Build a Blog

This article is part of a case study following how I set up and run a new blog, about photography called the photographer blog, if you would like to find out more then please visit the case study category.

So I have registered my domain name for the case study blog – thephotographerblog.com and now it is time to install Wordpress onto it to get the blog started. This article shows the process I used to install Wordpress onto my existing hosting account, Bluehost. At the moment I have one blog on my hosting account (this blog) and I am going to add the photographer blog to it as an addon domain, and this shows step by step how I did it.

What do I do first?

Now I am still new to this hosting thing and I wasn’t even sure if I could have more than one blog on a hosting account, which shows how little I know about hosting. So the first thing I did was to email the Bluehost support team and ask some searching questions! They were very helpful and after a few emails asking more questions I had a good idea of what I was supposed to be doing. I found out that I could have more than one blog per hosting account, you just add the domain as an addon domain and it will be separate as a blog, but still ran via the root directory of the hosting account which in this case is build a blog, this blog. I can have a huge amount of addon domains on my account, which is really good value for money because I pay the same hosting fee as for one, so here’s to the start of an empire!

Once I had registered thephotographerblog.com domain which I did through Bluehost itself to make it easier for my first attempt. I had to select it as an addon domain because it was automatically parked on my account. If I had used another company to register the domain, I would have had to transfer the domain to my hosting account, which would have been another hassle and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

Then I had to point the addon domain at the dns servers so it can be found when the domain is entered or searched for. I did this by going to my list of domains in my domain manager and selecting it there.

Installing Wordpress

So the next step is to get Wordpress 2.3.1 installed onto the site so I can start setting the photographer blog up and get it running. Now this is where I came a little unstuck, so far I was doing ok, I had registered the domain and set it all up, and the options I had been given had been easy to choose the right one for, but now I was unsure of the next step. I had asked Bluehost for help before I started to get an idea of what was involved in the process. They had told me to use an addon domain and register it, then go to fantastico and upload wordpress. Now that all seems fairly simple but there is only one control panel per hosting account, so how do I get it to install on thephotographerblog.com and not on builda-blog.com the root directory? I am not one to jump straight in and give it a go unless I am sure, or try to find some option that looks right. Because I would no doubt make the wrong decision and mess everything up. I speak from experience shall we say! I suppose that is why it has taken me so long in the first place to set a blog up for photography, I am a little too cautious.

And what made matters worse my broadband connection has been down for a couple of days, so I have been sitting here stewing about it and not able to do anything. But finally everything is working again and I gave it a go, this is what I did:

1. I went to my bluehost control panel
2. I found the Fantastico deluxe icon
3. Once in Fantastico program I found Wordpress on the left in the long list of available programs.
4. Clicked on Wordpress and the right side of the screen populated.
5. Clicked on the “new installation” link

I then had to fill in the form to tell it where to install Wordpress, giving the username, password and domain name which I had chosen when setting the domain up. Fantastico then creates a folder automatically for Wordpress. I then followed the instructions on screen and finished the installation. It then gave me the admin url and other user information I needed about the site. And that’s it, the blog is up and running with the default Kubrick theme and welcome post (screenshot of the blog at the moment above), what a relief. Fantastic fantastico!

Final thoughts…

Once I had done it I thought what on earth were you worried about it was easy, but I had prepared beforehand and I had a good idea what I was looking for. I think anything new that I learn about blogs and blogging can be a bit nerve racking the first time I do it, simply because if I screw it up I know it will be a nightmare to fix! It’s that learning curve again….

Just to point out, this was done through my own hosting account in Bluehost and the process may vary from one hosting account to another. I hope this article has given an outline of how to start multiple blogs on Wordpress and a host, and is helpful to somebody in a similar situation to what I was. I look forward to the next step – Themes.

Click here to learn more about BLUEHOST.COM.

Thanks

Mandy

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