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From Chaos to Clarity: How I Built My Author Website (And Saved a Fortune Doing It)

Category: Behind the Scenes By Guenevere Ram

When I first started out as an author, I needed a website. Simple enough, right? What followed was a journey that taught me more about web hosting, DNS records, and email servers than I ever expected — and along the way, I discovered I was paying for two servers at the same time without even knowing it.

Here’s the full story.

The Problem Nobody Told Me About

Like many authors, I trusted someone else to set up my website. I had my domain registered with a South African hosting company called Xneelo, and somewhere along the way, a separate Elementor hosting plan was purchased for my site at $179.88 USD per year — nearly R3,300 a year. Add that to my Xneelo hosting at R1,152 per year, and I was unknowingly paying over R4,500 every year just to keep my website online.

The worst part? The Xneelo server was sitting almost completely empty — just a tiny placeholder file, 2.44MB used out of 14.65GB available. All my actual website content was living on the Elementor server, while I paid for both.

The Day I Decided to Fix It

One afternoon I decided to investigate. I logged into my Xneelo account and opened the File Manager. One lonely file. That was it. Meanwhile, Elementor was charging me in US dollars every year for the privilege of hosting my beautiful author website — guenevereram.com.

The solution was clear: move everything to Xneelo, where my domain already lived, and cancel Elementor.

Migrating the Website

The first surprise? WordPress was already installed on the Xneelo server. Someone had set it up and never finished. Two databases sat waiting, unused.

Using a free plugin called All-in-One WP Migration, I exported my entire Elementor website — every page, every image, every blog post — into a single file. Then I imported it into the fresh WordPress installation on Xneelo. 

Pointing the Domain

This was the moment of truth. My domain guenevereram.com needed to stop pointing at Elementor and start pointing at Xneelo. In the DNS settings I found the culprit immediately — a CNAME record pointing www to Elementor’s servers. I deleted it, added a new A record pointing to my Xneelo IP address (196.22.142.62), and waited.

Within minutes, DNS checkers around the world started showing green ticks. From San Francisco to South Africa, from Russia to Amsterdam — my website was propagating to its new home.

Securing the Site with SSL

A website without SSL is like a shop without a lock. The little padlock icon in your browser address bar isn’t just decorative — it tells your visitors their connection is encrypted and safe. Xneelo’s support team installed a free Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate, and just like that, guenevereram.com became https://guenevereram.com.

Setting Up Professional Email

Having a Gmail address on your author website is fine when you’re starting out, but info@guenevereram.com? That’s professional. That says I mean business!

Making the Contact Form Work

The contact form on my website needed to actually send emails — not just disappear into the void. Using a free plugin called WP Mail SMTP, I connected my contact form to my Xneelo email server. Now when a reader fills in the form, the message arrives directly in my inbox.

I even set up smart buttons on my homepage — each “Buy Now” or “Claim your copy” button opens the contact form with the correct book pre-filled in the message. No confusion, no extra typing for the reader.

The Result
By the end of the day, here’s what I had achieved:

    • ✅ Website fully migrated to Xneelo

    • ✅ DNS pointing correctly worldwide

    • ✅ SSL certificate installed — fully secure

    • ✅ Professional email addresses created

    • ✅ Contact form working and forwarding to Gmail

    • ✅ Elementor subscription cancelled — saving R3,300+ per year

    • ✅ This very blog up and running

From paying R4,500+ per year on two servers, I now pay just R1,152 per year — one server, one bill, zero confusion.

What I Learned

Technology doesn’t have to be intimidating. With the right guidance and a willingness to click through a few unfamiliar screens, you can take control of your own digital home. Your website is your storefront, your portfolio, your voice on the internet — it’s worth understanding how it works.

And if you ever find yourself paying for two hosting servers at once, know that you’re not alone — and that it’s very, very fixable.

Guenevere Ram is the author of Pink Colombia, Walking with Purpose, and Sovereignty of Choice. Visit guenevereram.com to explore her books and get in touch.

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