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Beginner Blogger – Quick Start Guide to Getting Your Blog Online

As we continue this ongoing series centered around the theme of the “Beginner Blogger,” I had one of those moments when I realized I forgot something very important.  I completely brain farted out what many of you have been asking, “how do I even get a blog online?”

My plan is to spend some time over the next few post doing just that.  If we are going to be talking about blogging, you need to have a blog up and going.  And now is a great time to get a start on the process.

Getting your blog online now

The first thing you need to do is to register your domain name.  I personally recommend and use Godaddy for this.  And it is cheap too.  Simply go to Godaddy and buy your domain name.  Nothing else, don’t get your hosting there or any of the other up sales they throw at you. You don’t need them. Just purchase your domain.

Here is a link to for a Domain Sale! $7.49 .com at GoDaddy

Second, you need to get your hosting. This one is easy too.  Buy your hosting from HostGator for as low as $4.95 a month.  The other option for hosting your site is Bluehost.

The great thing about both of these options is the fact they fully support the WordPress platform. Which is the blogging platform I always recommend to everyone to build their sites on.

The reasons are pretty simple why we recommend you put your site on your own domain and on your own hosted account.

1. You are better off having your own domain name for your business. Not the least of which, your own domain will get you the best results in local searches for your business.
2. You have complete control over your site, both the look and function. In other words, you can make the site your own.
3. Because you have complete control, you can make your site look like a website and not just a blog. (Which we will show you in a free ebook we are working on).
4. Having your own domain and hosting it on your own hosting account will get you the best SEO results too. If you use a WordPress.com site, even if you map your domain to the WordPress.com domain, you are still a sub-domain and you are not taking full advantage of the SEO.
5. It is easy to set up and get started with a WordPress site hosted on your own hosting account

You can get a free blog from WordPress.com, and a lot of people do.  But don’t!  If you are serious about using a website or blog to market and promote your business, then get serious about your site.  you want a self-hosted WordPress site

Here are some quick instructions for installing WordPress in under 7 minutes.

1. Log into your Hostgator cPanel (control panel)
2. Scroll down until you?re near the bottom of the page
3. Locate the section entitled ?Software/Services.?
4. Click on the Fantastico icon. Its the one with the blue smiley face.
5. On the Fantasico page, click the ?WordPress? text link on the left sidebar.
6. Click on ?New Installation.?
7. Choose which domain you want this WordPress install to be on. If you have an individual site hosting plan, this will default to your one domain. If you have a shared hosting plan, choose which domain you want this WordPress install to be on.
8. In the section that says, ?Admin access data,? you will put the login name and password you want to use to log into your WordPress Dashboard.
9. Fill in the ?Base Configuration? fields with the name you want to be associated with all the posts you write in your new blog. Also, add in your email address and the website?s domain name for your new site.
10. Click ?Install WordPress.?
11. You will be given the domain information, to make sure it is being installed on the correct domain. If it looks good, click ?Finish Installation.?
12. You are done. You have just installed WordPress on your new website. Make a note of your login information and/or print on the information on your screen so you have it for future reference.

Installing Your Theme

It should come as no surprise that the theme I recommend the most is the one I am co-founder of.  Headway Themes is a premium WordPress theme/framework which you should purchase to build your site with.  Currently, Headway is priced at $87 for a personal license and $164 for a developer license.  With the purchase of your own license, you get full access to all member’s only support and any future updates for free.

Starting with WordPress 2.8, you are able to upload your theme?s ZIP file in the WordPress Admin Dashboard without using FTP.

Once you have Headway or your theme of choice on your desktop, go to the Add New Theme under the Appearance panel in the Dashboard. When you get to the Add New Theme page, simply browse to your Headway ZIP file which you downloaded and upload it. You may be prompted for your FTP information. If you do not know what this is, ask your web host.

What you will see now is the default WordPress theme.  We now need to switch from the default to your new theme.

To do this, you need to be in your WordPress Dashboard. Once you are logged in, select Appearance on the left hand side of your Dashboard.  Select the Theme option under Appearance, and you will see all of the themes currently available to you.

Click on Activate directly under the Theme you want, and you will activate the new theme

Two other themes I have no worries recommending to you are:

• iThemes
• Press75

I know what you are sitting there asking yourself.  Why in the world would I recommend a “competitor” to you as another theme you could use on your site.  Why not?  I know perfectly well Headway is not for everyone.  And knowing that, I want to recommend to you two themes I would use myself if I wasn’t part of Headway Themes.  The important thing here is that you get the best possible site up and going as easily as you can. What is not important is my ego and my selfish interest in only recommending my own product.

More to come…

I think that is enough for this one post on getting your blog online.  Over the next few post I want to cover some basic theme preference editing you will want to do and some very basic customizing you will want to do too.

To conclude this post, let me leave you a link to a set of 3 videos Michael Martine did for us on “Getting Started With Headway.” As you should know by now, Michael is part of the Headway team and one of the things he does is make some kick butt tutorial videos.

Here is the link to “Getting Started With Headway.”

If you have any specific questions about getting your blog online, make sure to leave your questions in the comments below. Let’s keep the conversation going.

And to keep the FTC from crawling up my backside.  Yes some of those links are affiliate links and I do make some money if you click on them and buy.  And yes, I am the Co-Founder of Headway Themes  and I do make my living from Headway.

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Published by: Grant Griffiths

Related posts:

1. Beginner Blogger – Installing WordPress and Initial Setup of Your Blog
2. Beginner Blogger – Where do I get ideas for my blog post?
3. Beginner Blogger – How Often Should I Post To My Blog?

Full post as published by Blawg for Profit on October 13, 2010 (boomark / email).