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How to Start a WordPress Site on Hostinger in 2026

Updated 15 November 2026 · Kavvo Lab

Starting a WordPress site sounds technical. On Hostinger it is mostly clicking “next” — the installer does the technical part. This guide takes you from nothing to a live WordPress site in about 30 minutes.

Step 1 — Pick a plan

Go to Hostinger and pick a shared hosting plan. For a first blog, the cheapest plan is enough — you can upgrade later without migrating. Pick a 12-month term: the 48-month term has the lowest monthly price, but it locks you in for four years, and you do not know yet whether you will still want this host in four years. Check the renewal price on the checkout page before you pay.

Step 2 — Pick a domain

Hostinger includes a free domain for the first year on most plans. Pick something short, easy to spell, and preferably a .com. If your first choice is taken, add a word rather than a hyphen or a strange extension — yournameblog.com beats your-name-blog.xyz.

Step 3 — Install WordPress (one click)

In hPanel (Hostinger’s control panel), open Websites → Add Website → WordPress. Enter your email, a site title, and an admin password you will actually remember. Click install. Two minutes later WordPress is live.

Step 4 — Turn on SSL and check the site

SSL (the padlock in the browser) should be on by default — check it in Security → SSL. Then open your domain in a fresh browser tab. If you see the default WordPress page, you are live. If you see an error, wait five minutes (DNS takes a few minutes to point at the new server) and try again.

Step 5 — The five settings to change first

1. Settings → General: set the site title and tagline properly.
2. Settings → Permalinks: choose “Post name” — it makes your URLs readable (/my-first-post/ instead of /?p=123) and it is better for search engines.
3. Settings → Discussion: turn off comments on old posts, or turn comments off entirely until you have time to moderate them.
4. Appearance → Themes: pick a fast, simple theme. Do not install a heavy page-builder theme on day one.
5. Plugins: install only two to start — a backup plugin and a caching plugin (Hostinger’s LiteSpeed Cache is free and built for its servers).

Step 6 — Write your first post

Posts → Add New. Write 800 words about one thing, add one image, publish. Your site is now a real website. Everything after this — SEO, speed, design — is improvement, not setup.

After launch: your first-week checklist

Your site is live, but it is not finished. Do these five things in the first week and you will avoid the mistakes most beginners only notice months later.

1. Write three posts, not thirty pages. A blog with three real posts and a working homepage beats a blog with twenty empty pages. Publish, then improve.
2. Set up Google Search Console. It is free, it tells Google your site exists, and it shows you the searches that bring readers. You will need the sitemap URL — for a WordPress site it is usually yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. This is also where you will see redirect and indexing errors if they ever appear; fix them early, one hop at a time, and never chain redirects.
3. Make a backup. Hostinger’s cheapest plans do not include automatic daily backups. Install a free backup plugin and run your first backup now, before you have anything to lose.
4. Test your site on a phone. Most of your readers will arrive on mobile. Open your homepage on your own phone and check the text is readable, the menu works, and nothing overlaps.
5. Check your speed. Run your homepage through PageSpeed Insights. If it scores below 70 on mobile, the usual cause is a heavy theme or an unoptimised image — fix those before you buy any speed plugin.

What it costs

About $2.99/mo for the first year on an intro plan, plus $0 for the domain in year one. Budget for the renewal price in year two — run the numbers in our hosting cost calculator before you buy a long term.

Frequently asked questions