New Site Setup in 7 minutes!

I received a message on twitter from one of my followers wondering how to setup a new website. I decided to accept the challenge and walk you through the entire process. You can watch the video for the full walk-through or use the text (with images) guide below. The whole setup process took me a whopping 7 minutes. The full video is about 15 minutes, a little over half of it goes through some key components of WordPress for the beginner.

I did get a little tongue tied here and there, and yes; I used the word blog and post interchangeably. I decided to have a good laugh about it rather than re-record the entire video. If you have any questions or get stuck, please feel free to reach out via Twitter, my blog, or email.

The Video:

The Steps: (Note: I go into a little more detail about hosting plans in the video)

Getting the domain/hosting Setup

1. I use HostGator. If you’d like to use them – Click Here.

2. Click the big yellow “View Web Hosting Plans” button

   

3. If you’re going to have one website with one domain pointing to that site go with the Hatchling Plan. Click Order Now.

   

4. Make sure “Register a new domain” is checked

5. Enter the domain you would like – w/o the .com (Note: You can change to .net or whatever you like in the drop-down to the right)

6. If the domain is available it will tell you and light up in green. Otherwise, it will tell you it’s not available and show red. Keep trying until you find a domain that’s available.

   

7. Scroll down until you see the package type of Hatchling; next to it, you will see the billing cycle. It defaults to 36 months. So, if you want to pay monthly choose that from the drop-down.

8. Type in the rest of the information. Such as username, password, CC info, etc.

9. Under the “Hosting Addons” uncheck all of them (unless you read what they are and want them)

10. Check the “I have read and agree…” and click Create Account. You should see a confirmation page.

    

Install WordPress

1. HostGator sent you an email with your login for “Your Control Panel”.

   

2. Note the username and password and click the link

3. Once in the control panel – close the two popups

4. Find the “Install Now” under WordPress Hosting on the left (Just under Google)

   

5. Click Install Now

6. Leave the Application URL as-is

7. Fill in your Admin Email, Blog Title, Admin User and name information

8. Click Install Now

   

NOTE: Under the congratulations, if you click the “by going here” link it will likely come up as not found. That’s OK. You’ll need to wait a couple of hours – in some cases 24-48 hours  – before your site is completely registered and live. Once it’s live use the following instructions

Opening WordPress

1. Check your email for the message titled “Your new WordPress”. It will have the login info

   

2. Click the link next to Admin Area

3. Enter your username and password.

   

That’s It!! You’re all done. You can watch the last 8 minutes or so of the video if you’d like to learn about changing the look; creating pages; and creating new posts.

 

Enjoy!