The Casual Tech

Problem: You’ve been blogging on Blogger or Xanga (or any of those free services) but have found not everyone takes you as seriously as those who blog on their own domain. You want to blog on your own domain, but you’re just not exactly sure how to go about it. The whole process seems intimidating to you.

Solution: The Casual Tech’s Guide to Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging! I’ll show you how to get your blog on your own domain so you can start blogging with the “big boys”.

This is post four in the series. Go here for the rest of the series:

Post One | Post Two | Post Three

There are four main elements involved with blogging on your own domain: domain name (duh), hosting, blogging software, and FTP. A common newcomer misconception is that once you register a domain name, you’re all set. Not true. A domain name is just that – a name. You own that name on the Internet. No one will see it, however, unless you also have the domain name hosted somewhere. The hosting is where all of your actual files for your website will reside. Your job is to tell the company you registered the domain name from where the hosting resides, so they can point it in the right direction. (I’m over simplifying here for the sake of, er, simplicity.)

If you’re just getting started, make sure you check out the first three posts in this series before continuing on to STEP FOUR below:

STEP ONE – DOMAIN NAME
STEP TWO – HOSTING
STEP THREE – BLOGGING SOFTWARE

STEP FOUR – FTP

Now that you’ve bought your domain name, secured hosting for your website, decided on and downloaded a software package, you need a way to transfer the software and files to your web host so you can begin blogging. For the sake of this tutorial, we’re going to assume your host is Host Gator and that you are using Wordpress software.

A Real Basic FTP Primer

FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol and is basically a method to transfer files across the Internet between two computers. When you have files on your computer that need to be on another computer, too, a common solution is FTP – much like the WordPress files you downloaded earlier that now need to get to your web server.

There are two main methods to utilize FTP: your browser or a software program. Using your browser doesn’t allow for many options that you’ll need to run a blog, so we highly recommend you download an FTP program to use.

Here are some of the more popular FTP programs available on the Internet today.

• FileZilla – FREE. This also comes as a portable app, which means you can take it with you when you’re not on your own computer. This is the FTP package we recommend and will be using for this tutorial.
• WS_FTP Home – 30-Day Free Trial. Pricing starts at $39.95 after the trial ends. Excellent, intuitive software with all the advanced features you’ll need.
• CuteFTP – 30-Day Free Trial. Pricing starts at $39.99. A very popular FTP program.
• CoffeeCup FTP – 30-Day Free Trial. $34.00 to buy. Very nice, easy to use software package.
• Smart FTP – FREE and Licensed versions available.
• FTP Commander – FREE. Very bare bones.

This is by no means a comprehensive list. If you’ve already got an FTP program that you’re happy with that’s not listed here, don’t worry. Keep using the FTP program that works for you, as they all basically do the same thing and operate in the same way.

Download and install the FTP software of your choosing (refer to Part Three if you need a refresher on downloading) then meet me back here. I’ll wait.

Okay, do you have your FTP program running, waiting to add your host and user information? Good.

Using FileZilla, go to File/Site Manager. You should see something similar to this:

Click on the “New Site” button and name your site in the program manager. Use a descriptive name for yourself; no one else sees this.

Next, you’ll need to enter your Host name and user name information. This is information your hosting provider sent you in email when you signed up. The values in this screen shot are for The Casual Tech blog; you will need to supply your own personal credentials here.

Click on the “Connect” button. If you entered all of your information correctly, you will be connected to your account on your web host’s server and should see something similar to this:

Here’s a break down of what each section of the program is.

• Section 1 – All server messages and statuses will display here. When you connect to your host’s server, you will see all the steps it takes to do so in this window.
• Section 2 – View of the files on your computer. This is basically a Windows Explorer window looking at all of the files on your computer. You can navigate in this window to get to the directory where your files for transferring are stored.
• Section 3 – View of the files on your host’s server. The same as Section 2, except these are all the files on the server at your hosting company. In order for anyone to see your site on the Internet, the files need to reside on a web server somewhere – this is where you place your files that you want the rest of the Internet to be able to see.
• Section 4 – All transfer status messages will display here. When you transfer files, a list of each file being transferred and its status will display in this window. This way you can tell if all of your files successfully transferred or if there were any problems encountered.

Please note that all panes can be resized for easier viewing. The panes are small in all of the screenshots in this tutorial, but you can customize yours to suit your needs. Using the guide above, in Section 2 of the FTP program, navigate to the location on your computer where you saved your WordPress files. Still referring to the guide, in Section 3, navigate to the “Public HTML” directory on your host’s web server. Your screen should look something like this:

Now it’s time to transfer all of the WordPress files to your host’s server. All you need to do is double-click the “Wordpress” directory and the files will begin transferring. Alternatively, you can highlight the WordPress directory on your local computer (Section 1) and drag it to your host’s server (Section 2). IMPORTANT: Please refer to the WordPress documentation for more specific instructions on uploading all of your WordPress files.

Congratulations! If you’ve started from the beginning of this tutorial series, you have chosen and purchased a domain name, researched and selected a web host, decided on and downloaded blogging and FTP software and have uploaded the basic blog software to your host so you can truly being blogging! Great job.

Please leave any questions in the comments.

Good luck and happy blogging!