Change Your DNS Settings

The first thing we must do is to change our DNS settings to point to HostGator.

Shortly after completing your purchase of the hosting, you should receive an email from HostGator with some instructions on how to get started.   The most important section of the email is where they list your name servers.

Step 1: Make a note of the two name servers given in the email.

Step 2: Go to Name.com and log in to your account. *These instructions assume that you registered your domain with Name.com as was shown in the Buying a Domain tutorial.

Step 3: Click on Account at the top of the page.

Step 4: Click on the domain name for which you are setting up hosting.

Step 5: Click Edit Name Servers under Control Panel on the right side of the page.

Step 6: In the box under “Add Name Server,” type in the first name server (e.g. ns1929.hostgator.com) that HostGator provided you in your email.

Click Add.  Then do the same thing for the second name server.

Step 7: Click (Remove) next to each of the first four default name servers to take them off of the list.

The only name servers that should now be listed are the new ones for your HostGator account.

Welcome to Your New Website

Believe it or not, your website is now live and running.*  In a new window or tab, type in your domain name.  You should see a screen like this one:

This is HostGator’s default page for a newly hosted website.  It’s appearing because we haven’t uploaded any of our files to create our own web pages yet (don’t worry, that’s coming up).

There are a number of good resources for you here, particularly the Getting Starting and Video Tutorials links.

The first item on the screen is the cPanel Login.  The cPanel is basically the control panel for your hosting.  You will use it to perform various actions including creating a database, managing emails, adding other domains, and more.

If you’d like to check it out now, simply click on the cPanel Login link or type in “yourdomain.com/cpanel” in your web browser (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name).  This is how you will access the cPanel from now on (you may want to bookmark it).

*HostGator says to allow 24-48 hours for the DNS change to propagate worldwide, so don’t be surprised if it’s taking a bit to see your website (or rather, HostGator’s default page).

Check out the next post in the series on how to install WordPress on your site.

Now that you’ve purchased your new domain (either by registering a new one or buying an existing domain), the next step is to buy and set up hosting for the domain.

Website hosting refers to the service of housing your website files on someone else’s servers.  In other words, when you buy hosting, you are purchasing that ability to put your files (that make up your website) on another company’s servers so that people can view your website on the World Wide Web.

In the following two tutorials, we walk you through each step you’ll take to buy and set up your new hosting.  When we’re done, you’ll have a shiny new website up and running.

Our favorite hosting company (by far) is HostGator.  The service is reliable, easy to use, has great customer service, and is priced very nicely.

If you choose to use HostGator, this tutorial will make it a walk in the park.  If you choose to host elsewhere, this will still be a good guide as to the general process of setting up hosting.

Let’s get to it.

Buying Web Hosting

Step 1: Go to HostGator and click on View Web Hosting Plans on the left side of the screen under the “Our Most Popular Hosting Plan” header.

Step 2: Choose the hosting plan that best suits your needs.

We suggest using the “Baby” hosting package, mostly because it allows you to host unlimited domains from one hosting account.  That’s basically the only difference between the Hatchling account and the Baby account that will matter for people.  This means you don’t have to buy more hosting for additional sites that you start.

If you know you’re only going to host one website, you can opt for the Hatchling account (you can always upgrade later).

Step 3: Click Order Now.

Step 4: Click the radio button next to “I will use My Existing Domain and update My Nameservers only.

Type in your domain name and domain extension (e.g. prosperlybeginners.com).

Click Next.

Step 5: Make sure all the information is correct, input a coupon code if you wish, and click Calculate Totals.

Step 6: Click the radio button next to “I am a new customer” and click Continue.

Step 7: Enter your personal and payment information.  Click the Yes radio button certifying that you’ve read the Terms and Conditions (after you’ve read them of course).  Then click Verify My Order.

Then click Process My Order.

Congratulations, you just bought some web hosting.

In the next tutorial I will show you how to set up hosting to get your site up and running.

Buying an Existing Domain

If the domain you want is already taken, there’s a good chance that you can buy that domain from the owner.  Again, I don’t mean going to a domain registrar like Actnowdomains.com and registering a new, never before registered domain. This is something you should and will do most of the time. I mean buying a domain name that someone else has registered but they are selling the name.

If, when you go to the domain, there isn’t a live site you can go to www.whois.net and find out the owners contact information and then contact them directly about buying the domain.

Sometimes you will type in a domain name into a browser and then see a live website but in reality it is just a parked page and there actually will be a link on the page that says “This Domain Might Be For Sale”. You can click on that link and then make an offer on the domain. You may or may not get a response but this is how I purchased my last domain.

Advantages to Buying an Existing Domain

I see two main advantages to purchasing an already existing domain. First, if your heart is set on a certain name and you don’t think that you can do business with any other name then you should try to buy the domain name from whoever owns it.

The second reason to buy an existing domain name is to take advantage of any previous link popularity the domain has. Many domains that are up for sale used to be active websites that were promoted by their webmasters.  Many of these old websites obtained many links pointing to their site and although the site has since shut down, the links remain. That leaves the opportunity for you to build a new website and take advantage of the old links pointing to that domain. Keep in mind that you need to put up a new site that is similar in nature to the previous website or the links will hold little to no value to you.

Use the Yahoo link feature I explained in step 9 of the section “Buying an Existing Website” to check if a domain has links pointing to it.

Resources:

Here is a list of some good websites to buy or sell domain names.

http://www.buydomains.com has hundreds of prime domains for sale.

http://www.afternic.com another good list of domains for sale.

http://www.sedo.com has a big selection of domains as well.

http://www.tdnam.com is a good place to find a very large selection of domain names for sale at a cheap price.

Starting from Scratch: Buying a New Domain

If you’ve chosen to start your website from scratch, the first step is to find and purchase your new domain name.  When I say “new” domain, I mean a domain name that has never been previously registered.

Choosing a Domain Name

There are a few things to consider when choosing your domain name.

SEO Friendly

Your domain name itself can actually help a good deal in your efforts to rank better for certain key terms.

One of the quirks in the Google algorithm is that if someone searches for exactly what your domain name is, you have a very good chance of ranking for that term with out doing a lot of SEO for it.

For example, if you do a Google search for “buy domains” the website buydomains.com is the first listed site. Google makes the assumption that when you search a key phrase and there is a website who’s domain name matches the exact phrase you searched, they assume you were searching for that specific company. So you can buy domain names that are highly searched key phrases and get ranked fairly easily for those phrases.

You can use one of the key phrase search tools I talk about in the SEO portion of this guide and find some commonly searched terms. Then go see if any of the domains that match those key phrases are available for sale.

If buying an existing domain: keep in mind that Google at anytime can change their algorithm and this could no longer be an effective technique so there is risk involved if you are spending a lot of money for a domain. Having said that I recently spent $800 on a domain because it is a good search term that would bring very targeted visitors for what I am offering.

.com or .net?

When buying a domain I recommend always trying to get a .com name. People naturally see the .com website as the authority and if they are typing in your web address they will often type .com out of habit. You could lose customers if you own a .net or .org domain name.  If however, the .com domain that you’re determined to get is taken, I would consider a .net as the next best option.

Easy to Remember and Type

All things equal, a domain name that’s easy to remember and type is better than a long, difficult one.  If, for whatever reason, you plan on advertising the domain, you will definitely want it to be easy to remember.

This may not be as big of a factor, however, depending on how you intend to get most of your traffic.  If, for example, most of your traffic will come from organic rankings (which should be the goal for many of you) a long name won’t matter as much.

For example, I recently started a website where my main key term (searched more than 3 times the amount of the next biggest term) consisted of four large words, making it a very long key term.  I found a domain that contained that exact phrase, so I bought it.  Now, when friends ask what the site is, they laugh, but the site also started ranking (it just got on page one of Google) much quicker than it otherwise would have.

What if the Domain I want isn’t Available?

In most cases you’ll find that the perfect domain for your new website has already been taken.  You’ll often have to be a little creative and flexible when coming up with other alternatives.  Here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

• Consider adding hyphens (-) between the words in the domain.
• Consider getting a .net rather than a .com website.
• Find possible synonyms for different parts of the domain.
• Use the Google Keyword Tool to find similarly searched terms.
• Consider buying an existing domain (see Buying an Existing Domain).

Buying Your New Domain

Ready to buy a domain?  This tutorial will walk you through each step necessary to become the proud owner of new domain.  While there are literally hundreds of different companies that act as domain registrars, we’ll be using our favorite for this tutorial: Name.com.  We’ll also be setting up a domain named www.prosperlybeginners.com.

Step 1: Go to www.Name.com.

Step 2: Either create an account or log in (both found at top right).

Step 3: Type in your desired domain in the search box at the top. Click Search.

If your domain is available it will have a box that you check to select it.  If it’s not available, the option for that particular domain extension will be in grey and “Taken” will appear:

Input different domains until you find one that is available.

Step 4: Click on the domain extension (.com in the example) that you want.  Then click Checkout.

Step 5 (optional): If desired, click the Private Whois box to have your personal information hidden from the public Whois records.  Click the Google Apps box if you’d like to automatically be signed up for Google Apps (for now, I suggest keeping it unchecked since we can easily sign up for it later).

Step 6: Input your payment information, agree to the terms and conditions, and click Purchase Now.  *You may also want to do a quick search for “name.com promo code” to get a small discount.

You can view and manage your domains by clicking on Account at the top of the screen. We will come back here when we set up hosting for the domain.

You are now the proud owner of your new domain.

I have decided to put together some simple, easy to follow tutorials on starting a website from buying a domain to getting web hosting all the way to getting WordPress installed on your site. I hope these can be a real help to those of you who are beginners in the internet marketing world.

Check out the series links below to get everything you need to get started in the internet marketing world.