Your First Week with Xponzy: A Complete Setup Checklist

Signing up is the easy part — the first week is where a hosting account turns into a live, professional website. This checklist walks you through everything in a sensible order so nothing important gets missed. You do not have to do it all in one sitting; work through it at your own pace.

Day 1 — Find your way around

• Locate your welcome email. It contains your cPanel username, password, the server name and your account's IP address. Keep it somewhere safe, ideally in a password manager.
• Sign in to the Client Area. This is where you manage billing, invoices, services and support tickets. It is separate from cPanel (which manages the website itself).
• Open cPanel. Use the link in your welcome email, or https://yourdomain.com/cpanel once your domain points to us. Take a minute to look at the main sections: Files, Databases, Email, Domains, Security and Metrics.

Day 2 — Point your domain

Your site cannot go live until your domain resolves to our servers. If you registered the domain with us, this is already done. If it lives at another registrar, point it to our nameservers:

• ns1.xponzy.com
• ns2.xponzy.com

Nameserver changes usually propagate within a few hours, occasionally up to 24–48 hours. If you only want the website here but keep email or DNS elsewhere, use an A record instead — the full walkthrough is in Domains & DNS.

Day 3 — Get your website online

Choose whichever path fits you:

• Building from scratch: use the one-click installer in cPanel to install WordPress or another CMS, or upload static files with File Manager or FTP.
• Migrating an existing site: bring over your files and database. For WordPress specifically, follow our migration preparation guide before you switch DNS.
• Hiring us to build it: our Web Design & Hosting plans handle the build for you.

Day 4 — Secure it with HTTPS

Once the domain resolves to us, cPanel's AutoSSL issues a free certificate for your site automatically, usually within an hour or two. Confirm the padlock appears, then make sure the whole site loads over https://. If anything still loads over plain http://, see how to force HTTPS in the Security & SSL section.

Day 5 — Set up professional email

An address like you@yourdomain.com builds instant credibility. Create your mailboxes in cPanel, then connect them to your phone and desktop. To make sure your mail actually reaches inboxes, set up SPF, DKIM and DMARC — there is a dedicated guide for that in the Email section.

Day 6 — Protect your account

• Turn on two-factor authentication in the Client Area so a stolen password alone cannot get anyone in.
• Use a unique, strong password for cPanel and a different one for the Client Area.
• Make your own copy of anything irreplaceable. cPanel's Backup Wizard lets you download a full backup whenever you like — keeping your own copy off-server is always good practice.

Day 7 — Review and plan ahead

Check that your renewal date and payment method are correct under Billing, skim the rest of this Knowledgebase, and note anything you want help with. If you get stuck at any point, open a ticket from your Client Area — that is the fastest way to reach us with the full context of your account.

Ready to grow? Compare hosting plans or read about WordPress hosting.