Another Wordpress Blog

This the second article in a series explaining how to upgrade your Blogger blog to WordPress running on your own domain. Yesterday I described preliminaries, like getting a hosting account and a domain name. Today, I’ll discuss how to actually get your “site” up. Tomorrow, I’ll describe how install WordPress. Afterwards, I’ll finally get around to telling you how to import your Blogger blogs!

Now, when I write “how tos”, I like to explain both the goal and give the step-by-step instructions. Some readers like to read the goal first, and the step-by-step instructions second. Some like the revers. Today, I’ll describe the goal first.

What are you trying to actually accomplish with today’s “how to”?

Remember yesterday, I told you to you set up a hosting account, register a domain and arrange the DNS pointers to “find” your domain which, for the purposes of discussion we’ll call, “myblogdomain.com” at your host. Then, I said to wait 24 hours. So, you waited.

Now, I bet you think you can just enter “http://myblogdomain.com” into your browswer, and you’ll find something. Well… probably not. Or at least, you won’t find anything useful. Why not? I’ll explain using an analogy.

Think of your hosting account as providing you a big pc (aka ” server”) that is located “over there”. My hosting account is Dreamhost, which means my “big PC” (aka “server”) happens to be in California.

The DNS pointers you set up are basically telling “the web” that files associated with “myblogdomain.com” are on that particular “big PC” located “over there”. (My pointers tell “the web” that you can find the files associated with “bigbucksblogger.com” on Dreamhost’s servers in California.)

You’ve got the DNS pointers set up right. So, why can’t you find anything useful if you point your browser to “http://myblogdomain.com”? Because you haven’t put any files or directories on that server! When you point your browser, “the web” is finding what you put on the server: nothing.

Today, we are going to create directories, put files and install WP on the server. Because the pointers are already set up, “the web” will find those files and directories as soon as you create them on your server. You’ll also install a WordPress blog, and be able to see what’s in that WP blog.

Step by Step Directions for Installing WordPress

Now, the upside of my directions are that they will be detailed. The downside, is that the specific steps you follow will match what you do with Dreamhost. If you use another service, the specific directions will differ a bit. So, you will need to generalize the instructions, navigate your hosts user interface and find the precise way they do things. What beginners don’t know, but experienced users do know is that figuring out user custom interfaces involves guessing. It helps if you are familiar with the jargon.

1. Goal: Create a directory that matches your domain name.

   After you create your hosting account, you will find your host has a user interface of some sort. Dreamhost’s looks like this:
   

   Notice it has navigation on the left sidebar. I know I want to do something with my domain, so I click “Domains”. The sidebar expands showing me options for what I can do with “Domains”. Managing my domain sounds like it matches what I want to do: I’ll click that.

   Turns out, I guessed right. After I click, Dreamhost shows me the names of the the domains and subdomains I’ve set up on my server. I have several. You can see “bigbucksblogger” in the screen shot I posted above.

   What will you see in your list? If you just set up your account, you will either find zero or one domain. The number will depend on your host, and whether or not you registered your blog at your host. (If you registered your blog somewhere else, you will definitely not see the blog domain here. After all, your host knows nothing about that domain.)

   Anyway, look for your domain name on this list. If it’s not there you want to create it. “Add New Domain” sounds like a way to “create” a domain. So, I clicked that. Look, another user interface with boxes! (BTW. If your domain is there, click “edit” the domain. You’ll get a very similar user interface with one box you may wish to check.)

   Now remember our goal: Create a directory with a name that matches your domain. (Dreamhost happens to be calling this “adding a domain”, but you’ll soon see why I call it a “creating a directory.”)

   So, in that first blank box next to “domain to host”, you want to enter your domain name. (Long, long ago, I entered “bigbucksblogger.com”. But in the example, I entered “myblogdomain.com”.)

   Now, look further down and follow the red line I drew. When I entered that domain name, it turns out Dreamhost automatically suggested “myblogdomain.com” for the directory! Creating a directory with that name was what I wanted to do. Whooo hooo! (Dreamhost is flexible and lets you do some advanced stuff, mismatching domain names and directories. But if you are a beginner, you should ignore that fact. Make them match.)

   Pick a username

   Your domain will need to be given a main user. You almost certainly created one when you set up your hosting account. Pulldown the “create user” toggle and see if one exists. If it does, that’s your user name! Select that.

   If no user name exists, create one. You can pick anything. For reasons related to security, I recommend avoiding a name that is way too easy to guess. (Though don’t panic if someone learns it; your main protection is your password!) Do something at least a little unusual like adding a number at the end: jane789 would be better than jane.

   Don’t worry about forgetting the name, you’ll be able to find your name. At Dreamhost, I click “Users” in the lefthand navigation panel at the user interface.

   You’ll eventually be able to control the users by using the “user” function on the left hand navigation.

   Other Options?

   You will also see a bunch of options. For the most part, when your host suggests something, follow their suggestion. Which version of PHP? Whatever they like. Web security? Go for it! Fast CGI? They say it’s advanced; you are not. Skip that. Look further down: They let you redirect, cloak, mirror or park the domain. Ignore those.

   Is there anything you should change?

   Yes.

   Whether you are “editing” or “adding”, there’s one option you should change: do not use both ‘www.myblogdomain.com’ and “myblogdomain.com’. Using both can lead to duplicate content issues with Google, so it’s best to use one or the other. Which? It doesn’t really matter. The address with “www” is shorter. If you like shorter urls, pick that.

   (If your host doesn’t have an option for this, don’t worry, we’ll fix that later.)

   Now that you’ve selected everything, click a button that will say something like “Fully host this domain now” or “Add domain” or “Create Domain”. Just look for words that look like you would file the setting you selected.

   Your domain should now be created or, your host will tell you it will be created in a short time. If you created a new user, the page will tell you the user’s password. Write that down. You’ll also probably be told the name servers which is useful if you registered your domain elsewhere.

2. Check that your Directory exists. Return to the main part of the user interface. Click “Manage Domains” on the left sidebar. (Or click whatever seems to let you manage domains at your host. )

   You will once again see all the “domains” you created. This time the domain you created will be there!

   If it doesn’t appear, wait. Come back later. (Remember, you may have gotten a note about waiting?)

3. Put an index.html file on that directory. How? Well, now that you’ve created a directory, you can put a file in there using “FTP”.

   Now, remember I suggested you get a host that supports Webbased FTP? Scan the page and find “WebFTP”, or anything that suggests you would use WebFTP.

   Click that.

   Now, you will probably be asked to enter a username and password. That’s the username you created when you added the domain and the password your host gave you. Enter those.

   You’ll now arrive at the WebFTP page for your web site. It might look fancy; it might not. In fact, depending on the path I take Dreamhost has two different versions of the interface! This is what the “not fancy” interface looks like:

   Notice the interface displays files like “index.html” and directories (which look like folders on the “fancy” interface.)

   If you just created your site, this page will be empty. To fill it, I suggest you look around and find a button that says something like “new file” or “create file”; click.

   A window should open. There should be a small box for the file name, a large box for the file contents and a button to save the file.

   Enter index.html in the small box.

   Now, paste in this bit of html code in the large box.

   $string=htmlentities("



Future home of myblogdomain.com.

");
echo($string);
?>

   Next, click save or create whatever your user interface uses to convey “creating” this file.

4. Look at the index.html file. Now, try to load “http://myblogdomain.com/index.html” (or whatever your real domain is called) in your browser.

   If the DNS pointers are resolving, you should see a file that says “Future home of myblogdomain.com”. If they aren’t wait 24 hours.

   For fun, load http://myblogdomain.com/. Look, that’s the same as loading with /index.php added!

That’s all for today. Yep, you have one file loaded. That seems like very little progress, but it’s actually the hardest part!

Tomorrow we load WordPress.

This is a series: Upgrading from Blogger to WordPress Part: I, Part: II , Part: III , Part: IV.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Blogger, Blogging, WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.