How to Set Up Website Hosting at Hostgator
and
How to:
1. Open a hosting account at Hostgator
2. Set up a WordPress blog on your site
NOTE: I recommend that you keep this PDF open for easy reference as you
create your site.
1. Open a hosting account at Hostgator.
Good news! I have secured a 25% discount for the 10 Week Challenge participants who choose to host their website or blog at Hostgator. You have the choice of being billed every month, or every 6 months, 12 months, 24 months or 36 months. There’s a big difference in what you save according to your choice of billing cycle.
• If you choose to be billed MONTHLY plan, then the 25% comes off your first month only. For the Baby plan – which I recommend, because you can host as many websites on your basic plan as you want – a discount for your first month will be around $2.49. You will pay $7.46 for your first month’s hosting instead of $9.95 USD.
• If you choose a YEARLY plan, you save 25% off the whole year. Instead of paying $119.40 for a year’s hosting, you pay $89.55 USD. You save $29.95.
Here’s how to get your discount.
1. Click on the banner below to go to Hostgator and open an account.
3. I recommend you choose the BABY plan – the middle box. (Why? It’s not the cheapest, but it’s the best choice for a writer who may want to host more than one domain name on a website. Say you wanted one website for your children’s books, and another one for your writing services, or your romance novels. You can host them as many as you want on the same plan, by using ‘add on domains’.)
If you are absolutely sure you will only want one website or blog, then choose the “Hatchling” plan. Otherwise… choose the BABY PLAN. Click “Order now”.
4. If you already have registered a domain name, fill in in the RIGHT-HAND BOX with the name of your site (e.g. www.susiewriter.com). If you have it registered somewhere else, you will need to point the nameservers at Hostgator – you will need to log in to wherever you have registered your domain name to do this. If you don’t already have a domain name, you can register it at Hostgator. It’s not the cheapest domain registrar around, (at around $15 a year at the time of writing) but you’re unlikely to save more than around $5 elsewhere. It’s just convenient to do it at the same time if you’re opening a hosting account with Hostgator.
If the domain name you want has already been taken by someone else, you’ll be told that in the pop-up message. You can then try a different one. It’s a good idea to have a list of names that will be okay if the one you want isn’t available. (For example, if your name is Susie Writer and
www.susiewriter.com is taken (which it is, because I’ve got it!) then you could try
SusieWriterBooks.com or SusieWriterAuthor.com or SusieWriterWebsite.com – and so on.
5. Step 2 shows your billing information.
a. First, make sure you have chosen the right plan (“Baby” if you might want to host additional sites or blogs; ‘Hatchling’ if you definitely want only one blog or site).
b. Choose your billing cycle. Your discount will be applied over the first time period of your chosen plan.
c. Choose a username and a security PIN. (Make a note of these as you type them in. It never hurts to have an extra record somewhere.)
d. Fill in your billing information.
e. Check your billing details. Your 25% discount should be applied off the first period of whatever billing cycle you chose.
6. You will receive an email from sales@hostgator with all your necessary information about logging in, nameservers, etc… print this out and keep it somewhere safe, and also store it in a folder in your email program. You will probably need this information sometime.
Notice that it gives you a link to get into your control panel. You will need this to install
WordPress on your site. When you click on this link, it takes you to a login box that requires you to enter your email address (the one this email was sent to) and your PASSWORD. Your
password is in this email, too. It’s best to copy and paste it into the box, to avoid typing wrong letters or symbols.
When you type your email address and your password into this box, you can enter your control panel.
7. When you type your email address and username into the box, you are taken to your control panel. This can look a bit confusing at first, but the main headings on the left are simply:
• General Details • Billing Details • Support Tickets • Hosting Packages.
Scroll down to “Hosting Packages” and click on “view hosting packages”. When you do that, you will see that there is a cPanel Login link
underneath your package details.
Click on this link to take you to cPanel.
From there, you will be able to install your WordPress blog.
When you click on the ‘cPanel’ link, you will arrive at a cPanel login box.
• To save time accessing your cPanel in the future, BOOK MARK this page.
Installing a WordPress Blog
Whew. Now we’re ready to install a blog. This process is actually really, really simple.
1. Scroll down to the ‘Software/Services’ section of your cPanel and click on ‘Quick Install’.
3. Use the drop-down box to find the domain name that you want to use for the blog. (I have lots of domains on my account, so I had to look down the list and click on ‘susiewriter.com’, the example I’m using for this. If you have just registered a domain name, that will be the only one. Easy!)
4. If you want a website AND a blog on your site, then you will probably want to install the website on the main domain (www.susiewriter.com) and the blog in a different directory
(www.susiewriter.com/blog) . Look at the picture below. Type ‘blog’ in the right hand box ONLY if
you want to have your blog separate from your website. If you are having a blog but no website – or a blog as a substitute for your website - leave this space blank.
5. It should take only a few seconds for your blog to install. Your ‘congratulations’ message will contain a USERNAME and PASSWORD. Make a note of these, or copy and paste them to a word document. (You will get them in an email too, but play it safe.)
6. Now let’s take a look at your blog. It will be the WordPress default blog: 2012. You can play around with this one if you like, or you can install the WordPress Theme that I like for my blogs (one that many other people like, too, because it’s highly customisable): Weaver II.
8. You will be able to login to your WordPress blog using the details sent to you via email. The login address of your blog is: www.NameOfYourBlog.com/wp-admin.
After you log in, you will see your blog’s Dashboard and a Welcome Message.
This welcome message has some useful information for new bloggers. There’s a link to ‘First Steps with WordPress’, which you can read through…. (right click and open in a new tab recommended)
10. After you have downloaded Weaver II, go to your blog dashboard and click on “Appearance” on the left navigation menu. From here, click on THEMES, then click the tab INSTALL THEMES.
12. Click on the BROWSE button, and
look for the Weaver II file that you just downloaded to your
computer. NOTE: YOU DO NOT
HAVE TO UNZIP THE FILE.
(I keep my WordPress themes in my ‘Essential Stuff’ library so I can always find them!)
13. When you can see that your theme has safely uploaded into the ‘browse’ box, click ‘INSTALL
NOW’.
