How to host your website

Put your practice’s website online yourself, for free, in about 5 to 20 minutes.

Thank you for letting us be part of your practice’s journey. Your website is yours: every page, your photos, and your words. This guide walks you through putting it online somewhere new. And you’re always welcome back.

Good to know: once your website is hosted outside Well Launched, you manage it yourself, including updates, changes, and keeping it online. Well Launched isn’t able to make changes to sites hosted elsewhere.

Emily
Dr. Emily Turinas, PhD · Founder, Well Launched

What’s in your download

One folder per page (for example about/ and contact/), plus index.html, your homepage.
site.css, your design, and a photos folder with your images.
sitemap.xml and robots.txt, which help Google find your pages.

First, unzip the download: double-click it on a Mac, or right-click and choose “Extract all” on Windows. You’ll upload the unzipped folder.

Three free options, compared

	Netlify Drop	Cloudflare Pages	GitHub Pages
Best for	The easiest start	Speed, if your domain uses Cloudflare	People who already use GitHub
Time to go live	About 5 minutes	About 10 minutes	About 15 to 20 minutes
How you upload	Drag your folder onto a web page	Upload your folder in the dashboard	Upload files to a code repository
Your own domain	Yes, free	Yes, free (easiest if your domain is on Cloudflare)	Yes, free
Secure (https) address	Included	Included	Included
Cost	Free plan	Free plan	Free with a public repository

Free plans are plenty for a practice website. Plans and menus change over time; if a button has moved, search the host’s help pages for the step name.

Option 1: Netlify Drop (easiest)

Go to app.netlify.com/drop and sign up for a free account.
Drag your unzipped website folder onto the page.
Wait a few seconds. Netlify gives you a working address ending in .netlify.app. Open it and check your pages.
To use your own domain: in your new site, open Domain management (under Site configuration), choose Add a domain, type your domain, and follow the steps. Netlify shows the exact records to add at your domain company.
Later changes: drag the updated folder onto your site’s Deploys page.

Option 2: Cloudflare Pages

Sign up for free at dash.cloudflare.com.
Go to Workers & Pages, choose Create, then Pages, then Upload assets.
Name your project (for example, your practice name), then upload your unzipped folder and choose Deploy site.
You get a working address ending in .pages.dev. Open it and check your pages.
To use your own domain: open your project, go to Custom domains, choose Set up a custom domain, and follow the steps. If your domain already uses Cloudflare, it connects in a click.

Option 3: GitHub Pages

Create a free account at github.com.
Create a new public repository (for example, my-practice-website).
Choose Add file, then Upload files, and drag in everything inside your unzipped folder (so index.html is at the top level). Choose Commit changes.
Go to Settings, then Pages. Under “Build and deployment,” choose Deploy from a branch, pick main and / (root), and save.
In a minute or two, your site appears at the address GitHub shows on that page.
To use your own domain: on the same Pages screen, enter your domain under Custom domain and follow GitHub’s steps for your domain company’s records.

Before you switch your domain

Only change the website records. Don’t change your domain’s email (MX) records, or your email could stop working.
Moving to a new address? If your website’s address changes, search and replace the old address in sitemap.xml and in each page’s <link rel="canonical"> line.
Preview sites: if robots.txt says Disallow: /, change it to Allow: / so Google can find your site.
Photos: photos from Unsplash are free to use (unsplash.com/license). Your own photos are yours.
Update your listings if your website address changed: your Google Business Profile, Psychology Today, and directories.

Questions? You’re always welcome to come back to Well Launched at welllaunched.com.