's Encrypt can verify it. If you get an error, wait 10–15 minutes and try again.
After SSL is installed, go to WordPress admin → Settings → General and confirm both the WordPress Address and Site Address show https:// (not http). Cloudways usually sets this automatically, but it's worth checking.
Fresh WordPress installs come with a few default plugins (Hello Dolly, Akismet) that you don't need. Deactivate and delete those first. Then install the three that earn their place on any new site.
A note on caching: Cloudways also includes their own Breeze cache plugin, pre-configured for their stack. If you don't want to pay for WP Rocket and prefer an even simpler setup, use Breeze. It's free, developed by Cloudways, and works well out of the box. Just don't run two caching plugins at the same time — pick one.
Install these three, run the Rank Math setup wizard, and you're done. Don't go plugin-crazy on a fresh install. Every plugin is a potential performance and security liability. Fewer is better.
Three settings that trip people up if they miss them early:
Permalinks
Go to Settings → Permalinks and change from "Plain" to Post name (/my-post-title/). This is the SEO-friendly URL structure. Do this before you publish any content — changing it later breaks existing URLs.
Timezone
Go to Settings → General → Timezone and set it to your local timezone. This affects scheduled posts and the timestamps shown in your admin. Takes 10 seconds and matters for scheduled publishing.
Remove Default Content
WordPress installs with default content you don't want: a "Hello world!" sample post, a "Sample Page", and a default comment on the post. Delete all three:
- Posts: Hover over "Hello world!" → Trash
- Pages: Hover over "Sample Page" → Trash
- Comments: Go to Comments → Trash the default comment
Also go to Settings → Discussion and decide your comment settings. If you're not planning to run a comment section, uncheck "Allow people to submit comments on new posts." Fewer spam problems that way.
Optional but worth doing: Go to Settings → Reading and set "Your homepage displays" to "A static page." Create a blank page called "Home" and assign it. This gives you full control over your homepage layout rather than defaulting to the blog post feed.
Troubleshooting: Common Issues
This is almost always just DNS propagation still in progress. It can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 48 hours depending on your registrar and the TTL settings on the old DNS records.
Check propagation status at whatsmydns.net — enter your domain and see how many locations are showing the correct Cloudways IP. When you see most locations showing the right IP, you're good. Don't make additional DNS changes while waiting — it resets the clock.
The SSL installation requires your domain to be pointing to the Cloudways server before Let's Encrypt can verify it. If DNS hasn't fully propagated, the certificate request will fail.
Wait for DNS to propagate (verify at whatsmydns.net), then go back to Application → SSL Certificate and try installing again. The error should clear. If it doesn't, double-check the A record in your domain registrar matches the Cloudways server IP exactly — a single digit off will cause this.
Usually means WordPress still has the old http:// URL in its settings. Go to WordPress admin → Settings → General and update both the WordPress Address (URL) and Site Address (URL) to https://. Save changes and clear your browser cache.
If you're locked out and can't access wp-admin at all, go to Cloudways → Application → Application Management → Application Settings. You can update the WordPress URL from there without needing to log in to WordPress.
Check whether a caching plugin is active and configured. A fresh WordPress install with no cache will feel slow — the database is queried on every page load. Install and activate either Breeze (free, built by Cloudways), WP Rocket, or LiteSpeed Cache, then run a speed test again.
Also check whether any particularly heavy plugins are installed. Go to Tools → Site Health in WordPress admin — it will flag performance issues including slow plugin load times. One heavy plugin can undo the server's speed advantage entirely.
Cloudways does not include email hosting — this is a known limitation. WordPress sends transactional email via PHP mail by default, which often gets flagged as spam or doesn't work at all on cloud servers.
Install a free SMTP plugin like WP Mail SMTP and connect it to a mail service. Free options: Google Workspace (if you have it), SendGrid free tier (100 emails/day), or Brevo (formerly Sendinblue, 300 emails/day free). This takes about 10 minutes to set up and solves the outgoing email problem completely.
What's Next?
Your WordPress site is live on Cloudways with SSL, essential plugins, and clean settings. That's the foundation. Here's where to go from here:
A few things worth doing in the first week after launch:
- Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console (Rank Math generates it automatically — find the URL in Rank Math → Sitemap)
- Set up Cloudways automated backups — go to Application → Backups and enable daily backups with 7-day retention. Takes 30 seconds and saves you from catastrophe
- Install Google Analytics or Plausible for traffic tracking before you start publishing
- Run your site through PageSpeed Insights (pagespeed.web.dev) to establish a performance baseline