We’re hosting an Orange County WordPress Meetup tonight (1/27). So, to commemorate the event, I thought I’d post some instructions on how to set up a Self-Hosted WordPress site using GoDaddy.
Create a GoDaddy Account
- If you do not already have a GoDaddy account, create one at godaddy.com.
Purchase a New Domain Name (if you don’t have an existing one)
- Log into GoDaddy and search for an available domain name.
- Purchase the domain.
Purchase Web Hosting
- Click the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
- On the Hosting screen, click “Click here to purchase a Hosting Account “ under the “Purchasing Additional Hosting Accounts” title.
- Choose a hosting plan. Any plan will do. I chose the 3 mos Economy Plan for $4.99/mo.
- This may take a few minutes to take effect.
Set Up Your Hosting Account
- Click again on the “Hosting” tab on the left side navigation under “My Products”.
- On the Hosting screen, “New Account” will be listed. Click “Setup Account”.
- There are 5 steps to setting up a hosting account:
- Step 1 – License. Agree to the License.
- Step 2 – Login. Create a login and password.
- Step 3 – Account Details. Choose the domain you just purchased (or any domain listed). The domain you choose will be tied to this hosting account.
- Step 4 – Options. Choose PHP 5.x and enable Google Webmaster Tools.
- Step 5 – Confirmation. Click “Finish”.
- This process may take up to a couple of hours to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.
Set Up a Database
- Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
- Click “Databases” and then click “MySQL”.
- Click “Create Database”.
- Fill in the description field. This can be anything you want as it is only for your purposes.
- Fill in a mySQL Database/User Name. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
- Fill in a mySQL Password and confirm it. Jot this down as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
- Click “OK”.
- This process may take a few minutes to complete. You can check the status by visiting: https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/SQLDBList.aspx. Once the status reads “Setup,” you are good to go.
- Once it has been set up, click the pencil button under “Action”. Jot down the host name as you will need it for the WordPress set up.
Download WordPress Core Files
- Visit http://wordpress.org/download/
- Download the latest version of WordPress.
- Unzip the files on your local computer and note where you saved the files.
Configure WordPress
- In the local copy of WordPress that you just unzipped, open the file called “wp-config-sample.php” in a text editor.
- On line 19, replace ‘putyourdbnamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
- On line 22, replace ‘usernamehere’ with the mySQL Database/User Name you created above.
- On line 25, replace ‘yourpasswordhere’ with the mySQL Password you created above.
- On line 28, replace ‘localhost’ with the mySQL host name you jotted down from the steps above.
- Save this file.
Upload WordPress to GoDaddy
- Visit https://hostingmanager.secureserver.net/ and click on your domain name to open the hosting settings.
- Click “Content” and then “FTP Client”.
- Click “Allow” in the security popup.
- On the Remote System (right side), delete “favicon.ico” and “welcome.html”.
- On the Local System (left side), locate your local copy of the WordPress files that you just unzipped.
- Upload all files to the Remote System.
- Locate “wp-config-sample.php” and rename it to “wp-config.php”.
Set Up WordPress
- In a browser, visit your domain. (If you just set up the domain, it may take up to 24 hours to propagate and it may not work yet.)
- You should see the WordPress set up screen.
- Fill in a title for your blog.
- Fill in your email address.
- Click “Install WordPress”.
- Jot down your user name and the temporary password.
- Click “Log In”.
- Log into WordPress.
- All Set!!!
See, wasn’t that simple. 