How to Install WordPress on Google Cloud (And Why That’s Awesome)
As a website owner, you may be tired of depending on a single server to host your site – frequent downtime, longer load times, and higher costs are all potential downfalls to working with a single hosting provider. However, cloud computing enables you to host your site across multiple servers, saving you money and ensuring almost 100% uptime.
Google Cloud offers one of the most competitive pricing policies among the major cloud providers. In this post, we’ll show you how you can set up WordPress using the service, but first, let’s look at why it’s so awesome!
An Introduction to Cloud Computing with WordPress
Cloud computing essentially enables you to upload your site’s files (such as images, style sheets, and other assets) to a remote server, and access them on demand. To get access to them, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) connects to the cloud, and serves files to users across a wide network of fast servers all over the globe, ensuring quick download times and connection.
When you access a Word document, your Facebook page, or check your banking account from your phone, you are using cloud computing. In other words, applications that would normally be stored and accessed on one physical computer can now be accessed from multiple devices.
Setting up a WordPress site is also possible in the cloud, and there are numerous benefits, such as:
- Cost. While there’s always a cost attached with hosting, using the cloud makes more sense financially than using an individual hosting provider. Firstly, information is stored centrally, eliminating the need for individual servers. Also, you won’t have to account for the upkeep and maintenance costs that come with other forms of hosting.
- Dynamic scaling. Single servers can’t always adapt to traffic spikes, and will often cost you more due to the extra resources needed to deliver your site. Cloud computing delivers resources immediately, enabling you to temporarily employ larger resources for the extra traffic, then downgrade as traffic reduces.
- Guaranteed uptime. Cloud hosting copies your site onto multiple servers. If one goes down, another will take its place. It means you’ll experience nearly 100% uptime, making it a highly reliable option.
Many companies offer convenient cloud hosting for your WordPress website, and we’ll compare the major platforms later in this post. However, let’s firstly look at the focus of this piece – Google Cloud.
Introducing Google Cloud
Google Cloud is a cloud computing service that offers a slew of tools and products, including hosting and computing, cloud and data storage, and translation and prediction APIs. There are a number of reasons Google is powerful provider of cloud hosting:
- Its infrastructure is built to be sustainable for the future. The cloud is secure, global, high-performing, cost-effective, and constantly improving.
- Its powerful data and analytics tools enables you to gather answers in no time, and build better products.
- Google Cloud is a fully managed app development program.
- The service offers virtual machines with proven price and performance advantages.
Google Cloud stands out from other cloud hosting providers due to its per-minute billing and automatic discounts with increased usage, with no contract to access them.
That being said, there are other cloud providers available. Let’s take a look at how they compare.
How Google Cloud Compares to Other Providers
Other major cloud providers are also suitable for installing WordPress, but Google’s competitive pricing and continuous uptime makes it tough for them to compete. However, they still have significant perks – let’s delve deeper.
Digital Ocean
While Digital Ocean appeals due to its affordable pricing, large community and resources, there’s a bigger price to pay for the low cost. It doesn’t use centralized storage, and disks are located in the hypervisor – which means you run the risk of experiencing data loss if it fails. While users like the simple dashboard and easy configuration possible with Digital Ocean, Google Cloud offers easier scaling and greater consistency.
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure provides several features including the ability to create spending limits for yourself, and offers a 5% discount upon committing to a 12-month contract. In contrast, Google Cloud can ultimately save you more money, with a 30% net discount for instances that run the entire month.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services looks to speed up your service and boost performance. However, it’s also known to have a history of outages. AWS also offers several pricing options (which can be more complicated and potentially more expensive), while Google Cloud offers only one – monthly payment for on-demand usage of their virtual machines.
In a nutshell, Google Cloud stands out from other providers due to their cloud network using the same supporting infrastructure that Google uses to handle over 40,000 search queries per second. Simply put, its reliability is baked into the brand.
Let’s now get down to the nitty-gritty – how to install WordPress on Google Cloud.
Installing WordPress on Google Cloud
Once you’ve purchased Google Cloud, you’ll need to log into your Google account, and access the Google Cloud Console. From the Project drop-down, click Create project:
In the resulting pop-up, fill in the project’s fields, including the name, billing account, and app engine location. Once you’ve clicked Yes to confirm to the terms and conditions, Click Create. Navigate to API Manager > Library, and under the Google Cloud APIs section, click Cloud Deployment Manager API. Finally, click Enable:
Now it’s time to deploy the WordPress installation! Search for the Cloud Launcher, and from the Blog/CMS tab, click WordPress:
From the next screen, click Launch on Compute Engine:
You’ll need to complete the WordPress deployment form before you continue, making sure you check the following boxes:
- Install phpMyAdmin.
- Enable Google Cloud Monitoring to receive regular reports on your service.
- Allow HTTP traffic and HTTPS traffic, found under Firewall.
To begin the installation, click Deploy:
After WordPress has finalized the installation, you’ll be redirected to the Deployment information screen. Make sure you keep a record of the WordPress administrator username and password, as well as the MySQL administrator password and phpMyAdmin username. To visit your installation, Click Visit WordPress site. You can also enter the IP address found under Site address in your browser:
That’s all there is to it!
Conclusion
You no longer have to depend on a single shared server to host your site. Installing WordPress on Google Cloud ensures regular uptime for your site, and enables you to scale your resources to manage spikes in traffic. What’s more, the savings you’ll make can be reinvested in your business, lowering your outgoings as a result.
In this tutorial, we’ve explained how Google Cloud works; we’ve also shown you how to use it to easily install WordPress – let’s recap:
- Create a project in Google Cloud.
- Install WordPress.
- Fill out a Deployment form, noting down your WordPress credentials.
- Enjoy your new WordPress site!
What questions do you have about installing WordPress in Google Cloud? Ask away in the comments section below!