Hi I’m Tom Jones, a professional website designer.

Getting your website online doesn’t have to be complex and cost you thousands of dollars. Today I’m going to show you the exact step-by-step process I use to create a website even if you don’t know where to start.

And by following these steps you can have you own website up and running in under 4 minutes by using my secret website building software resource that I am going to reveal.

The cost to you will be $11 USD for a domain name and $5.95 per month for website hosting. All the information provided on this site is free of charge.

Thousands of people visit this website every day and you can be the next website success story.

What Will You Need ?

To setup a website you only need these two things

• A domain name
• A web hosting account

You will learn how you can get a domain in step 1, get web hosting in step 2 and 3, and how to set up your website in steps 4, 5 and 6.

For the purpose of this tutorial we are going to use one of my websites as the example. The site we will setup is called www.makeawebsitesample.com

So let’s get started!

Step 1 – Register A Domain Name

It is important to get your domain name right. Here are some tips on choosing the right domain:

• It is brand-able (like facebook.com)
• Or it has something to do with what your site is about (like dogbreedingtips.com)
• Its easily memorable
• preferably ends in .com

Once you have chosen your name you need to register that name. This process takes 4 steps.

1) You need to register your domain name. The best place to do that is namecheap.com. Click this link to be redirected to http://www.namecheap.com so you can register you domain name.

On the home page in the middle there is a search box that looks like this:

 

 

2) Enter the domain that you want to register and click search.

The results will look something like this where there are many variations of the same domain name.

We are going to selected the .com version of the domain because that is the best one to choose.

 

3) If your domain is available, click the add to cart button.

NOTE: if you don’t have an account with namecheap you will need to register an account with them. You need to do this before you can pay for your domain.

4) Click the checkout button at the bottom and fill in your details (note you may have to create an account with namecheap at this stage)

Select the registration for a 1 year period and follow the checkout process until payment.

Once you have paid you domain should instantly appear in your account and a recept should have been sent to your email.

Don’t worry about accessing your domain just yet we will cover that in a few steps time.

Now that you are the new owner of a brand new domain for your website we need to work on setting you up with a hosting account.

Step 2 – Set Up A Web Host Account

Now that you have your domain you need somewhere to store all your website files. That is why you need a web hosting account.

There are a couple of things that you need to take into account when choosing a website host

1) Avoid Free and cheap offers

2) Choose an established provider.

After testing many of the popular providers we now only recommend Hostgator.

Hostgator is one of only four recommended web hosting providers for wordpress (our recommend website building software). They are safe, secure and reliable with 24/7 customer support and fast servers for good website performance.

- Here’s how to set up a web hosting account with Hosgator:

1) First you need to visit the hostgator website by clicking this link: http://www.hostgator.com

When you first go to their website you will see in the middle a yellow button that says view web hosting plans. Click that.

Since you only have 1 domain select the Hatchling plan on the left.

2) Since you have already registered your domain then the next step is to enter that domain in the “I Currently have a Domain Name” box on the right hand side.

Once you have done that enter your domain name you have just bought and click continue to step 2.

Finish the signup process.

Your hosting account should be setup and hostgator will send you an email that confirms the setup of your account.

Now that you have your domain and hosting it is time to link them together. .

Step 3 – Point Your Domain To Your Hosting

Although this step sounds complex it is very simple to achieve. You are going to update your DNS (domain name system). In laymen’s terms this like the GPS instructions you input in a car.

1) Go back to where you registered your domain: http://namecheap.com

Go to the top right hand corner and click my account. Then go ahead and login.

2) Once you are logged in your account you will see the list of domains in your account. This should be the domain name that you registered in step one. The next step is to click on your domain name in your account panel. For demonstration purposes I have highlighted an example domain below. The other domains in the account have been lurred for privacy reasons.

3) Once you have click on your domain you will be taken to a new page where you need to select ‘Transfer DNS To Web Host’ which is located in the top left hand corner of the website. See the image below for visual instructions.

 

4) In this step you need to add the name server information (GPS coordinates).

 

 

Enter the Nameserver information that you were given in the email that hostgator sent you. This information will be beside nameserver 1 and nameserver 2 in your email.

Copy both those into their respective slots.

Then Click Save Changes.

5) You’re done!

Congratulations! – you’ve successfully linked a Name domain to a Hostgator account!

If you run into any trouble the namecheap and hostgator support will help you solve any problems you may be experiencing.

 

Step 4 – Install WordPress On Your Site

Why install wordpress?

WordPress is a free website building platform that has been commonly used by web designers for many years. It is probably the most used website building platform for individuals, small business and large corporate websites.

It allows you to build a website very quickly and is simple to use and customizable if you choose. It saves you hiring expensive web designers and programers. It is also search engine friendly so people can find your website.

However manually installing wordpress can take about 1 day to complete.

That is why we recommend hostgator.

Hostgator has a built in, one-click, wordpress installer. Which saves you lots of time.

This wordpress installer comes free with every Hostgator hosting plan.

To install wordpress follow these steps:

1) Assuming namecheap is already pointing to the hostgator nameservers (as in step 3) type in this URL into your address bar.

www.yourwebsite.com/cpanel

Where yourwebsite.com is the domain name that you registered. For example if your new website is dogtrainingtips.com then you would type in dogtrainingtips.com/cpanel

2) Login With Your Hostgator Info

Use the Hostgator cpanel login information provided to you in your email when you purchased your website hosting to get access.

Once you have logged in you should be able to see the hostgator cpanel.

3) Once you are in your cpanel for your website scroll down to the bottom of the page to the Software/Services section and select the Fantastico De Luxe icon.

4) On the left side bar under “blogs” there should be a link that says wordpress. Click That

5) Click on New Installation and follow the instructions provided.

Fill in the  information, e-mail address, username & password etc.

Warning! – There will also be a field called Install in Directory – Make sure you leave this field blank!

Once completed, click Install WordPress!

On the next page, you will provided with the Mysql user name and an access URL. Ignore this.

Click Finish Installation

6) DONE: If you have completed all the above steps correctly your should have now setup your website.

Your new website should be successfully installed with the default theme and settings. You can change all this by configuring your website.

Step 5 – Configuring Your Website

 

Once you have setup your site you will want to login and add content, redesign it and make some changes. To do this you need to access the wp-login of your website.

www.yourdomain.com/wp-login

You do this by typing into your address bar you domain name then /wp-login. You will use the username and password that you saved from the final step of setting up your wordpress site.

Once you have logged into the site you you should come to your dashboard which looks like this:

 

This is where you control your website from. All changes you want to make can be done from here.

If you look down the left hand side you will notice a bunch of menus like posts, pages plugins etc.

Here is an explanation of each.

1) Posts – used mainly for blogging. You can create a post which will show up on the blog page of your website. This can be tagged, categorized and organized how you choose.

2) Media – Managing video and pictures on your website.

3) Links – Add links that you can put on the side of your website.

4) Pages – Used for adding new, fresh pages to your website. You can also browse the options for choosing the page slug, enabling/disabling comments, changing the page order, modifying the page template, etc.

5) Comments – managing comments people make on your blog posts.

5) Appearance – Allows you to customize your website. Starting with the design, then also the layout and structure.

6) Plugins – Used to improve your websites functionality and usability.

7) Users – Managing the administrators of the website (who can login or not)

Settings – Allows you to edit the general settings of your website.