In my Previous Post we talk about the process I am going to use to guide you through it. So we already see what we need to do. In this Post we need to talk about Hosting and Domains.
When it comes to hosting a website it all depends on who you want to go through. Here are a few Hosting Providers that I recommend:
- Hostgator ($4.95 a Month)
- FatCow (Yes that is a Hosting Provider. Starting as Low as $5.50 a month)
- IxWebhosting (Starting as Low as $3.95 a month)
These three hosting providers have programs to help you install WordPress. For those who want to understand what a Hosting provider does, these are basically servers who host your blog content. They all have their own way of helping the customers.
They each will have a different way of setting up WordPress so you may have to look around their site for the specific details, but that is coming up in a future blog post. I will be walking you through using Godaddy.
Photo By: Terry Mun
Now you’ve picked and bought who your hosting provider is. Now we need to pick your domain. Most all hosting providers I have recommend can also buy domains for there customers. So depending on the Hosting Provider you pick can help speed up the process.
Once you have a hosting provider with a server, you now have to buy a domain or I like to call it a brand-name. You should have a list but if not you can still make the list. This process of trying to find the right domain name can take the longest because some of the domains or all of the domain name on your list could be taken by another person. So you will need to go through the list on your web browser and put each one in at a time. For this example, I would recommend just using a [Listname]”.com”, working your way down to the bottom. See if it is taken if not this domain may be bought creating a new list of available domains that you might want to use. Just remember the domain might not be there much longer so You will have really short period of time before it could be taken by some other person.
Once you eliminated the ones that are used you can now figure out if your want to use one of the unused domains for your brand-name or if you want to start another and see if you can’t find a better one. This step is can usually be the ones that take the longest because there is a high chance the first list is usually no good but not always it just depends on what your brand-name is going to be.
Once you’ve picked the domain that you want use, it is time to go back to the hosting provider you choice and go about buying the domain. Each Provider is different some will charge you a setup fee for the domain others will be free.
Lastly You’ll want to make sure the domain is linked to your hosting server. The way you’d do that is go to login into your hosting account and checking the DNS Settings, or some host providers call it CNAME Records. This tells the Domain name that if you type it into the browser to go to a certain IP. This is where your hosting your provider provides and will most likely be part of registration confirmation.
On the Next Post I will talking about Setting up WordPress.
