WooCommerce on Cloudways: Complete Beginner's Guide (2022)

Why WooCommerce and Cloudways Make a Great Combo

Starting an e-commerce store doesn't require a computer science degree or a massive budget. WooCommerce, the most popular WordPress e-commerce plugin, gives you an extensible foundation with thousands of plugins available to add features as your business grows. Whether you want to sell physical products, set up subscriptions, or handle online ordering for a local restaurant, WooCommerce can handle it.

The hosting side of the equation matters just as much as the software. Cloudways is a managed hosting platform that takes care of the technical server administration while still giving you serious power under the hood. Unlike traditional shared hosting, Cloudways lets you choose from providers like DigitalOcean, AWS, and Google Cloud — without ever having to navigate their notoriously complex dashboards yourself.

To follow along with this guide, you'll need two things: a Cloudways account and a domain name. Namecheap is a solid registrar for picking up affordable domains, but any registrar will work as long as you have access to the DNS settings.

Creating Your Server on Cloudways

Once you're signed up with Cloudways, the first step is spinning up a server. Don't let the word "server" intimidate you — it's simply a computer connected to the internet 24/7 that hosts your website. Cloudways makes the process straightforward by letting you select "WooCommerce" as your application type, which installs WordPress with WooCommerce pre-configured.

You'll want to name your application after your domain (e.g., mavericksandrebels.com) and give your server a distinct name so you can tell them apart. For WooCommerce stores specifically, it's best to dedicate the entire server to your store rather than hosting multiple sites on it. WooCommerce is resource-hungry, and you don't want other applications competing for processing power.

When choosing a hosting provider within Cloudways, DigitalOcean (now Cloudways' parent company) is a popular default. For server specs, the recommended WooCommerce configuration is the $50/month plan, but you can start lower at 2GB RAM and 1 CPU core if you're just testing the waters. Pay attention to the faster CPU options — the price difference is minimal, but the performance gain for handling e-commerce transactions is noticeable. Choose a server location close to your customers, and hit "Launch Now." The server takes about seven minutes to spin up.

Connecting Your Domain Name to Cloudways

With your server running, you need to point your domain name to it. Start by grabbing your server's public IP address from the Cloudways dashboard — click on your server name and copy the IP from where it says "Public IP."

Head over to your domain registrar (Namecheap in this case) and navigate to Advanced DNS settings. If you're working with a brand new domain, clear out any existing records you're not using. Then add an A record with "@" as the host and paste your Cloudways IP address as the value. Next, add a CNAME record with "www" as the host and your domain name as the value. This ensures visitors reach your site whether they type the www or not.

Back in Cloudways, switch from the server level to the application level by clicking the www icon or navigating to Applications. Go to Domain Management, type in your website address, and save. The final piece is installing an SSL certificate — navigate to SSL Certificate in the sidebar, enter your email address and domain name (without www), and click Install. Once the certificate installs successfully, your site will show that reassuring padlock icon in the browser's address bar.

Installing and Configuring the Astra Theme

Your site is live, but it's running the default WordPress theme — which, frankly, is not winning any beauty contests. The Astra theme is an excellent choice for e-commerce because it's lightweight, fast, and deeply integrated with WooCommerce. Even better, Cloudways users get Astra Pro free for an entire year through a partnership between the two companies.

To claim the free Astra Pro offer, click the grid icon in your Cloudways dashboard, go to Add-ons, find Astra Pro, and subscribe. They'll email you login credentials for the Astra dashboard where you can download the licensed Pro version.

Installing Astra itself is standard WordPress fare: go to Appearance > Themes > Add New, find Astra (it's usually right at the top of the popular themes list), install, and activate. For Astra Pro, go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin, drag in the zip file you downloaded, install, and activate with your license key.

Once Astra Pro is active, enable the settings that matter for e-commerce: Colors & Background, Typography, Spacing, Blog Pro, Sticky Header, Site Layouts, and the Scroll to Top icon. You'll also want to make sure WooCommerce itself is activated under Plugins if it isn't already — the Cloudways installation should have it ready, but double-check.

Adding Your First Products to WooCommerce

With your theme in place, it's time to actually add products. Navigate to Products > Add New in the WordPress sidebar. The WooCommerce setup wizard will likely nag you at this point — work through it by entering your business address, declining the newsletter signups and unnecessary plugin installations. When it asks about "Free Business Features," uncheck everything. You can always add extensions later, but starting lean keeps things manageable.

For each product, you'll fill in a title, a full product description in the main editor, and a short description that appears near the price. The product data section below lets you set regular and sale prices, manage inventory, and configure shipping options. Organize your catalog with product categories (broad groupings like "T-Shirts") and tags (specific attributes like "skulls" or "vintage") to help customers find what they're looking for.

Don't skip the product image — it's the single most important element on your product page. Upload a high-quality image using the "Set product image" option in the right sidebar. If you have multiple angles or detail shots, add those to the product gallery as well. More images generally means more sales, so invest the effort here.

Customizing Your Store's Look and Feel

Now for the fun part: making your store look professional. Start by setting your shop page as the homepage under Customize > Homepage Settings. This puts your product grid front and center when visitors arrive.

Typography sets the tone for your entire brand. Under Global > Typography, Astra Pro offers font presets that pair well together — combinations like Barlow Semi-Condensed with Roboto, or DM Serif Display with Work Sans. Pick fonts that match your brand identity, because changing them later when you have hundreds of pages is a headache. You can also customize individual elements like the site logo text independently.

Global colors are equally powerful. Change one accent color in the global palette, and every button, link, and navigation highlight updates automatically. This is far more efficient than hunting through individual settings. For navigation, consider using a contrasting approach: dark text for menu items with your accent color on hover, and white text on colored buttons for maximum readability.

The header deserves special attention for e-commerce. A dark background with white navigation text looks polished and helps your brand colors pop. Click the pencil icon on any header element to access its design settings directly.

Fine-Tuning the WooCommerce Shop and Product Pages

Astra Pro unlocks a wealth of WooCommerce-specific customization options. In the Customizer under WooCommerce > Product Catalog, you can switch your shop page to a full-width container layout, which eliminates the gray margins and makes your product grid feel more modern and spacious.

The product card design offers several presets — from traditional grid layouts to list-style scrolling views. A three-column grid works well for desktop, but consider switching to a single column on mobile for easier thumb-scrolling. Clean up the visual clutter by turning off the results count, sorting dropdown, and page title. When you're starting with just a handful of products, these elements add noise without adding value.

On individual product pages, you have even more control. Turn off breadcrumbs and category labels if your store is small and focused. Adjust the image gallery layout and size, and disable the hover zoom if it doesn't suit your products. One standout Astra Pro feature is the sticky add-to-cart bar — when enabled, a buy button follows users as they scroll down the page, keeping the purchase option always within reach. This kind of conversion optimization normally requires a paid plugin or custom development.

Building Your Navigation and Footer

WordPress dumps every page into your navigation by default, which looks messy. Create a proper menu by going to Customize > Menus > Create New Menu. Name it "Primary Nav" and assign it to the Primary Menu location. Add only the pages that matter — for a simple merch store, that might just be My Account and Cart.

Customize the navigation labels to match your brand voice. If "my account" feels too casual, change it to "My Account" or "Account" with proper capitalization. Small details like this make a surprising difference in perceived professionalism.

The footer is another area worth cleaning up. Remove the default "Powered by Astra" text and replace it with a simple copyright notice. Astra's footer builder uses a drag-and-drop interface where you can add additional elements like buttons linking to your return policy, terms and conditions, or privacy policy. Style these links with transparent backgrounds and dark text so they look like natural footer links rather than prominent call-to-action buttons.

Setting Up PayPal and Stripe for Payments

A store without a payment processor is just a gallery. You'll want to set up both Stripe (for credit cards) and PayPal to cover the widest range of customer preferences. Install both plugins from Plugins > Add New — search for "WooCommerce Stripe Gateway" and "WooCommerce PayPal Payments" respectively.

Stripe is the easier of the two to configure. Under WooCommerce > Settings > Payments, toggle Stripe on and click "Create or connect an account." Log into your Stripe account, click Connect, and you'll be redirected back to WooCommerce with everything linked up. For the best experience, also set up Stripe webhooks: copy the webhook URL provided in your WooCommerce settings, go to your Stripe dashboard under Settings > Webhooks, add the endpoint, and choose "All events." This keeps WooCommerce updated on payment statuses in real time. Stripe also enables Apple Pay and Google Pay on your site automatically — make sure that checkbox is enabled.

PayPal follows a similar flow. Toggle it on in the Payments settings, click to activate, and log into your business PayPal account in the modal that appears. After connecting, enable Standard Payments to allow PayPal, Pay Later, and Venmo as checkout options. Having recognizable payment badges on your checkout page — Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay — instantly makes your store look more legitimate and trustworthy.

Adding Cloudflare Enterprise for Speed and Security

Cloudflare Enterprise normally costs several hundred dollars per month, but Cloudways includes it as a $5/month add-on — an incredible value. It bundles a CDN (so your pages load fast globally), DDoS mitigation (protection against bot attacks), a web application firewall (blocking known threats based on analyzing 32 million requests per second), and automatic image optimization.

Setup requires adding two TXT records to your DNS, which Cloudways walks you through step by step. After adding those records and verifying your domain, you'll need to update your A records to point to Cloudflare's IP addresses instead of your original server IP. The verification can take up to 24 hours, though it usually completes much faster.

Once Cloudflare is active, your site benefits from edge caching, meaning static content is served from data centers close to your visitors rather than traveling all the way back to your origin server. The image optimization alone can save your site from the performance hit of oversized product photos — a common issue when multiple team members are uploading images without compression.

Redis Caching and the Breeze Plugin

Beyond Cloudflare's CDN caching, Cloudways includes two additional caching layers that keep your store responsive. The Breeze plugin handles page caching out of the box — it's pre-installed and pre-configured, so you don't need to touch it unless you want to exclude specific dynamic pages from being cached.

Redis object caching is the more interesting layer. It works at the server level to speed up the WordPress admin dashboard and dynamic operations like checkout. Cloudways includes Object Cache Pro (normally $950/year) with WooCommerce-specific optimizations baked in. You'll find it under Settings > Object Cache in your WordPress admin, already connected and running. The practical impact is that your backend feels snappy when managing products and orders, and your customers experience faster checkouts — both of which directly affect your bottom line.

Backups, Email, and Server Scaling

Cloudways' backup system is flexible and affordable. At the server level, you can set backup frequency anywhere from hourly to daily, with retention periods up to four weeks. Backups are stored off-site by default, which is exactly what you want — if your server has a catastrophic failure, your backups aren't lost with it. Pricing is just a few cents per gigabyte. For high-traffic WooCommerce stores, hourly backups with one-week retention is a solid baseline. There's also a "Take Backup Now" button for manual snapshots before risky operations like plugin updates.

For transactional email (order confirmations, password resets, shipping notifications), Cloudways integrates with Elastic Email as a one-click add-on for $0.10/month. Enable it at the server level under SMTP settings, and optionally verify your DNS with SPF records for better deliverability. It's remarkably simple compared to configuring a standalone SMTP provider.

When your store starts gaining traction, scaling up is a slider adjustment away. Cloudways' vertical scaling lets you add more RAM and CPU cores without migrating servers. The monitoring dashboard shows real-time RAM and CPU usage — upgrade when free memory drops below 100MB or CPU usage consistently exceeds 80%. One of the best parts of Cloudways' billing model is that it's hourly, not annual. You're never locked into a long-term contract, and you can kill a test server after a few hours for pennies.

Watch the Full Video

Prefer watching to reading? Check out the full video on YouTube for a complete walkthrough with live demos and commentary.