Building a website where you have total control and where it will get noticed by the search engines has never been easier. Let me explain how it is done. There a very good video by my good friends Ferny and Raymond that goes through all of the following steps so you can see what each step looks like, but if you’re like me, having a good set of written instructions that you can print out and follow is a big help.
STEP 1 – Get a domain name.
This can be anything you want it to be so long as it’s available, but bear in mind if you are wanting your site to get ranked on google and other search engines for promotion of yourself or a product, then your domain name should be relevant. Let’s assume you want to do Self-Branding, you want to promote yourself. In this case your domain name should be your name.com. If it is not available then make your name part of the domain name e.g. askmikescherer.com or workwithmikescherer.com. You can also use .net, .info or .biz extensions as well if it helps. So, to get your domain name go to NameCheap because it’s cheap. Set up your account and note the login details, you will need to go back there soon.
STEP 2 – Purchase a Hosting Service
A hosting service is the place where your website is stored. Your Domain will point to this place so it can find all of your setting information.
There are a few of these to choose from but my recommendation is Hostgator. Go there, click “Webhosting” to get yourself an account. Make sure you get a “Business Plan” as the features this provides will allow you to sell from your website with a merchant account without any hassles. Hostgator is recommended because it makes the instalation of WordPress very easy. Wordpress is the best software available to build and maintain your own website (Blog). The reasons will become clear once you start using it.
Click “Order Now” for a business plan and follow the instructions. Enter your new domain name, go through the steps until you have purchased your Hosting Account.
Now, you will have to be patient and wait for an email from Hostgator. You can’t proceed until you get the information in the email. It might take half an hour or so while Hostgator sets up your account so don’t stress, go have a coffee or something.
Righto, have you got your welcome email from Hostgator open? Then let’s proceed.
The email will have your account details followed by your Nameserver details. It will also have the link to your hostgator cpanel. These are the important bits. Now go back to Namecheap and log in to your account. Click on the domain you registered then look on the left menu to find and click “Transfer DNS to webhost”. A new screen will appear where you enter the nameserver info from your email in the first 2 boxes. Copy and paste each one at a time from your hostgator email. Click Save Changes and that’s it you’re all done for now. You are going to have to be patient for a bit longer now because it can take up to a day or two for Hostgator and Namecheap to talk to each other and resolve your domain name so that it can be operated from your Hostgator account. Going back to your email, note the URL link to your cpanel. It is an IP address/cpanel. This is where the control panel for your website will be. When the nameservers have resolved properly, the URL IP address will be your domain name e.g. domainname/cpanel.
The Next Day (or 2)
Log in to your Hostgator account. The easiest way is to type your DomainName/cpanel into the web browser address bar. Enter your username and password and you will be presented with your cPanel. It is highly graphical and easy to use. View the tutorials if you wish, otherwise skip it and go to the next step, setting up your Wordpress Website. Wordpress was initially developed as a blogging platform but has now grown into a full blown, professional website building system.
STEP 3 – Wordpress
This step is ridiculously easy. Wordpress as I said developed as a blogging technology but has now evolved into a fully loaded CMS (Content Management System). This is Wordpress.org as opposed to Wordpress.com which is still a hosted blogging platform. Wordpress doesn’t require any html knowledge, although it is helpful to know some, it is very easy to SEO your website with Wordpress and you can easily add content or manage the pages to your website without any technical knowledge.
So let’s go and create your Wordpress website with Hostgator. Open a web Browser and type your domain name/cpanel into the address bar. Log in with your username and password (from your email). Scroll down to Software Services and click on the icon “Fantastico Deluxe” (Smiley Face). On the window that pops up, go to the laft menu and click on Wordpress. Click new Installation. Your Domain name will already be there, leave the install in directory box blank. Call the administrator username ‘admin’ and choose a paswword. Fill in a nick name, the site name and a description then click install. Click finish install and that’s all.
Now type your domain name into the web browser address bar and it has been converted into your new website. It is very basic at this point so you need to scroll down to Meta and click on the link to login. Login using the admin username and password you just created (you will want to remember this) and there is you Wordpress back office.
Now that is all there is to it, from now on you will need to go to this site to learn how to set up Wordpress to your hearts content. Just refer 3 of your friends to get it all for free.
Enjoy,
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