Last updated December 8, 2020
I’m going to show you how to setup a WordPress Website on Google Cloud Website for FREE! All you need is your own domain, (like UTECHPIA.com, PixelStabbers.com, MostEpicDave.com, Or MidnightCoffeeSampler.com. if you don’t have a domain name yet, , you can get one at www.utechpia.com/namesilo It only costs you about $9 a year.
We’re going to setup WordPress Website Hosted on Google’s Super Fast and Super Reliable Cloud Servers for FREE!
The reason why we can get away with using Google Cloud Platform to host our website for FREE is because we will take advantage of TWO promotions.
The first one is the FREE $300 Google Cloud Credit. Which anyone can get, with a basic Gmail Account. However, you will NEED a credit card to activate this promotion. So this promotion gives you $300 credit to use in anyway you want on Google Cloud Platform, as long as you use it within a year.
Don’t worry, I know what you’re thinking: Great, $300 free credit for the first year, then it’ll probably cost a lot later on, right? Yes and No. And that’s the power of GCP, if your website has only has light traffic, then you can leverage the GCP Always Free Tier, which actually gives you enough for a perfectly functional website with a good amount of traffic. For Example, all my websites are currently running on Always Free Tier! The Always FREE Tier is always FREE, Unlike the $300 FREE Google Credit). The ONE thing that we will need to pay on top of the Always Free Tier is a static IP address, which will cost only costs a few cents per month. You technically don’t even need a static IP address, but I highly recommend it, for easy maintenance.
So now you’re probably wondering, what if I get a lot of traffic to my website. Right? Well.. Using the Always Free Tier does limit the performance of your website when a lot of people are accessing it at the same time and if there is a lot of content being downloaded from your website. You’ll be able to monitor these things by setting up alerts for CPU utilization, Network Utilization, and Billing Alerts.
But let’s be honest here. Do you really expect a lot of traffic on your website? That’s great if you are going to get lots of traffic to your website. But for me, every time I create a website, I barely get any traffic, it usually takes me about 6 months to a year before I see some decent traffic. And even then, the performance of the AlwaysFree Tier is still perfectly fine. Should my traffic ever get high enough where I need to UPGRADE from the Always Free Tier, I can easily make the change within Google Cloud Platform. And, it’ll actually cost money, but at that point, I should already be making a ton of money with my website.
And here’s a dirty little secret, If you really wanted to, you can create another gmail account, and signup for the free $300 credit again. Then you can move your website from the old account to the new account, and you’ll $300 credit again to use within a year. Morally, that’s not right to do, but a ton of people have asked me that question, so it is possible.
But like I said, all of my websites, have been running on the AlwaysFreeTier for over a year, and they work just fine. I only pay a few cents a month, for the static IP address, and I’m totally happy with the results.
Alright, enough talk! Let’s get started!
All the commands and step-by-step instructions can also be found at www.utechpia.com/GCP
Step #1, Create a Gmail account if you don’t already have one.
Step #2, Buy a domain name by going to www.utechpia.com/namesilo if you don’t already have a domain name.
Step #3, go to cloud.google.com and sign up for the FREE $300 Credit. You’ll need to enter your Credit Card to Activate the Credit.
Step #4,, Deploy your Bitnami WordPress Website.
Step #5, Make a Static IP Address.
Step #6, Setup the domain name to point to the newly deployed WordPress Website!
Step #7, Notice that it is not secured. Let’s create a FREE SSL certificate so that we have a secured. This SSL certificate will AUTOMATICALLY renew, and it’s 100% FREE!
sudo /opt/bitnami/bncert-tool
Step #8, Let’s also remove the Bitnami Banner:
Open your httpd-app.conf for editing by running the following command:
sudo nano /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/httpd-app.conf
Once inside the file, locate the following line:
Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/banner.conf”
Next, comment out the line by adding a # symbol in front of it – as shown:
#Include “/opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/banner.conf”
Next, save and exit the file (CTRL+X then CTRL+Y), and restart your Apache server by running the following command:
sudo /opt/bitnami/ctlscript.sh restart
Step #9: Let’s Enable a Swap File, this will increase performance and make the best out of our Always Free Tier Machine.
Enable Swap File
sudo fallocate -l 1G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile
echo ‘/swapfile none swap sw 0 0’ | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
Step #10: Let’s install Really Simple SSL to make sure we are always using the SSL version of the website:
Install Really Simple SSL
System detection encountered issues
A definition of a siteurl or homeurl was detected in your wp-config.php, but the file is not writable.
Set your wp-config.php to writable and reload this page.
SSH in and run:
sudo chown daemon:daemon /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/htdocs/wp-config.php
Step #13: Let’s setup our wordpress email address.
Here we will be using our Gmail address, but if you want something like Hello@YourDomain.com, then you’ll need to pay for email hosting. The cheapest option is using utechpia.com/zoho They have a Free plan as well as the $1/month plan.
If you want the BEST email experience, I highly recommend G-suite, you can get it at www.utechpia.com/gsuite
Step #15: Let’s step a Content Delivery Network to enable caching to increase the speed of the website. We will increase security as well.
Step #15: Let’s install a WordPress Theme to make it look nice! You can get free themes online, but if you are serious about making a really good website without spending a ton of time, I highly recommend checking out these following themes:
WordPress Themes:
Let’s use the EXTRA theme today!
Appearance > Theme > Add New
Extra > Support Center > See that it is not healthy.
Notice that the Category Builder is not working:
And noticed that the diagnostic shows problems, let’s fix all those:
VM modifications:
sudo nano /opt/bitnami/apps/wordpress/conf/htaccess.conf
Add to the VERY end of the file:
<IfModule mod_substitute.c>
SubstituteMaxLineLength 20M
</IfModule>
Edit:
Sudo nano /opt/bitnami/php/etc/php.ini
Added at the very bottom:
post_max_size = 64M
upload_max_filesize = 64M
PERFECT!
One last thing that I want to change here is the footer, I want it to say my website:
Extra > Theme Options > Integration > Add Code:
<script>
var year = new Date();
year = year.getFullYear();
jQuery(function($){
$(‘#footer-info’).html(‘© ‘ + year + ‘ <a href=”https://www.MidnightCoffeeSampler.com”>MidnightCoffeeSampler.com</a> | We LOVE Coffee & Midnight! | <a href=”https://www.utechpia.com/extra”>Wordpress Theme</a>’);
});
</script>
If you guys find this video helpful! Please consider leaving in that last bit of code at the end of the footer which is an affiliate link for UTECHPIA. I would greatly appreciate your support.
Alright guys! That’s the end of this video, I hope it was helpful!
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask below. I’ll try my best to answer the questions, when I have time. Otherwise, I will try to make an updated video to answer your questions.
If you haven’t already done so already, please remember to LIKE this video and SUBSCRIBE to UTECHPIA!
Your Support is always, always appreciated!
Thanks so much for watching! I’ll see you guys next time!
