Learn How To Set Up Your Local Small Business Blog With This Easy Step By Step Blog Tutorial
Main Street Geek’s easy to follow blog tutorial will teach you to set up your own self-hosted WordPress business blog. Our tutorial will walk you through everything you need to do, step by step, to get your brand new small business blog set up and running. When you’re finished, you will have a brand new business blog set up and ready to go!
Be sure to follow every step of this blogging tutorial. It may seem a bit over whelming at first, but you’ll be guided through the entire process; like I’m holding your hand. It’s actually just four steps. I promise you, it’s not difficult. Remember to bookmark this page, so if you need to come back to reference it, you can.
Step One
Register a domain for your new business blog. If you already have a domain name, go ahead and move to step two. If you don’t have a domain name you DO need to register one.
Open a new window and go to www.godaddy.com. Do a search for a domain name you’d like to use. Once you find one, follow the checkout process and register the domain name you choose.
You don’t need any of the other products or services they offer. DO NOT set up your hosting with GoDaddy. They are perfect for low-cost domain names but I recommend using another hosting company (more below.)
Once the order for your domain name has been processed, you’ll get an email from GoDaddy confirming the registration.
Congratulations! You now have your very own .com domain!
Note: WRITE DOWN your login name and password – you will need it later.
Step Two
When you’ve completed these steps, you will have set up your website hosting. You’re doing great!
- Order web hosting here at Hostgator
or here at Reliable Webs (clicking either of them will open a new window so you can compare and decide.)
- Click the ‘Order Hosting‘ link to place your order
- On the next page it asks if you want to Register New Domain or will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only. Select ‘I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only’
- Click Next
- You’ll see all of the information about your order
- (You may or may not have to) Click Continue
- Enter your billing information and process your checkout
Once that’s complete, you’ll get an email from Reliable Webs or Hostgator (depending on who you choose, of course) which confirms your order. It will include your login information and dns server information and name servers. Usually it takes about 15-30 minutes to get your welcome email.
Super cool! Now you have a place on the web to host your new blog!
Step One and Step Two Are Required To Go To The Next Step.
Step Three
Once you’ve received your website hosting email, locate the name server information.
Follow these steps:
- Go to www.godaddy.com
- Login to your account
- Once logged in, you’ll notice a green bar at the top of the page with links. Click on ‘Domains’ – then select ‘My Domains’
- Your domain control panel will load. Select the domain you just registered by checking the box – then click ‘nameservers’
- Click the ‘Custom nameservers‘ option
- Clear the nameservers in the two slots and enter in the nameservers that you were given in your website hosting welcome email
- Once you’ve entered both nameservers from your welcome email, click ‘OK’
Your domain name will be pointed to your hosting account within 24 hours. In genreral, this will only take a few hours, but do allow 24 hours for the domain to propagate to the new server.
Awesome! Now you’re ready to install your blog! Let’s get started.
Step Four
Okay, now we’re going to set your new business blog up! Open up a new browser and go to ‘yournewdomain.com/cpanel’ - Replace ‘yournewdomain.com’ with the new domain name you just finished registering.
For example:
- if your domain is coolcats.com enter in coolcats.com/cpanel
- if your domain is thecurtainstore.com enter in thecurtainstore.com/cpanel
You’ll be prompted to enter your user name and password. This is the user name you chose when you signed up for hosting. If you do not remember what user name you selected, just go back and look in your website hosting email from the hosting company.
Note: If it says the domain cannot be found, this is perfectly normal. It just means that the domain name has not propagated to the new server. You’ll need to wait a few hours, then try again.
- Once logged in to your cpanel, you’ll see a lot of icons
- Find the smiley icon that says ‘Fantastico‘ – click it (see image above)
- Now look to the left – find the link under Blogs that says ‘WordPress’
- Click On ‘WordPress’
- There is some information and a navy blue link that says ‘New Installation’ - click that
Now there are a few questions:
- Install on domain- Select your domain name
- Install in directory- Leave blank – this will be the ‘root’ of your website
- Administrator-username- Select a username you want to use to login to your blog
- Password- Select the password you want to use to login to your blog
- Admin nickname- The name you want people to see
- Admin e-mail- Your contact email
- Site Name- Name of the blog
- Description- Short description of the blog
Now that you’ve entered the details
- Click on ‘Install WordPress’
- Wait for the next screen then – click on ‘Finish Installation’
Copy the next page and email it to yourself or, it might be a good idea to print the page so you have a copy of the admin login page, password, ect.
Congratulations! You’ve just set up your very own small business blog!
Way to go!
Now You’re Ready To Enter Your Blog’s Admin Area
You can access your admin area by going to yournewdomain.com/wp-admin – remember to replace ‘yournewdomain.com’ with your new domain name you registered.
Once inside, go ahead and take a look around. You’ll want to get familiar with the blog dashboard. This is where you manage your new business blog from whenever you update.
To learn how to setup and use your new blog, you’ll want to visit the following:
Or Learn To Use AND Promote Your New Wordpress blog @ Main Street Geek’s Online Learning Center – Coming Soon!
