How To Migrate A WordPress Site From SiteGround To A2 Hosting (Manually)

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Planning to switch from SiteGround To A2 Hosting? This is quite obvious as many SiteGround users are planning to change their hosting plan because the high price. Yes, when you compare SiteGround with other WordPress hosting providers, then you will notice that their hosting plans are quite expensive.

Although they claim as the best WordPress hosting, but for a beginner price matters a lot. On that context, many SiteGround users who are going to finish their promotional hosting period are looking to transfer their WordPress website to other hosting. In this tutorial I will answer all your queries like below.

  • How To Transfer Your WordPress Site From SiteGround To A2 Hosting
  • How To Move Your website From SiteGround To A2 Hosting Servers
  • How Do I Change my Hosting From SiteGround To A2 Hosting
  • How to migrate a WordPress site to A2 Hosting
How To Transfer Your Website From SiteGround To A2 Hosting
How To Transfer Your Website From SiteGround To A2 Hosting

Why You Should Migrate Your Website To A2 Hosting?

If you are looking for another affordable, high performance shared hosting plan so that you can migrate your website from SiteGround then A2 Hosting is a very popular name. They are quite popular, into this business from 2001 and also offers turbo servers which offers fast loading websites.

Although like any other shared hosting providers you need to pay high renewal charges, but to get a good discount you can avail the A2 Hosting promotional prices which starts from $2.99/mo only.

So, here are few of the top reasons to transfer your website from SiteGround to A2 Hosting.

  • Speed: The biggest problem with shared hosting plans are low speed websites. In that environment A2 Hosting promises great speed for websites hosted on their Turbo servers. If you are looking for a good SiteGround alternative, then A2 Hosting will give your similar performance.
  • Great Uptime: A2 Hosting promises a very good uptime of 99.97%. In last few years they have worked hard to reduce the downtime of their servers which has improved their services & a good uptime which is very much crucial.
  • Security: A2 Hosting servers are protected by “HackScan,” a 24/7-monitoring service that scans for malware and other attacks. Their data centers are also scalable, meaning you’re protected if a denial of service attack (DDoS) breaks out. These attacks attempt to flood your servers with traffic and knock your site offline. So A2 Hosting has got your back to handle sudden, unexpected surges.
  • Free Website Migration: If you don’t want to do the SiteGround to A2 Hosting migration manually, then don’t worry. You can connect with A2 Hosting support team and avail the free website transfer service. Yes, they offer a free website migration service for 1 website. If you have multiple websites then they will charge you $10 extra per website.
  • Anytime Money-Back Guarantee: Most hosts that we’ve reviewed offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. However, A2 Hosting has gone further than that and provides an “anytime” money-back guarantee.
  • Customer Support: A2 Hosting provides 24/7 support through live chat, email, ticketing, and phone. They also have a vast knowledge base if you prefer to find an answer yourself or learn something new.

So, these are few of the reasons why you will not repent moving your website to A2 Hosting from SiteGround.

Step By Step Guide To Transfer A WordPress Site From SiteGround To A2 Hosting

Now its time to start the website migration process. And for that you have to buy A2 Hosting plan first and if you have done that already you can skip the step 1 mentioned below.

1.How To Buy Hosting From A2 Hosting

To order a web hosting package from A2 Hosting, follow the below step by step guide.

Step 1: Visit A2 Hosting Official website using this link. They are giving a massive 72% discount on their shared hosting plans. Now click on the GET STARTED button.

how to buy hosting from a2 hosting 1

Step 2: You will find 4 different types of plans: STARTUP, DRIVE, TURBO, BOOST. Choose the one as per your budget. But I would recommend you to start with DRIVE plan only as it can host unlimited websites. In case your SiteGround account has multiple domain, you need this plan only.

how to buy hosting from a2 hosting 2

Step 3: In the next screen you need to provide the domain name that you want to migrate from SiteGround to A2 Hosting. Use the option for existing domain.

how to buy hosting from a2 hosting 3

Step 4: In the next screen provide your personal information and also you can choose the currency in which you want to pay the money. Feel details carefully.

how to buy hosting from a2 hosting 5

Step 5: A2 Hosting offers various types of payment options. Pick your preferred payment options and then complete the payment.

how to buy hosting from a2 hosting 4

You can watch this video tutorial also, where I have shared the complete process when I have migrated my website from SiteGround To Bluehost manually.

2.Take Complete Backup Of Your Website On SiteGround

Now before changing the Domain DNS records with A2 Hosting DNS servers, first login to your website and take complete backup. For that you need to install UpDraftPlus plugin. This is a free plugin and we can take 100% backup of any WordPress website easily.

UpdraftPlus Demo

After you installed that plugin, go to settings => UpdraftPlus.

Then Click on the backup now button. It will start taking the backups in just few minutes and create similar files like below.

updraftplus backup

Click on each folders like Database, Plugins, Themes, Upload, Others and then download them on your desktop or laptop. This is a physical backup and we need to keep these files safe so that we can upload them as soon as we set up our domain in A2 Hosting account.

E.g. this is how the files will look like. I generally take physical backup of my websites using UpdraftPlus. You must do that even if you have backup from web hosting side.

updraftplus backup zip files

3.Change Domain DNS Settings

As soon as you are done with the A2 Hosting purchase, you might have received few emails. Out of them in one mail you will get the DNS name Server details like below. Note down them as we need to change the same by login to your GoDaddy / NameCheap account.

a2 hosting DNS servers

This is a very simple process. I have showed the same in the website transfer video also. You can watch that video first and follow this entire article to become comfortable with this process of website transfer from SiteGround To A2 Hosting.

4.Add Domain To Your A2 Hosting Account

A2 Hosting offers cPanel based hosting account. In that case you will find the interface will be almost similar with other shared hosting providers as well. So, you need to access your A2 Hosting hosting account.

Next, Look for Addon Domain option and then simply add your domain name. It make take some time if the previous step doesn’t complete successfully. Generally after you update the DNS records, it may take up to 24 hours time to complete the propagation.

addon domain

5.Install WordPress On The Domain On A2 Hosting

After adding the domain on your A2 Hosting account, our next target is to install WordPress on that domain. This you can easily do using Softaculuos software. Look for the software in your cPanel account.

cpanel softaculous

Click on that link and it will open the below screen where you need to click on WordPress.

locate wordpress in softaculous

Next, to install WordPress on your domain name you have to fill up the below form. Make sure to choose the domain name, HTTPS and website title, description etc. Provide a user id & password as well.

Note: Don’t put anything in the directly path. make sure to keep that empty only.

softaculous wordpress form

After putting all information, you can click on INSTALL button. Your WordPress will be installed on that domain in just few seconds only. And you will find a screen like below.

softaculous wordpress installation

That’s it. Now Click on the Admin URL and login to the domain .

6. Install UpdraftPlus Plugin And Restore Backup Files

Now, we need to install the UpDraftPlus Plugin. So go to your WordPress Plugin area and click on Add New. Then search for UpdraftPlus. I am sure you are familiar with the plugin now as we have already used the same in previous steps while taking backup of our SiteGround website.

updraftplus install

Then you need to go to settings=>UpdraftPlus and you will be visiting the UpdraftPlus page. Scroll down and click on upload backup option.

restore uploadbackup

Click on that option and then choose all the downloaded ZIP files that we have taken in previous steps. As soon as they all get uploaded you will see a screen like below again.

updraftplus backup

Now you have to click on Restore button and restore will start. You will get a screen like below.

updraftplus restore

Choose everything and click on restore.

That’s it. As soon as the restore is done you will get confirmation. Just follow the next steps and finish the restoration. After that you can use the same login & password that you have used for your website with SiteGround. Although the tutorial looks huge, but ultimately it is a very easy task to migrate a website from SiteGround to A2 Hosting. Just read this tutorial few times and get comfortable with the steps.

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