Disclosure: Some of the links stated here are affiliate links, which, without any additional cost or variation in the normal price of the product or service, I will earn a commission with if you finally decide to make the purchase. I honestly recommend them because they are really useful, and not for the mere fact of getting a small commission if you decide to buy something.
Angie xx
How To Create & Start A Blog Or Website
STEP 1: Name of your blog or website
The first thing you need to do before anything else is thinking about the name of your blog.
Tips for choosing a name for your blog or website:
Short, easy to remember, and inspired on the topic of your blog.
Check if the name for your blog or website is available:
You need to find out if the name you would like to call you blog or website is not already being used somewhere in the internet. To do so you just need to use the Namecheap tool:
Just type in the name or names you have thought for your new blog or website, and the tool will tell you if it’s available or not.
The results will let you know what extensions are available but I would strongly suggest that you go for the extension “.com” and not for others.
In some countries like UK, Australia or Spain, it is OK to pick the extension “.co.uk” , “.aus” or “.es”. That is perfectly OK if you are a local or national business. But still, I consider that “.com” is the best option.
Buy Your Domain Name:
Once you have found out the name is available you just need to buy that name and it will be absolutely yours! You can even sell it now (some people make money selling domain names).
You buy the property of that name for a period of a year, and it normally costs about $10. There are some domains with extensions like “club” or “shop” that cost like $1 for a whole year, but as I said before, I would definitely choose a extension “.com” for my site.
I recommend to buy domain names on Namecheap. There are other Domain Name Registrars out there like BlueHost or Hostgator (both are also great), but my recommendation is Namecheap because is the one I use for all my domain names, and after years I’m so happy with them, specially because they make things so easy and seamless, and every time I have checked, it offers the most affordable price in terms of quality / price.
IMPORTANT: On Step 2 you are going to need a service to host your domain name. Hostgator offers a Domain Name included in most of their plans. So take a look before buying on Namecheap.
I do not recommend having your domain name and hosting service on the same company. But if you want to save the price of the domain name, you definitely want to go for the Hostgator option with domain name included.
STEP 2: Getting Your Web Hosting Service
Once you own your domain name (the name of your blog or website) now you need to place that name in a platform called “hosting service”.
The hosting service is like the house of your domain name. Your domain name (the name of your blog or website) needs to “live” somewhere, and their “house” is the hosting service provider.
The hosting service provider I recommend is Hostgator:
- Great quality.
- Great prices (very affordable) and plans.
- Unlimited free email addresses
- Lots of service.
- Support service is top class.
- Domain name included (you can get your domain name here instead than in Step 1)
Other hosting service you could consider: Bluehost.
In our case, we are going to do the tutorial based on Hostgator, but mostly all the hosting services works the same at the control panel.
Buying your Hosting:
First you need to pick a plan. I would definitely choose the Baby Plan. Why? Because it allows you unlimited domain names hosting (i.e. if you need to create more websites or blogs, you won’t have to buy another hosting service).
STEP 3: Host Your Domain Name in Your Hosting Account
Once you have bought your hosting service for the name of your website or blog, now you need to link your domain name with your hosting account. Follow this instructions to do so:
SETTING UP YOUR DOMAIN NAME ON YOUR HOSTING SERVICE:
You are going to to point your Namecheap domain name to your Hostgator hosting account.
- First you need to log into to your domain name registrar (Namecheap), and go to your “Dashboard”. There you will see your domain name, click on the “Manage” button.
- Scroll down to the “Nameservers” section, click the drop-down arrow, and select “Custom DNS”. It’s going to ask you for 2 nameservers; there, you will have to insert 2 server names from Hostgator.
- You can find those nameservers in the welcome email you received from Hostgator (the subject of that email is “HostGator.com: Your Account Info”), or you can log into your Hostgator CPanel account to find those 2 nameservers.
- If you pick the 2 nameservers from the Hostgator’s welcome email, the format of those two names is “nsXXX.hostgator.com”
- If you log into your Hostgator account to get those 2 names: Log into your Hostagtor (Customer Portal); click on the “Hosting” tab; scroll down, and click on the “Email Accounts” icon; now click on the alligator icon on the top left (this is the fastest way to access your Hostgator CPanel).
- Now, you are on your CPanel, and on the right hand side, you will see a lot of info; scroll down a little bit until you see “Primary Nameserver” and “Secondary Nameserver”. Those two are the nameservers you need to insert on Namecheap. (Just copy and paste).
- So now, go back to the Namecheap dashboard, and paste nameservers 1 and 2, and click on the check mark on the right, to confirm, and you’re done.
That’s all it takes to point your Namecheap domain name to your Hostgator hosting account. It can take up to 48 hours to your domain name actually points to your hosting account, but normally it doesn’t take that long, but in any case you need to be patient.
Congratulations! You already have a website or blog of your own ready to go!!!