Essential 1
Pick your domain name and buy it. As of recently, there were more than a hundred million domain names registered. That's a lot, but not all of the good ones are gone. So start at domaintools.com, and start searching for your perfect domain name.
Whatever you do, get a dot com domain unless you have reason to get something else. Customers and people on the Internet just automatically default to dot com; they think that everything is dot com. So what if you got a dot net, because your dot com wasn't available, and it was one of your competitors? Well, a person browsing the web might just type in that name plus dot com and go right to your competitor. So, that's not very cool. You need to get the dot com domain name. You can go to GoDaddy or your current registrar to register it.
Essential 2
Pick your hosting. Pick a host that has Cpanel with Fantastico. Even if you don't know what "Fantastico" means right now, that's fine.There are several good hosting companies out there but my number 1 recommendation is HostGator. They have superior customer service and up time and they are reasonably priced.
Essential 3
It's time to point your name servers. You're going to put point them from your registrar, to your hosting company.
When you set up your hosting account, you probably (I hope!) got a welcome email that had your name servers in it. Like NS1.HostGator.com, and NS2.HostGator.com. It'll be in that format, but it won't be those exact words, but it'll look like that. All you have to do is go back to your domain registrar and when you get into your domain account, you'll find (it varies from host registrar to registrar, but they're all basically the same) the place where you can change your nameservers. It's probably going to be a clickable link called "name servers." Do not choose:
- Forward
- Redirect
Do not do either of those things because we're pointing this domain name to your hosting account. So all you have to do is click on "name servers," and say "custom name servers." Replace their name servers with the name servers that you got from your hosting account. Make sure you spell the correctly because if you make a typographical error, your name servers will never come over to your hosting account. They'll be out there internet limbo somewhere, and you won't be able to find them unless you go back to your registrar account. So, it's picky and it's a couple of steps, but it's not really hard, hard to do.
Essential 4
Now that we've pointed our name servers, we're going to set up the domain on your hosting account. Pointing is not enough; you have to actually set up your domain on your hosting account. So, with HostGator, you choose an add-on account. For example with ThirdSphere you chose "park a domain." So, hosts are different. If you don't know how to set up your account, send them a support ticket. Many of them have pretty good help sections. This is one of the most difficult things that you're going to do, so just ask your host.
I'm singling out GoDaddy because so many, many people host with them and they have really become a really good hosting company. With GoDaddy, the best way to set up your domain is with a separate economy hosting account. Each domain that you have should have it's own economy Linux hosting account.
- They're very inexpensive.
- They keep things nice and separate.
- You don't have to worry about trying to map a domain here, or map a domain there.
It's just really easy to set up these separate accounts on GoDaddy. So, that's what I suggest with them.
Essential 5
Now you're going to install WordPress. With Fantastico, it's almost a one-click install - you click on WordPress and answer their questions and the auto install takes over. It's really not that difficult - with these instructions you can really do it.
I'd like to invite you to learn more about blogging and WordPress at the next (and always free) Wizard Weekly Teleseminar. Get the details at http://www.TheWordPressWizard.com/burning where you can ask your most burning question about WordPress and get all the details about The Wizard Weekly. Presented by Cathy Perkins, The WordPressWizard. |
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