Are you looking to create a WordPress website hosting for free? You have come to the right place.
In this how-to video I will walk you through step-by-step instructions how to claim free WordPress hosting on Google Cloud Platform using provided $300 US dollars credit for 12 months.
After your trial period ends (either using up all your $300 credit or having passed 12-month period whichever comes first) you will not be charged unless you upgrade to paid account. Please note that once your trial period ends , all data you stored in Compute Engine is lost, all resources you created during the trial are stopped. You must upgrade to a paid account to continue using Google Cloud.
According to Google Cloud Free Tier FAQ, any remaining or unexpired free $300 trial credit remains in your account once your upgrade to a paid account. Therefore, it is very important to activate to paid account before your trial period ends so that any unused credit will be carried forwards into your paid account for future use. The “Always Free Tier” products will also continue to be FREE.
If you’re starting out your own business with tight budget, I think this free trial on Google Cloud Platform is very good option to save the upfront cost of having your own website. Your website might not have a lot of traffic at the beginning, therefore using the Free Tier options as shown in my video should suffice. Most importantly, check out the Always Free program from Google Cloud for usage limits.
Step by step instructions:
Time needed: 37 minutes.
- Step 1: Setting up Virtual Machine on Google Cloud Platform
00:59 – Creating new Project
01:46 – Creating VM instance in Compute Engine
03:52 – Connecting to VM instance using gcloud SDK
07:54 – Creating a Linux Swap FIle - Step 2: Setting up Domain Name
10:36 – Creating Type A Record to direct Domain Name to WordPress Host
- Step 3: Installing WordPress Requirements
12:38 – Installation of Apache web server for Ubuntu system
18:30 – Installation of MariaDB v15.1 database server for Ubuntu
20:27 – Installation of PHP v7.4.3
22:02 – (Optional) Installation of phpMyAdmin
23:39 – Setting up MariaDB database - Step 4: WordPress Installation
26:52 – Downloading and extracting WordPress software
27:48 – Moving WordPress files into Apache web server
29:09 – Setting up WordPress configuration file - Step 5: Securing website with SSL using Let’s Encrypt CA
33:54 – Installation of Certbot to automate securing process
If you have any questions or comment, please leave a reply below…
