Getting Started With WordPress

Before you can create a WordPress blog or website, you will require two things: a domain name and web hosting space.

The domain name is essentially the web address people use to reach your website, just like you use makeawebsite.tv to reach this site you are currently on. I use Namecheap to buy my domain names and you can consider them too. If you have never registered a domain name before and need help, you might find this guide on registering a domain name helpful.

The next thing you need is web hosting. Hosting companies essentially give you the space to store your website and it’s related files on secure servers that are connected to the Internet 24×7, so anyone anywhere can reach your website whenever they want. For WordPress, you’ll require a web host that provides Linux hosting and supports the following:

• PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
• MySQL version 5.0 or greater

PHP is the programming language in which WordPress is written and MySQL is the database software it uses to store all your website related information. Don’t worry if you don’t know or understand anything about PHP or MySQL. It’s not necessary because we won’t directly deal with them but just make sure that your web host provides them.

Web hosts (some, not all) provide different types of hosting like shared hosting, VPS and dedicated hosting. Since you are starting a brand new website, shared hosting will be the ideal and most economical type of hosting. The other types of hosting are relatively expensive (even 10 times or more) and are generally only used by websites that draw a very large number of visitors every day. You’ll always have the option of moving over to higher plans when your website requires it.

A majority of the web hosts provide Linux hosting and most of them would support the above versions of both PHP and MySQL, so it should not be much of a problem finding an appropriate web host. However, to make sure, look at their shared hosting “Features” section to see if they support the above. If you are not sure, shoot the following mail as it is (copy and paste if you want to) over to their customer support:

A ‘yes’ from the host means you are good to run WordPress websites on their servers. The other thing to do before you settle with a web host is a little research about their reputation in terms of server uptimes, customer support and reliability. The internet is filled with fake review sites and top 10 lists, so beware of using them to decide on your host. Friends and colleagues who have their own websites might be a better source to check with. A poor web host can make your website suffer due to server overloading, frequent crashes and extremely poor customer support.

I use Hostgator (baby plan) for this website and have been with them for nearly three years. I chose them after about a month’s research seeking other webmasters’ opinions and those of my friends, and they’ve been great so far. My support tickets have been always answered promptly and the downtime has been minimal (a few minutes about 2-3 times in 3 years). Plus, I find their prices very reasonable for the quality of their service.

If you decide to go with them, you can use the following discount coupons:

FREEMONTH1 – this gives you the first month for 1 cent on the Hatchling and Baby shared hosting plans.

25OFFPROMO gives you 25% off on your first hosting bill and is a good money-saver if you decide to sign up for longer durations like about 1 year. (It is generally not advised to sign up for more than an year at a time.)

If you are going to create multiple websites, the Baby plan should be good. If all you are going to create is one website, you’ll do well with the Hatchling plan and you can upgrade to Baby plan if you change your mind later.

I will get a commission if you sign up with Hostgator using the above link, and I appreciate you showing your support that way. I give a lot of free material away on this website and such ‘gifts’ are always encouraging. Besides, you won’t be paying anything extra (in fact you’ll be paying lesser using the discount coupons than otherwise).

I will be illustrating the remaining steps in this lesson and in the rest of the WordPress tutorial using screenshots from inside my Namecheap domain account and Hostgator’s web hosting account. Even if you go with a different host or domain registrar, these steps will be pretty much similar, if not exactly the same.

Some web hosts provide you with a free domain name during sign-up which is free as long as you have an active hosting account with them. This mode of domain ownership is discouraged by a lot of webmasters since you could face problems if you ever decide to go with a different web host at a later date. Keeping your domain names and web hosting account separate is a good decision and allows you to change your hosting with much less of a hassle if there is ever a need.

Once you sign up with a web host, you will get a welcome mail containing your web hosting account details. Amongst various other things, you would be provided with what are known as the “nameserver” details for your account.

Hostgator Welcome Email – Account Details

Usually these look like ns1.yourwebhost.com and ns2.yourwebhost.com (like in the above screenshot). If you are not provided with these details, send the customer support a mail asking for the nameserver details as follows.

Once you have the nameserver details, head over and login to your domain account. There should be a place where you can “manage your domains”. Click on the domain name on which you want to create your WordPress website. Now, for this domain name, find an option that allows you to ‘Manage Nameservers’. On some registrars, nameservers will be referred to as ‘DNS’ so it could just as well be ‘Manage DNS’ or ‘Change DNS’ or some such similar phrase.

For Namecheap, you can find this by first clicking ‘Manage Domains’. This will show you a list of your domain names on the right.

Namecheap Menu

Now click on the appropriate domain name. Once you do this, you will see a ‘Modify Domain’ screen where on the left you will see a ‘Domain Name Server Setup’.

Namecheap Domain Settings

Click on this. Now you will see the following screen.

Namecheap Domain Settings – Nameserver Setup

Choose ‘Specify Custom DNS Servers ( Your own DNS Servers )’ and then paste the two nameserver details you received from your web host.

Nameservers Updated

Now ‘Save Changes’. That’s it. You have now configured it so that when someone types your domain name in their web browser, they will reach your website. This won’t happen immediately. You are supposed to allow up to 72 hours for this change to happen (that’s 3 days) but in my experience it has never taken more than 6 hours and in most cases it only takes around 2 hours. So wait for a few hours and then type your domain name in your browser. If things went right, you should see some dummy page probably bearing your web host’s name. If your web host happens to be HostGator, you’ll see the following screen.

Hostgator Getting Started Page

If you do see this (or your web host’s placeholder page), it’s time to do your victory dance and hoot a bit. You’ve got the plumbing out of the way and we’ll install WordPress in our next lesson. I promise that will be a breeze as well.