WordPress in an Hour or Less: The Get It Done Guide to Installing and Using WordPress (3 page)

Having set up your GoDaddy hosting account, you can now use the following steps to register your domain name as part of that same account.

1. A
t the top of the screen, pick
Domains
, and choose the first option,
Domain Name Registration
. 

2.
At the next screen that appears (shown here), enter your desired domain name and select the top level suffix you want (.com, .net, .org, etc.), then click Go (to the right of the box where you type in the name). 

3.
Click Add, and then click Continue to Registration.  You will see another dialog box where GoDaddy will suggest a number of additional similar domain names.  Unless you think that these are important, you can just click the 'No Thanks' button.

4.
You will be asked a few questions on the screens that follow, and these will vary, depending on the type of domain that you chose.  Note that on the third screen that appears, you will see a drop down list box asking you to choose the length of time that you want the domain registered.  The drop-down will default to five years, which is the maximum amount of time that you can pay for.  Again, while you will save money by registering a domain name for five years, I personally think five years may be a bit excessive, as you never know when your own plans may change and you may desire a different domain name.  One year is a bit short and I like to opt for two years to avoid the hassle of having to renew annually.

5.
Answer the questions on each page and click 'Next' as needed to proceed to the checkout page.  Once you get to the checkout page, you will see that your address and billing information are already present, as you set up your web hosting earlier.  Turn on the 'Final Acceptance of Terms' check box at the right and click Complete Order to add your registered domain name to your GoDaddy account.

1.
At the GoDaddy website, open the Hosting and Servers menu and choose the last option,
Hosting Management.

The next screen that appears will show you your new account in the center, with a Launch button at the far right, as shown here.

2. Click Launch, to start GoDaddy's Hosting Control Center.  Since you chose WordPress hosting when you set up your web hosting account, the next screen that you will see asks you to set up your WordPress account.

3.
Enter your domain name into the first text box, without the traditional "
www.
"
After you enter your domain name and press TAB, the dialog box will suggest something called an “FTP User Name”, and you will have the opportunity to accept the default name that GoDaddy recommends, or change it to something that may be easier for you to remember.

4.
Make a note of the entry you place in the “FTP User Name” box,
because with GoDaddy’s WordPress hosting, this value also serves as your default Administrator name when you log into WordPress.

5.
In the password box, enter a password that you'll use to log into WordPress.
  WordPress passwords must begin with the letter, have at least one upper case and one lower case letter, must include least one number, must contain one of these special characters- ( !,@,#, or % ), and must be at least eight characters in length.

6.
You will also be asked to enter an e-mail address and a title for your WordPress site.
For now, you can use any e-mail address you want; eventually, you will probably want to set up the free mailbox that came with your GoDaddy hosting account.  (Double-check the proper spelling of your e-mail address, because if you ever misplace your login password, the 'Lost Password' link at the bottom of the WordPress login screen can be used to tell WordPress to e-mail you a new, temporary password.)

You can also change the blog title later, but you will want to be as descriptive as possible, because search engines will waste little time locating your new site, and some search engines use information stored in the site's title as a way to categorize the site.

7.
Click the Finish button
at the bottom of the box once you're done entering all of the information in this dialog box,. 

That’s it
!  In an hour or less, you’ve done what was needed to set up your WordPress site. (GoDaddy's servers will have some work left to do behind the scenes in setting up your site, but you can sit back and have a cup of coffee-- or perhaps even go out for a lunchtime snack--while the work of getting your WordPress site operational takes place.  The automated installation wizards running on GoDaddy's servers will configure your domain to point to your hosting account, submit your site to something known as the DNS (Domain Name System) servers used by the Internet, and install the latest version of WordPress under your account's own space.

It may take some time (up to half of a day) before you are able to type your web address into a browser and see anything other than a 'Site Not Found' error message.  That's because your new domain name has to be submitted to the global network of DNS servers that manage traffic across the Internet.  I've seen this process take as little as 30 minutes to as much as 12 hours, given how fast (or slow) data seems to be moving across the world wide web at any given point in time.  In any case, you will get an e-mail from GoDaddy informing you when your website is up and running.  When you go to your site address and you see an actual web site resembling the following:

--pat yourself on the back, because you have your own privately hosted web site based on the WordPress platform up and running!  In the next chapter, you will learn how you can just as quickly begin to make the site more closely resemble the masterpiece that you intended.

So, you've finished the quick install of WordPress using the options at GoDaddy.com (or you've done a similar quick install from your chosen web hosting service).  You've made a note of your login name and your login passwords somewhere, and if you didn't, you can refer back to the e-mail that GoDaddy (or your hosting service) sent you when the setup was complete.  WordPress is packed with an incredible array of features-- so many that you may feel overwhelmed at first (don't worry, the feeling will pass quickly given the simplicity of the overall WordPress design).  Resist the temptation to dive right in and start changing your site; if you are completely new to WordPress, you should first spend some time becoming familiar with the Dashboard, which is the place where you design, write, and organize all of the content behind your WordPress site.

To get to the Dashboard, you will need to log into your site using your administrator name and password.  With any WordPress site, you can get the login screen just by adding the following-

/wp-admin

after your domain name.  So, if your domain name is (for example)
www.myownwebsite.com
you could get to the WordPress login screen for your site by entering the following address into a web browser:

         
www.myownsite.com/wp-admin

Enter this variation for your site into a web browser, and in a moment, you'll see the WordPress login screen.

Enter the username that GoDaddy (or your particular web hosting provider) assigned and the password you chose (in case you don't remember, both items are also in the e-mail that you received from GoDaddy or from your hosting provider when the setup was completed).  After you login, you'll see the WordPress
Dashboard
, shown here.