How To Set-Up Your Blog

By Bill Fletcher

You should have read the first of these articles: How to Start A Blog Today And Make Money Tomorrow! In the article I covered such things as Why You Should Have A Blog, Free Blogs and suggestions.

In this second article I will help you set-up a blog. However, if you are not interested in doing this, you can outsource this to a third party. Or if you want to get up and running in just a few hours (or less) and start blogging, here is my suggestion: CLICK HERE to see a great video from my mentor.

Get Started

The entire process of getting your blog set-up and ready should take you about 20 to 30 minutes. After that your site will be online and ready for you to start blogging!

As you read this article, keep in mind that some may find that it may be a little overwhelming. That’s okay. It was overwhelming to me. Help is always available through Google and your host company.

I use HostGator as my host and found them to be very helpful. One other suggestion is to go to your local college and ask for a student to do the work for you. You will find they will be very accommodating and would like the money.

Finally, you can also outsource the set-up through a third party. I have used Odesk in the past and for a few dollars they did a great job.

Before you can start blogging there are two things you need to do:

Pick a domain name.

If you are promoting a MLM home business or an affiliate business, my suggestion is not to use either the name of the business or anything relating to the business.

Why you ask? You may be excited about the MLM Company but what about tomorrow? For example your promoting a weight lost program through a weight lost MLM Company. You name your home business based upon weight lost, “ABC Weight Lost Now”.

But later you decide to leave that MLM Company for a Mobile Phone MLM Company. Your blog is now wrong and all the time and effort is lost and you have wasted your time.

In blogging you want to promote “YOU”. You are the expert. You are the company. And you can change to any network marketing or affiliate program and never loose your blog. Brand YOU and not the company or program.

Second part is, name your blog what it is intended for. For example, you’re an expert gardener and your blogging about Gardening. Name your site for your intended purpose, “Mike’s Gardening Co.” Be a little more creative.

The domain name should be you or close to your name.

For example, I have registered wmfletcher.com. You can also add your middle name or middle initial if you find your name is already taken. I have also registered wowfletcher.com and hsfletcher.com. Each of these promote something different but as you see they promote ME.

Many of the top bloggers use their own name as their domain name. This has the added benefit of preventing someone else from registering your domain, allowing you to secure your “virtual real estate”.

Once you have your chosen name, you will need to choose a domain extension.

In my case I have use GoDaddy for my domain name search. Domain names have extensions, the top extension is: (.com). GoDaddy will try to sell you .net and .org. You don’t need these, however you can buy these to save the extension.

Finding the right domain name may take time. It happened to me on a site that I wanted to promote. GoDaddy will tell you if the domain is “available”. In my case I wanted “wealthcreator.com”. It was not available so I added “100” at the end. That was available so I purchased it.

If you find that your desired name is already taken you can try adding simple words like “the”, “a”, or “my” to the beginning of the name, or you can try adding dashes between words such as wealth-creator-100.com.

Choosing a host company

There are dozens of different hosting companies you can choose from. During my search and recommendations from many top Internet professional, I choose HostGator. Well for one I liked the name and Gator logo.

HostGator will be there for you when you need help.

They offer a free, helpful installation of WordPress
HostGator offers 24/7 customer service vis phone, email or web chat

More On How To Set-up Your Blog

As mentioned, I use HostGator as my host. HostGator has been very reliable and easy to use for establishing a WordPress blog. There are many Free themes you can use but my best advice, have someone build a blog site for you. In the long run, it will save you time and money.

If you want to do it yourself, here are the HostGator instructions.

How to Install WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms around for good reason. It is easy to install and features an attractive, user-friendly interface. At HostGator, you can install WordPress through QuickInstall, Fantastico DeLuxe or manually.

In the following, we’ll cover the QuickInstall route for a WordPress self-hosted installation. It’s a bit easier than a manual installation, and it only takes a click or two!

Install WordPress via QuickInstall

Login to cPanel.

Scroll down to the Software/Services section and click on the QuickInstallicon/link.

On the left, under Blog Software, click on WordPress

Click on Continue.

Fill out the Application URL, if needed.

Note: This is the path where you want to install WordPress. If you leave this field blank, WordPress will be installed to your main domain. If you use blog in this field, WordPress will be installed to http://yourdomain.com/blog. Don’t leave this blank if you don’t want WordPress to be your main website or if you already have content on the root of your account.

Fill in the rest of the fields and options (the email, blog title, first and last name can be changed later through the WordPress Dashboard)

Click Install Now!

After WordPress is finished installing, you should see a “Congratulations!” message like the one below with a link to click here. Click that link, and it will bring you to your newly installed WordPress blog!

Your admin password will be emailed to you at the email address you provided in step 7. Retrieve your password and then visit the URL to which you installed WordPress, adding/wp-admin

Visit our login tutorial for more information on how to log into WordPress.

Note: If you recently changed your name servers or DNS records, it is possible that you will not be able to access your new WordPress installation until the domain propagates. This could take up to 24 to 48 hours.

Confused?

It my seem confusing, but once you start you will find it fairly easy. If not, again outsource or have HostGator help. Actually that’s just what I did to save time a frustration.

Summery

In this article I have helped you find a domain name, set-up with HostGator and gave you a location with an “already built for you blog ready to begin blogging site”. If you missed that site…CLICK HERE to see it with an introduction from one of my mentors.

Your next article is: How To Use Your Blog.

Here are a few other articles you may find interesting:

Thanks for reading

About The Author

Bill

Bill Fletcher is a marketing professional and Business Coach. My goal is to help anyone who is interested in building a home base business through a systematic approach to success. Planning-4-Success will guide you with the help of some of the best coaching program available anywhere. We train you with the best professional in all categories of business building and success management.

How To Set-Up Your Blog