Concentrating on a WordPress Set Up
Now that we have registered the domain name, So You Wanna Start a Blog, and we’ve secured hosting for our blog, we can get a few more technical details out of the way. Let me tell you that there are various hosting sites and the best host for you is the one that fits your needs as far as costs go. My general opinion is to start small and upgrade later if you need more frills. Once you’ve made up your mind and initiated the set up process, you will receive a set of “nameservers”. That string will look something like “ns1234.yourhostingcompany.com” and “ns1235.yourhostingcompany.com”.
You will need to simultaneously log into the website where you purchased your domain name and the hosting company that you have chosen. Please note that you may have chosen to host with the same company that you bought your domain name from; in that case, this step will be automatically done for you and you can move on. However, if you chose separate companies, you will need to go into the site where you purchased your domain name and look for domain management. If you are following along with our domain purchase and would like to see the process, you can always check the “So You Wanna Start a Blog” blog for more details and images.
Various domain hosts have different steps but you generally are looking for the option on your domain name for “domain management” then “NameServers” and finally “Set Nameservers”. Once you have reached that step, you will most likely be given several options. If you have purchased hosting with the same company, you can choose that option, if not, you will be looking for an option such as “I have specific nameservers for my domains”. At that point, you will want to enter the two nameservers that you received from the hosting company. If you do not know what those nameservers are, you should be able to see those once you log in to your hosting account. NameServer 1 is the string of “ns1234.yourhostingcompany.com” and NameServer 2 is the string “ns1235.yourshotingcompany.com”.
Unfortunately, you will be delayed temporarily while the hosting company and the company where you purchased your domain get together and make the change. This can take as little as an hour or as long as 24 hours. Of course if you are hosting with the same company, you will experience less of a delay most of the time.
In order to get you moving closer to being ready to blog, I am going to move forward and assume that our NameServers have been set. Once you log into your hosting company, you will need to install “wordpress”. Assuming you are logged into the “CPanel” which is basically the base for where all your technical details are handled, you will want to look for a program called “Fantastico” or even “Fantastico De Luxe”. Double clicking on the icon will take you to a place where you can follow the simple directions to install WordPress on your blog. The quick and dirty of that process can be found in detail on So You Wanna Start A Blog.
Once you have installed WordPress, you will have made a huge leap toward getting your blog online and ready for content. You are most definitely well on your way to joining the 20,000 people who started their blog today.
This guest post was written by Jerri Ann of Mom~E~Centric. Jerri Ann is an Internet-junkie who has been writing online since 1999. She has 2 boys, ages 6 and 8, and is married to a man she affectionately calls Boy Genius. Mom~E~Centric is about learning life, learning how to take the punches and put them in their place. “Landing a punch is not near as important as feeling like you are in the fight.”
