You’ve built your website in WordPress, customized your design, added your pages, and are finally ready to make it available to the world!
The next step is to take your WordPress website and publish a static version of it using Cloudflare Pages.
Don’t worry if that sounds complicated. Once everything is set up, the process is surprisingly simple. You’ll use a free WordPress plugin called Simply Static to create a downloadable copy of your website, then upload that copy to Cloudflare.
Let’s walk through it step by step!
Before You Begin
Make sure you have the following:
- A completed WordPress website that you are ready to publish.
- Administrator access to your WordPress dashboard.
- The Simply Static plugin installed and activated.
- A free Cloudflare account.
- Access to the computer where you’ll download and upload your website files.
A quick explanation: What are we doing?
WordPress normally builds your website dynamically, using a database and a server to display your pages.
A static website works differently. Simply Static takes the pages, images, styles, and other files that make up your website and creates a static copy.
Cloudflare Pages then hosts those files and makes your website available online.
You’ll still use WordPress to make edits and manage your content. Cloudflare simply serves the published version of your website.
STEP 1: Export Your Website with Simply Static
The first thing we need to do is create a static copy of your WordPress website.
- Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
- In the left-hand menu, find Simply Static.
- Open the plugin and navigate to the Generate or Generate Static Files section.
- Make sure you’re generating a full website export, rather than an individual page or partial update.
- Click Generate Static Files to begin.
Simply Static will start crawling your website and collecting the files needed to recreate it.
Depending on how large your website is, this may take a few minutes.
What is happening behind the scenes?
The plugin is visiting your website’s pages and collecting the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and other resources needed to display your website without relying on WordPress to generate the pages each time someone visits.
You can watch the progress in the Activity Log.
Wait until the export has finished before moving on to the next step.
STEP 2: Download Your Website Export
Once Simply Static finishes generating your website, it will create a ZIP file containing your static website files.
- Look in the Activity Log for the message indicating that your ZIP archive has been created.
- Find the download link (often labeled Click here to download).
- Click the link to download the ZIP file to your computer.
- Save the file somewhere easy to find, such as your Downloads folder.
Important: Keep the file in ZIP format. You do not need to open or extract it before uploading it to Cloudflare Pages.
Think of this ZIP file as a packaged copy of your entire website. This is the file we’re going to give to Cloudflare.
STEP 3: Create a Cloudflare Pages Project
Now that we have our exported website, it’s time to prepare a place for it to live.
- Open your Cloudflare Dashboard.
- Log in to your account.
- Navigate to Workers & Pages in the left-hand menu.
- Click Create application.
- Select the Pages option.
- Choose Direct Upload (sometimes displayed as Upload your static files or Drag and drop your files, depending on the dashboard layout).
Why Direct Upload?
There are different ways to publish a website through Cloudflare Pages. We’re choosing Direct Upload because we’re manually exporting our WordPress website and uploading the finished files ourselves.
We don’t need GitHub or a complicated development workflow.
- Give your project a name.
Choose something simple and recognizable, such as your website name. This project name will also be used in your initial Cloudflare Pages address.
- Click Create project.
Cloudflare will create your new Pages project and take you to the upload screen.
Tip: Choose Direct Upload when creating this project. Cloudflare does not allow you to convert a Direct Upload project into a Git-integrated project later. If you ever want automatic Git-based deployments, you’ll need to create a separate project.
STEP 4: Upload Your Website and Check for Warnings
You’re almost there!
You should now be on the Cloudflare Pages upload screen.
- Find the area labeled Upload your assets or similar.
- Drag your downloaded Simply Static ZIP file into the upload area, or click to browse your computer.
- Select the ZIP file you downloaded in Step 2.
- Wait for Cloudflare to finish uploading and processing the files.
Pay attention to any warnings or errors.
Cloudflare may display messages if certain files cannot be uploaded or if there are issues with the files you’re submitting.
If you see a warning:
- Review the message to understand which files are affected.
- Check whether the files are necessary for your website.
- If important files are missing, go back to your export and troubleshoot before publishing.
- If the upload is successful and the warning concerns files that aren’t needed for your site, you may be able to continue.
Don’t automatically ignore errors. Missing images, stylesheets, or other important files can affect how your website looks and works.
Once your files have uploaded successfully, you’re ready to deploy!
STEP 5: Deploy and Test Your Website
This is the exciting part!
- Click Deploy site.
- Wait for Cloudflare to finish deploying your website.
- Once the deployment is complete, Cloudflare will provide a website address ending in
.pages.dev. - Click the link to open your newly published website!
Take a few minutes to explore your website and make sure everything looks right.
Your website testing checklist:
- Homepage loads correctly.
- Logo and branding display properly.
- Navigation menu links work.
- All website pages load.
- Images and graphics display correctly.
- Buttons and external links work.
- Mobile layout looks good.
- Contact links and forms work as expected.
Remember that static websites don’t automatically support every feature available in WordPress. For example, traditional WordPress forms, comments, and other database-dependent features may need alternative solutions.
If you notice something missing or broken, go back to WordPress, make the necessary adjustments, run another Simply Static export, and upload the updated ZIP file to Cloudflare.
OPTIONAL: Connect Your Custom Domain
Your website is now published using a Cloudflare Pages address.
For example:
yourproject.pages.dev
But what if you want visitors to use your actual domain name?
You can connect your custom domain to your Cloudflare Pages project.
- Open your Cloudflare Dashboard.
- Navigate to Workers & Pages.
- Select your Pages project.
- Find the Custom domains section.
- Click Set up a custom domain.
- Enter the domain you want to use, such as
yourdomain.com. - Follow Cloudflare’s instructions to complete the domain connection and DNS setup.
Once the domain is connected and verified, visitors can access your website using your own domain name.
You can also choose to use a subdomain, such as www.yourdomain.com, depending on how you want your website configured.
How to Update Your Website in the Future
One of the most important things to understand about this setup is that making changes in WordPress does not automatically update your live Cloudflare website.
Remember, WordPress is where you edit your website, while Cloudflare hosts the static version that visitors see.
Whenever you make changes to your website, you’ll need to repeat the publishing process:
- Log in to WordPress.
- Make and save your website changes.
- Open Simply Static.
- Generate a new full website export.
- Download the updated ZIP file.
- Open your Cloudflare Pages project.
- Upload the new ZIP file.
- Deploy the updated website.
That’s it!
Your new deployment will replace the previous published version with your updated website.
My recommendation: Get into the habit of checking your live website after every deployment. It’s always a good idea to make sure your updates, images, links, and formatting look exactly as expected.
Congratulations! Your Website Is Published!
You’ve officially taken your WordPress website and published it as a static website using Cloudflare Pages!
You now have a workflow that allows you to enjoy the flexibility of building and editing your website in WordPress while using Cloudflare to host the static version.
This setup is especially useful for blogs, informational websites, portfolios, and small business websites that don’t require extensive server-side functionality.
And the best part? You don’t have to rebuild your website every time you want to make a change. Just edit in WordPress, export with Simply Static, and upload the new version to Cloudflare.
Happy building!