I Bought a Domain Now What? 3 Things You Need To Do

Can you believe that, I know nothing about warts, but I had read that it was a profitable niche, so I registered my domain from Namecheap and I jumped in.

I had no clue what I was doing. Heck, I didn’t even know how to install WordPress. To tell you the truth I didn’t even know there were two different versions of WordPress.

All I knew was that I wanted to join the blogosphere and earn money.

Fast forward to today and I no longer own that blog.

That goes to show you that I am a true believer in blogging about something you’re passionate about. I wasn’t passionate about warts, so guess what, I don’t blog about that anymore.

Don’t even get me started down memory lane. I could tell you about several embarrassing niches that I tried to start blogs in.

Well today, I share my WordPress experience with beginners because I know how challenging it can be. I’ve been working with WordPress for over 8 years and currently freelance from my home.

My goal was to start this blog to help beginners understand the basics of WordPress. So they could create the lifestyle they desire.

In the process of sharing valuable information, my goal is to turn this blog into a full-time income so I can walk away from my freelancing gig 🙂

So let’s get start

I Bought A Domain Now What Do I Do?

Buying a domain is a huge first step, that means that you’re serious about creating a profitable blog. You’re not using a free platform to build your foundation.

Nope, you’ve gone all in. So now you need to learn how to connect your domain to your hosting account.

For this tutorial, I’ll be using SiteGround. It’s where I host my blog and I’ll be logging into my cPanel to show you around and provide you step by step tutorials.

As long as you’re with a hosting account that offers cPanel, you’ll be able to follow along. If you’re still looking for a hosting account, many new bloggers start on:

• SiteGround (I use and recommend this one)
• Bluehost

 
As long as it’s a reliable hosting account, you’ll be fine because your new blog won’t have a lot of traffic right out of the gate. There’s no reason to overpay for your hosting when you’re new.

You can always upgrade later once you’ve built up the traffic on your blog.

Related: Blog Growth Stats to Help You Grow Your Blog

How to Connect Your Domain to SiteGround Using Your DNS

That may sound confusing, but it’s really not. Once you’ve purchased your domain from your Domain Registrar, which I recommend you never purchase your domain from the same place you buy your hosting.

I prefer to keep them separate. Of course, everyone’s opinions will vary on this.

Do I Need to Buy Hosting?

Yup, if you’ve decided to go self-hosted, you’ll need to invest in a hosting account. A hosting account will host your actual site on their servers.

What is a Web Host?

Let me break it down and make it easy to understand because I used to struggle with it when I started my first blog back in the day.

Think of your domain as your mobile number.

Your hosting company as your mobile service provider. (mine’s Verizon)

Whenever someone types in your domain into their browser, your hosting account makes your blog available to the user.

Without paying for a hosting account, no one would be able to visit your blog.

I know it’s a little confusing, here’s another great article I found online that will help you get a visual idea of what web hosting is.

Once You’ve Purchased Hosting

Depending on your hosting account, you may or may not need to wait for an email that contains your DNS servers. When I signed up with Hostgator back in the day, I had to wait 24 hours to get this information.

If you’re using SiteGround, you can log into your new account and follow along.

Go to My Accounts >> Information and Settings

Scroll down until you see the Account DNS.

You can see your two DNS account numbers. You’ll also see the IP Address that you’ll use if you decide to use an A Record. (If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry.

Today, we’re just going to learn how to connect your domain to SiteGround using your DNS name servers.

Log Into Your Domain Registrar

Once you’ve highlighted and copied both of your DNS nameservers into a text document. It’s time to log into your domain registrar.

I purchase all my domains from Namecheap. So I’ll show you how to do this from the Namecheap dashboard. If you’re using Godaddy or another domain registrar, the process will be a little bit different.

Log into your Namecheap Account

Once you’re inside of your Namecheap account, you’ll see all your registered domains. If you only have one then you’ll want to click on manage domain.

Next, you’ll be taken to the screen where you’ll want to enter paste your DNS nameservers that you’ve saved to your text file.

Don’t forget to click on the green checkmark after pasting your DNS nameservers. The changes won’t take effect until you do.

Give Your Site Time to Propagate

You may not see the change take effect right away. Sometimes it can take up to 24 hours for your DNS name servers to take effect.

Personally, I’ve never had to wait for more than a few minutes. Namecheap is pretty quick on propagating your DNS name servers to your new hosting account.

If you have to wait, that’s not a problem. I’ve got some things that you can do while you wait to set up your blog.

Let’s setup a custom email for your new blog.

Setting Up An Email Forward

As your blog grows, you may want to set up a custom email for your blog. For instance, you’ll notice that many bloggers use name [at] domain [dot] com.

Yes, you can sign up for a Google Business account which will allow you to get a custom email for your domain. But if you’re just starting out.

Those little expenses can add up quickly.

So why not set up an email forward for your domain. You can call it whatever you want.

The best part is that you can forward it to your Gmail account. It’s pretty cool and the best part is that it won’t cost you anything 🙂

Here’s how to do it.

Log Into Your cPanel

Scroll down to the email section and click on email forwards.

Next, you’ll want to click on Add Forward

Now you’ll be taken to a page where you can add your custom email address. If you have more than one domain, you’ll want to make sure that you are adding it to the right domain.

The great thing is that you can create whatever or how many you want.

Once you’ve created your custom email, click on Add Forward.

You’re done. Now you can start using that email.

Whenever someone emails you using your custom domain, it’ll get forwarded to your Gmail email address.

Related: How to Setup a Custom Email Using Gmail

Checking If Your Site Is On Your New Host

If you’re an impatient person like I am, then you can check to see if your site is now hosted on your new host. You can do this by visiting this site. Enter your domain and then click on the drop-down arrow.

Choose NS and click on Search. The site will show you which domain servers are pointing to your site. If everything looks good, you’ll see your new Domain Servers that you just added to your Namecheap account.

If for some reason, your domain isn’t ready yet. Don’t worry, you can still start working on your new blogging tasks.

Things to Do While Waiting for Nameservers to Change

If you have to spend time waiting on your site to propagate. Don’t waste time waiting.

As a new blogger, we all know that there is always something we can be doing to grow our blog. You could spend time networking with other bloggers by getting involved with some Facebook groups.

Why not write a guest post for another blogger. This is one of the techniques that I’ve been using to help me grow this blog. You can pump out a new article for a guest post while your site propogates.

Make sure you don’t give away the post until your blog is setup and ready to get visitors 🙂

You could even write an article for your own blog. You’ll be writing a lot once your blog goes live. It’s important to maintain a regular blogging schedule.

I’ve personally found that having an editorial calendar helps me keep focused and helps me publish new content on a regular basis.

Create A New Pinterest Image

If you don’t want to write a new guest post, why not create a new Pinterest image. I’ve recently started creating more than one image for my blog posts.

As you know, I’ve been trying to improve my Pinterest marketing strategy. This means that I am reading the Tailwind blog to pick up some tips to help me improve my blog.

One of the tips that they give their readers is to create more than one image for your blog posts. You can pick up some great Pinterest tips by reading this post.

Schedule Some Pins Inside of Tailwind

Just like my blog and YouTube channel. I love scheduling my Tailwind pins at least a month in advance.

This means that I usually spend a day scheduling other people’s pins as well as my own pins so I won’t have to worry about my Pinterest account.

When you’re first starting a blog, you won’t have a lot of your own content. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t start on Tailwind.

You can start pinning other people’s content to help you grow your account. Once you start publishing content you can switch to pinning more of your own content than others.

If you’re not using Tailwind to help you automate your pinning, then you’re missing out. Tailwind is responsible for helping me grow this blog without having to spend tons of time on Pinterest. You can sign up here for Tailwind and give it a try for free.

Oh and if you need some tips on how I am getting more traffic from Tailwind. I suggest checking out the social sharing plugin that helps me spread the word about my blog.

Related posts on the Social Warfare Plugin:

• Is Social Warfare the Right Plugin for You?
• Steal My Pinterest Image Creation System for Social Warfare
• Social Warfare Plugin, Why I Use It and Setup And Customization Tips
• How to Set Up The Free Social Warfare Plugin
• Social Warfare Click to Tweet How I Customized It

 

Sign Up For Some Affiliate Networks

As you know, I am a huge fan of monetizing my blog with affiliate links. This can be a great way to earn some money blogging. You could use this time to sign up for some more affiliate networks to help you increase your blogging income.

If you’re totally new to Affiliate marketing, I suggest signing up with the Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing. This is the same course that I’ve used to help me improve my affiliate commissions.

Related: How to Monetize A Blog

Once Your Name Servers Are Ready

Yay, your name servers are ready to use. This means that whenever someone types in your new domain name, they’ll be taken to your WordPress blog.

Oh, damn, you first need to get WordPress installed. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered for that, I’ve written a tutorial that will show you everything you need to do to learn how to create a profitable blog.

Yes, you’ll even learn how to install WordPress, as well as several other things you wont’ want to miss. You can basically use it as a checklist to check off the things that are done and what needs to be done.

You can go at your own pace 🙂

Final Take Away

Hopefully, this tutorial showed you how easy it is to learn how to connect your domain to SiteGround. As you can see, it’s extremely easy to do and there’s no reason why you can’t do it without paying someone.

Of course, if you’re still confused and wasting a lot of time, ask your hosting account if they offer a free WordPress installation.

Hand Picked Articles for You

• Moving WordPress From One Host To Another
• Locked Out Of WordPress Get Back In Quickly
• What Is The Best Way to Backup WordPress Automatically

 
Have you ever changed your own DNS name servers? If so how long did you have to wait before you could start using your blog?