What Are The Most Useful cPanel Features You Need?
It is critical to help your client find the web hosting plan that is suitable for their website. The choice of the web hosting plan can impact loading speeds, uptime and security of the website. All of which can affect the user experience. A negative user experience can affect the SEO of the website. This is why it is important for web developers and designers should have a say in the type of web hosting that their clients use and the hosting service provider that they choose.
When selecting a web hosting plan, there are many things to consider, especially regarding how the plan will affect the future performance of the website. Another important thing that you need to take into account is the control panel solution that the plan comes with. You may not have to do much work on the backend of the website of a client, but the control panel is still an important thing. Make sure to select one that is packed with features and is intuitive, thereby maximizing the performance of the client website even further.
Even though there are many control panel solutions available out there, cPanel is the most popular one. Shared below are some of the useful cPanel features for web designers and developers. Read along to understand more about these useful cPanel features.
Backup And Restoration – First In Useful cPanel features
It is always important to have backup and restoration systems for websites. It might be rare that the cPanel backup or a backup plugin will fail, but it is not impossible. Therefore, it is vital to have failover systems for disaster recovery. Having a backup of the backup will ensure that you can get the website of a client back online. Or else, you can revert to a version that you are happy with quickly and easily. In addition, you can put the backup systems on varying schedules. So, you should use the cPanel backup and restoration feature even if you are using a trusted backup solution in place.
File Management
Depending on the type of hosting plan that you choose, you may or may not have access to the cPanel file manager. If you do, it can prove to be one of the most useful and significant tools in your website repair and troubleshooting procedures. Have you heard of the white screen of death? It is something that website developers and designers should deal with while making and maintaining websites.
At times, you may encounter the white screen of death and error message and the site can go down. Just installing a new website plugin that is not compatible with the theme can result in the white screen of death. When it occurs, it can be easy to solve the issue. You just have to navigate to the file manager and undo whatever changes that you have made. Therefore, it is vital to have access to this.
The file manager can also be useful for things like:
- Cleaning the files and database
- Changing a WordPress site to a Multisite
- Uploading a favicon
You will also be able to update root passwords, manage memory limits, etc.
Security Center
It is very important to sign up with a web hosting company that considers security seriously. But, this does not mean that the security of your website solely resides on the web hosting company. It is a wise thing to take a multi-layered approach to security, just like in the case of backups. Having an SSL certificate is mandatory. Its not just to ensure security, but also for SEO. It can also be easily set up via your hosting service provider or WHM/cPanel.
A WordPress security plugin is also very important as it can help with site-side protections in addition to strengthening your user login. There are also many other features available via cPanel. Like two-factor authorization, password strength configuration, brute force protection, etc, that you can use to fortify your website.
DNS Zone Manager
You can do many things inside the DNS Functions area of cPanel. Out of which, the DNS Zone Manager can be of very good use for web developers. This tool lets you make different rules and directives regarding your domain. You will have to learn to use it to:
- Make a TXT record and verify website ownership for Google Search Console and Google Analytics to track your site.
- Create a TXT record and verify the ownership of the website when installing an SSL certificate from an outside party.
- Change or create an MX record so that you will be able to route the emails to your domain to an external email server.
- To make an A record for a new subdomain.
Even though there are not many details that you need to input to make a DNS record, it can prove difficult. Therefore, if you have to use this tool, make sure to refer to the knowledge base of your web host in which the steps will be explained to create or edit a record.
Service Configuration
Service Configuration is an area that might not get much attention as most of it will be pre-configured for you. However, it is a good idea to get used to it. You can find management tools for cPanel features and services such as Exim, Mailserver, Apache, cPanel, FTP, Nameserver, SSL certificate and other services. With these, you can do many things here. You can have specific tools for each service, reduce or increase security, set rules and many more.
Conclusion On Useful cPanel Features
While selecting a web hosting plan, you want the assets of your client and the server to be secure, have optimal speed and always be online. However, do not forget about the control panel. If you plan to perform things like updating themes and plugins, managing backups, etc, going for a hosting plan with cPanel can be very much beneficial not just for your workflow, but also for the performance of your client’s website.