How to Add a Custom Domain Alias for a WordPress Landing Page: An Expert‘s In-Depth Guide

Do you want to add a custom domain alias for your WordPress landing page? With over 15 years as a WordPress expert, I‘ve helped hundreds of business owners set up custom domains to better organize their websites.

In this comprehensive guide, I‘ll explain step-by-step how to easily add a custom domain alias for your WordPress landing page. Whether you‘re creating lead gen pages, promoting products, or want to brand client pages – custom domains are a great way to expand your site.

Why Add a Custom Domain for a WordPress Landing Page?

Before jumping into the how-to, let‘s explore a few reasons why you may want to use a custom domain:

Organize Different Types of Content

Many website owners use landing pages for promoting offers, products, lead magnets, webinars, and more. By default, these pages will share your main site‘s domain name.

But it often makes sense to silo different content types. According to industry data, over 52% of marketers use dedicated landing pages to convert visitors into leads and sales.

For example, if you publish cooking recipes on tastytreats.com, you may decide to host your online cooking courses on a custom domain like tastycourses.com. This helps avoid confusing existing recipe readers.

Centralize Pages for Clients

Digital marketing agencies and freelancers often create landing pages for different clients. Building each on a separate domain would mean extra overhead.

With custom domains, you can easily deliver all client landing pages from one central WordPress install. This simplifies management and reduces costs.

Benefits of Custom Branding

Using a custom domain allows you to brand certain pages or offers differently than your main site‘s brand.

For example, if you sell eco-friendly apparel on greensourceapparel.com, you may create a branded sales page like greensourceblackfriday.com specifically for Black Friday promotions each year.

Prerequisites for Adding a Custom Domain Alias

Before diving into setup, let‘s go over what you need:

• WordPress Hosting with Domain Mapping – Your host must allow pointing multiple domains to one site. Some don‘t, so check.

• Domain Name – Required for your custom URL. I recommend Namecheap for affordable domains starting at $8.99 a year.

• Page Builder Plugin – This lets you quickly build landing pages. Elementor is a popular free plugin with 500+ templates and easy drag and drop.

That‘s it! Many shared hosts like Bluehost support domain mapping. For large sites, I‘d recommend upgraded hosting like WPX Hosting which optimizes sites for speed and scalability.

Step 1 – Create Your Landing Page in WordPress

Once your prerequisites are met, it‘s time to build your landing page:

1. Install and activate Elementor plugin if you haven‘t already. Refer to WordPress codex for details.

2. Go to Pages > Add New to create a new page. Give it an SEO-friendly title using keywords related to the offer.

3. After publishing, click "Edit with Elementor" to launch the page builder experience. Elementor has templates created specifically for landing pages.

4. Customize your page design using Elementor‘s drag and drop editor. Change colors, fonts, add media, adjust layout – the options are robust.

5. Try including high-converting elements like testimonials, counters, call-to-action buttons, and more. See our expert design tips.

6. When satisfied, click "Publish." Your landing page is now live, under your main domain.

For more on building high converting WordPress landing pages, check out our dedicated guide here.

Step 2 – Add Your Custom Domain in WordPress

Next, have your new domain point to this landing page:

1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Elementor > Settings > Integrations.

2. Under "Domain Mapping", toggle the option on. This enables custom domains.

3. Enter your new domain name in the "Domain URL" field. Enable "HTTPS" if using SSL.

4. Click submit to connect your custom domain to the landing page. But it won‘t work yet – we need to set up DNS.

That‘s the WordPress side done! Elementor automatically points your custom domain to the right landing page. Next let‘s get your domain connected.

Step 3 – Setting Up DNS for Your Domain Alias

The final step is pointing your registered domain name to your host‘s servers:

1. Log into your domain registrar account and find the DNS settings.

2. Here you‘ll enter your WordPress host‘s nameserver details, which can usually be found in their support center. Common ones include:

   • SiteGround: ns1.siteground.com, ns2.siteground.com
   • Bluehost: ns1.bluehost.com, ns2.bluehost.com

3. Save the changes. This connects your domain to the host where your WordPress site resides.

It can take 24-48 hours for DNS changes to propagate across the internet. Once they do, your custom domain alias will display the new landing page!

Some registrars also offer free email forwarding, so you can set up addresses like [email protected].

For more guidance, see our in-depth tutorial on changing domain nameservers. Reach out if any questions pop up!

Bonus: Parking Your Domain in Your Hosting Account

Some hosts require you to "park" or "map" domains to your account, in addition to DNS settings:

1. Login to your web hosting control panel, and find the domain mapping section. In cPanel, this is under "Parked Domains".

2. Here you can enter your custom domain name and select to add/park it as an "Add-on Domain".

3. Choose the site root folder – usually "public_html" or "htdocs".

4. Save changes. Your custom domain name is now assigned to your account!

That wraps up mapping your custom domain alias in WordPress! I hope this guide helped explain the entire process start to finish. Feel free to reach out with any other questions. Happy landing page building!