We’re almost through with our first week of posting, and already we have our website up and running on an awesome domain name. Just think: a week ago, you had nothing! Now, you have your entire future laid out in front of you.

On day 5, we installed the WordPress blogging platform to our servers. It’s nice to have the system in place, but now we are faced with a template (as pictured below) that looks… well… pretty darn bland.

Luckily for us, WordPress is a very flexible system.
Let’s see if we can’t make things look a little better, eh?

Why You Need To Customize WordPress

Remember when I told you that your domain name was the most important part of your blog? Well, I lied. In fact, I would argue that having a compelling design can really make or break any website. If you are using a generic template, you will NEVER be an industry professional. While a template is going to be the first step, we want to put a significant amount of time into improving the look of our blog. Need an example? Let’s check out the amount of customization I did on Jimvesting.com, even after purchasing the $50 premium theme!

Ask yourself this: which blog would YOU rather subscribe to?!
I thought so.

Finding an Awesome WordPress Theme for your Blog

I want all of you to do 30 minutes of recon work on finding that winning theme for your blog. Go ahead and open up your own text document where you can jot down your notes and findings (namely URLs of themes you like). This is an important step in the process, and I can only guide you to your final destination. Search Google for things like “Premium WordPress Themes” and check out the footers of blogs you like to see where they got their themes. You aren’t going to be buying anything today, but you need to cut out a solid 30 minutes to look into your future theme. A theme can really drive your traffic, so make sure you are getting what you want.

Remember, we will be customizing these later. Because of this, the true order of your preferences when browsing for themes should be the following IN THIS ORDER:

1. Layout (e.g. where things are on the page)
2. Advertising Locations (ads should be plentiful, but not detract from the look)
3. Aesthetics (how new and professional the actual design appears)

Notice how aesthetics are really the third qualifier of a good theme. Because we can change any awkward color combination to our liking, we need to focus more deeply on where things are, rather than what things are.

Places to Consider for Free and Premium Themes

First of all, let me reiterate that I am only going to fully back premium WordPress themes for your use. Simply put, having a free template… even if you modify the heck out of it… may detract from your reputation. So definitely be careful that you aren’t using one that thousands of others already are! If I’ve seen your theme before, I automatically register you in my head as an amateur! While you need to do your own detective work, I will give you a few resources on both accounts to get you started.

Free WordPress Theme Resources:

• WP Theme Designer (Recommended!)
• Smashing Magazine’s
  “100 Free Themes” List
• WP Zoom’s “45+ Free
  Premium Themes” List

Premium WordPress Theme Resources:

• WooThemes
• Premium WP
• WP Revolution
• Elegant Themes
• Theme Forest

Make that list of potential themes and you’ll be well on your way. Be sure to look thoroughly through your options, reminding yourself what you will put where in each template as you browse. Remember: it’s not the way it looks, but the way it could look.

-Jimvesting

Our servers are all set up and ready to work for us. This morning, you should have found that your  domain names now connect to your servers after configuring your name servers. Now that we are ready to go, let’s bring our blog to life!

The Anatomy of a Blog

When you look at a blog on the internet, chances are what you are seeing is based on a script to run the service. Essentially, bloggers need a convenient control panel online where they can enter their posts on the fly. The top services include: WordPress, MovableType and Drupal. All of these services are basically packaged scripts that you upload to your server and run completely online. This means that you can run everything online form anywhere in the world… convenient, eh?

Why WordPress?

The one thing that WordPress takes a lot of heat for is its utter lack of search engine optimization. However, you can fix this easily with a free plugin called “All In One SEO” (we’ll touch on it later). I would argue that WordPress is the best platform simply because it is one of the most used and it is more flexible and easy to understand than the other systems. Because WordPress has become the industry standard, we are going to be using this script to manage our blog efficiently.

Downloading the WordPress Platform

Luckily for us, the leading blogging script is also completely free to use. It is available in zipped format on their website at WordPress.org, and the new version 2.7 is really an awesome package. Go ahead and get on over to the WordPress.org Download section and grab your copy. Then, unzip it somewhere that you can find it on your computer.

NOTE: If You Are Hosted With A Company With cPanel, You Must Ignore These Installation Notes And Use “Fantastico” To Auto-Install WordPress in CPanel!

Uploading the Script to Your Website

To do any type of transactions to and from your website (e.g. uploading or downloading), you will need what is called an FTP client. FTP stands for “file transfer protocol”, but just think of it as an alternative way to access the files stored on your server. To use this, you will need a few things which your web host will provide to you:

• Host: The location of your files, mine is simply “jimvesting.com” (which in actuality means “ftp.jimvesting.com”)
• Username: The username you use to access your admin section of your hosting. In cPanel, mine is “jregan”
• Password: The password you use to access your admin section of your hosting. I’m not giving THAT away!
• Port: Most likely 21, you can simply assume this to be true in almost every case

Download an FTP client (a free one!) online and plug in those values. Then, you will be connected to your server and will see all of your files just like you were browsing your own computer files! I recommend FileZilla (what I use) or CuteFTP for this service. Please note that in many cases, if you have a root access to your files, you won’t see them until you click into a folder called “public html” or something close to this.

Find whatever is the root of your files (where you will typically see a cgi-bin folder and/or an .htaccess file), and simply upload all of the wordpress files right there! You want to do this so that you are uploading the actual files within the wordpress folder, not uploading the entire folder to your root. Otherwise, you will only be able to access your blog from yoursite.com/wordpress! Here is a screenshot of what we are going for: SCREENSHOT.

Installing WordPress

Once the files are uploaded, it should be quite easy to set this thing up. You now need to simply need to set up a MySQL database through your hosting admin account, and then follow the directions in the online built-in installer for WordPress. I can help out if you post a question below, but otherwise I would recommend following along with the official WordPress installation guide.

If you do this correctly, you should now see a nice default blog theme when you enter your domain name. For an example, see the progress of Jimvesting.com! We’ll work out the kinks and get you customized soon… so stay tuned!

-Jimvesting

We bought our domain name on day two, and purchased a hosting account from a reputable company like HostGator on day three. Go ahead and catch up on those steps if you are behind. Now, we need a way to sync the two together!

As I talked about before, a website is nothing more than a bunch of files on a server somewhere around the world. We can access this server (and the files on it) by using a domain name. The domain name essentially just tells your web browser where exactly those files are stored! So the question now is simple… how the heck do we get our domain name to go where it needs to go?!

The Name Server – What The Heck Is It?

You may hear the term “name server” thrown around on the internet. What exactly is this? Essentially, you can think of it like an internet’s version of a phone book. A name server is really a directory of domain names that match to certain IP addresses. All of these name servers around the world have their information stored in a central registry, which enables your browser to work more efficiently to find the websites they are pointing to. So in a nutshell, when you buy hosting… you will be given a domain name server, which is essentially an IP address to define the server you are hosted on!

Step One: Finding Your Name Server

Locating your name server can be a bit difficult, and is really a case by case deal. Normally, I would recommend that you simply look on your web hosting company’s website, especially in the FAQ section. The second best way to get this information would be to log into your backend control panel (most typically “cPanel” or “Plesk”), and browse for the information there.

You are going to be looking for two locations: the primary name server and the secondary name server. You will need both of them to link your domain name to your hosting account. For those of you that chose to use Host Gator web hosting, this is going to be a hassle-free! Simply log into your hosting account’s cPanel address (given to you in a confirmation email), and look on the left-hand side of the page. Right there in the “Account Information” section, you should see two name servers. Mine are “ns1005.hostgator.com” and “ns1006.hostgator.com”. As a rule of thumb, the one with the lower number is your primary name server (the other is your secondary).

Step Two: Telling Your Domain Name Registrar

By default, any domain name registrar will have their own name servers as the default. They do this because they want to have your website hosted with them… bringing in more revenue! You, however, will not be doing this (assuming you didn’t buy hosting and your domain name from the same place).

Now that we know our primary and secondary name servers, we need to log into our domain name registrar account and mess with the settings. Go ahead and go back to 1and1.com, GoDaddy.com or wherever you registered your domain name and log into your account. Then, get on over to your specific domain name that you registered. From there, you can “edit DNS settings” (or similar option), and will see the opportunity to switch things over from their name servers to your own. Enter in your primary and secondary name servers (leaving the third blank), and save your changes!

Typically, switching over your name server will take from 12-48 hours… depending on how good your domain name company is at passing through DNS changes. Wait this one out, and your website should be good to go in the morning!

Tomorrow, we’ll be installing our blog… so stay tuned!
-Jimvesting

Now that we have our domain name bought, we need to get it to point somewhere! Every website is a simple connection of a domain name to a server, like a computer, somewhere around the world. In layman’s terms, whenever you type a domain name (or “URL”) into your web browser, the domain name will tell your browser where to look for the website. This location that the domain name points to is your server, and nowadays you can get web hosting from a third party rather easily.

Free vs. Paid Web Hosting

In this day and age, paying for web hosting is no longer a large ordeal. In times of old, we had to shell out the big bucks in order to gain access to bandwidth and space. Free web hosting has, of course, improved right along with paid hosting. However, when you think about the cost/benefit between paid and free hosting… the margin has surely contracted. Therefore, I am recommending that you have a look to paid hosting ONLY for your new website. Don’t worry, nowadays it is very cost effective!

A Comparison of Premium Web Hosts
I’ve drawn up a chart here of what I feel are five of the best web hosts. Remember that you only need to buy the bare-bones package on each of these popular web hosts, so your costs will remain minimal and you should be recouping these initial losses fast.

These “top five” web hosting companies are subject to change, but these five have been industry leaders for years. Most of them formed back in the early-00s/late-90s around the dot com bubble, and are still very strong today. Personally, I recommend that you sign up for Host Gator. Why? First of all, the support is the best in the business. I have had a few problems, but never an issue with getting them resolved within half an hour. Also, they are so nice that they even sponsor contests for you! Other than that, you get unlimited space and bandwidth, along with enough features to feed a family (HostGator gives you almost total control, and makes it easy).

Today’s Task: Buy Your Hosting!

Which brings us to today’s task, buying your hosting! Check out the top five hosts that I have outlined here. I highly doubt that you can find a company that is substantially better than one of these, and I think that you should consider a cheaper solution like HostGator to host your blogging websites. There is really no need to look for rediculously speedy hosting, as any one of these top five deliver enough performance to get your site viewed in miliseconds.

Do your homework and visit each of the top five web hosts. Then, go ahead and buy your hosting! Typically, you will get a much better deal buying a year or more in advance, and don’t forget to look for coupons on the internet (just google “COMPANY NAME coupon codes”) to lower your cost even more. I walked away with hosting from Host Gator for around $65 for a full year of hosting, I can recoup that loss even selling one advertisement on my blog here!

What web host did you decide on and why?
Drop your comment and let us know… you could be featured in tomorrows post!
-Jimvesting

Yesterday, we talked about creating an idea list for your domain names. Since then, hopefully you have had time to sit down and think out exactly what you want to do with your blog. The domain name step is important, so be sure that you go back over our tips from Day 1 if you are still unsure.

A Final Checklist…

The big day is finally here… and on day two much less! Buying the domain name to use for your website is definitely a big step, so we want to be sure that everything is set up correctly from the get-go. More importantly, we want to be sure that we ordered the name that we want. Let’s have a look at that list again of names that we liked:

JimsUp.com, Jimvesting.com, YesJim.com,  TheJimNet.com, WinWithJim.com

As I look across that list, again I am liking the same name (this is a great sign!). Hopefully, you will have the same reaction… otherwise maybe you should take some more time looking. Remember, there are always good names out there… they just need to be found. For mine, I am going to choose Jimvesting.com because it seems like a fun name that can be relevant AND made into a verb quite easily. Being able to roll a domain name off the tongue is important, much more than having a keyword in there (though it would be nice). Remember, we are building blogs here, not landing pages!

Registering Your Domain Name

Debunking The Myth
Many people who have never purchased a domain name before are a bit spooked with the task, I know that I sure was. However, a domain name really is just a $10 per year dedicated URL! Getting over that initial fear to buy your own domain name is easier than it sounds… but trust me on this one. All you need to do is find a reliable registrar (GoDaddy.com, 1and1.com and NameCheap.com are my top three) and work your way through the process.

What Registrar Should I Use?

When I asked around on other blogs which registrar they used to get their domain name, the overwhelming response was GoDaddy.com. This service is great. It is easy, fast and relatively affordable. However, they do try to trick you into buying more than you need… and they do not offer private registration without doubling the amount you thought you were paying. For this reason, I recommend 1and1.com! They are one of the easiest to use (in my opinion), the cheapest for .com names, and include FREE private registration. Believe me, you want the private registration on all of your domain names… otherwise, it is required by law to have your home address listed!
Lock It In!
Go ahead and register that domain name! Again, I recommend 1and1.com, but it really doesn’t matter too much as long as you stick to a reputable service. Remember that you won’t be needing any web hosting, email add-ons or anything like that… so stick with the bare basics and hopefully you can walk away with change for a $10.

That’s it for today’s 30 minutes! Yep, that was quick and painless, eh? Tomorrow we will embark on a hunt for reliable web hosting and lock in a great account where we can host all of our website’s information. See you then!

-Jimvesting