Tutorials

Publish your site free with a ShipPress address

You don’t need a hosting company to get a first site online. ShipPress can publish a static copy of your site on a free address that ends in .workers.dev. Forms on your site are e-mailed to you. This tutorial follows a café site, Harbor Beans, from your computer to the internet, then publishes a change and tests the contact form on the live site.

By Oberon Lai. I make ShipPress (Codotx, LLC), so this is our own product.

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1. Get the site ready on your computer

   Until you go live, your site only runs on your computer. Look through it in the preview first. If you want visitors to reach you, make sure the Contact page has a form. If it doesn’t, ask the AI, for example:

   Add a contact form with name, e-mail and message to the Contact page.

2. Click Go live

   Click Go live at the top right. The first time, ShipPress explains your options in two short steps: you need a web address, and then a way to put your site online (your own computer, ShipPress static hosting, or a professional hosting company). Click Next, then Done.

3. Choose Free address

   The Go live window has two tabs: Free address and WordPress host. Choose Free address. Your site goes on a free address that ends in .workers.dev, with no hosting company to pick, and forms are e-mailed to you.

   The free address hosts a static copy of your site. Anything that needs WordPress running on a server, such as a shop (WooCommerce), doesn’t work there. For those, use the WordPress host tab and follow Go live.

4. Sign in with your e-mail

   Type your e-mail and click Send me a code. ShipPress e-mails you a six-digit code. Type it and click Sign in. There is no password. Use an address you read: messages from your site’s forms go there too.

5. Put it on a free address

   Once you are signed in, ShipPress shows how many free-address sites you have used. Each account can have up to five. Click Put it on a free address.

   ShipPress makes a static copy of every page, finds which files changed, uploads them and switches the site to the new version. When it is done, it shows how many pages are online and which pages have forms. Under Worth a look, it lists anything visitors can’t open, such as links to the WordPress dashboard.

6. Open your live site

   Click the address under Free address to open your site in the browser. The Trial badge means search engines skip the free address. To go fully live, connect an address you have or buy a domain in Sites.

7. Publish changes

   Keep editing in ShipPress as usual. In the video, the AI changes the opening hours everywhere on the site. Then click Go live again and Publish changes. Only the files that changed are uploaded.

   Earlier versions lists what you have published, with the current one marked. If a change goes wrong, click Go back to this one next to an earlier version.

8. Test the contact form

   On the live site, fill in the contact form and send it. After a short security check, the form says it was sent, and the message arrives at the e-mail you signed in with. There is no plugin or mail server to set up.

9. Where to go next

   To use your own domain or a WordPress host instead, read Go live. To keep improving your site, follow Edit your site.

   Don’t have ShipPress yet? Download ShipPress (free, Mac).