When your design is done, it’s time to publish your page.
 
Once your page is published, you’ll use its URL to share your links online and start driving traffic to your page.
 
You have three different publishing options:

  1. Use an Ontraport domain
  2. Use your own domain
  3. Publish to WordPress

Regardless of the option you choose, the process always starts when you click  from your page builder.


Table of contents

Publish on an Ontraport domain
Publish on your own domain
• Publish your page
• Host pages to your main domain
• Method 1: Change your domain’s A record (Recommended)
• Method 2: Change your domain’s name servers
After you’re all set up: Optional settings
• Make “www” work on your custom domain
• Make subdomains work on your custom domain
Publish on your WordPress site
Don’t ‘force HTTPS’ — so you can use PURLs
Unhost your page

Publish on an Ontraport domain

If you don’t have a domain of your own, you can use one of Ontraport’s domains to publish your pages for free.

You can customize your URLs by adding a branded subdomain. Then you can continue to publish pages with similar URLs by using the same subdomain and adding file names to distinguish different pages, such as mysite.respond.ontraport.net/pricing and mysite.respond.ontraport.net/blog.

Ontraport offers the following free secure domains:

  • Select “Use our domain.”
  • Enter your subdomain.
  • Select the Ontraport domain you’d like to use.
  • (Optional) Add your file name.
  • Click .

Publish on your own domain

In order to publish your pages on your own domain, you’ll first need to connect your domain to your Ontraport account. If you haven’t done that yet, check out “to host pages to your main domain” section below before you publish your page.

Publish your page

If you’ve already set up your domain, follow these steps to publish your Ontraport page:

  • Select “Use your own domain.”
  • Add the URL you’d like to publish your page on, such as mydomain.com for your homepage and mydomain.com/blog for your blog page.
  • Click Save & Publish.

use your own domain example

Host pages to your main domain

Use this method if you don’t need to mail from your custom domain. (If you do need to mail from your domain, follow the steps in this article.)

There are two methods for hosting your pages on your own domain:

  • Changing your domain’s A Record (Recommended)
  • Changing your domain’s name servers

Method 1: Change your domain’s A record (Recommended)

  • Log in to your registrar (the place you bought your domain name, such as GoDaddy) and navigate to DNS (domain name system) settings.
  • Create this A record:
    1. Type: A

    Name/Host: @

    IP/Content/Points to: 209.170.211.179

At Godaddy, your A record will look like this.

A record example

Note, if you use a different web hosting company, your registrar may require you to specify exactly which domain you would like each record to apply to, such as “@yourdomain.com.” 

If you are unsure which specific format your registrar requires, please reach out to them and confirm before adding these records.

Method 2: Change your domain’s name servers

IMPORTANT: If you point your Nameservers to Ontraport, please be aware that any DNS records that you have set up (MX Records for mailing, CNAME, TXT, etc.) will be replaced with default values.

This is why the first step in the instructions below is to reach out to Support before editing your nameservers — Support will ensure you never lose the ability to mail from your custom domain.

  • Contact Ontraport Support and tell them, “I want to point my nameservers to Ontraport and I’d like a DNS SPECIAL on my new domain [YourNewDomain.com].”
    1. This will create an open ticket with Support. Once you complete steps two and three, the Support team will set up your tracking domain, SPF, DKIM and DMARC records and point your MX records to Google so you can use Gmail as a personal inbox with your domain.
  • Log in to your registrar (the place you bought your domain name, such as GoDaddy) and navigate to DNS (domain name system) settings.
  • Set your nameservers to ns1.ontraport.com and ns2.ontraport.com, like the Godaddy screenshot below. (If you’re using another registrar, your page will look similar).
  • Click Save.

nameserver example

IMPORTANT: If you point your nameservers to Ontraport, please be aware that any DNS records you have set up (MX Records for mailing, CNAME, TXT, etc.) will be replaced with default values.

After you’re all set up: Optional settings

Once you’ve got your main custom domain set up, there are a few optional settings you may be interested in:

Make “www” work on your custom domain

When you purchase a new domain, www may not automatically be part of your URL. If you want visitors to be able to reach your site by typing in www.[your domain].com, follow the steps below:

  • Log in to your registrar (the place you bought your domain name, such as GoDaddy) and navigate to DNS (domain name system) settings.
  • Create this CNAME record:
    1. Type: CNAME

      2. Name/Host: www

      IP/Content/Points to: yourdomain.com

  • Click Save.

At Godaddy, your CNAME will look like this.

CNAME example

Make subdomains work on your custom domain

If you want to publish pages on a subdomain to your main domain, such as pages.mydomain.com, you need to create an A record for your subdomain. This option is great if you already have separate content on your main domain that you want to leave as is.

Here’s how: 

  • Log in to your registrar (the place you bought your domain name, such as GoDaddy) and navigate to DNS (domain name system) settings.
  • Create this A record:
    1. Type: A

      2. Name/Host: Add the subdomain you want, such as “pages.”

      IP/Content/Points to: 209.170.211.179

  • Click Save.

At Godaddy, your A record will look like this.

subdomain example

Publish on your WordPress site

If you’d like to publish your page to an existing WordPress site, you’ll need to make sure that you’ve installed and activated the Ontrapage Plugin. Follow these steps to set up your Ontrapages plugin.

  • Select “Publish to WordPress.”
  • Click .
  • Log in to your WordPress site as the administrator.
  • Click  → .
  • Add a title for your page, and select the saved name from Ontraport in the “Choose which Ontrapage you would like to use” drop down.
  • Click .

Don’t ‘force HTTPS’ — so you can use PURLs

A PURL is a personalized URL, such as jane.yourcompanyname.com, that you can create to personalize your pages for your contacts. Check out this article for more info on PURLs.

PURLs don’t work on secure pages so, in order to use them, you’ll need to select the “Don’t force HTTPS on this page (so that I can use PURLs)” from your Publish Page dialogue before clicking .

Unhost your page

If you would like to take down your page from your published URL, you can unhost it by clicking  →  → .

From there, you can either publish your page again to a different URL or store it unhosted in your pages collection.