Ok, before we can start building our website, we are going to need a place to build and host the site. For this you are going to need a hosting account somewhere. In my previous article I mentioned that I would be showing you how to install Joomla automatically from within your hosting account. So you will need to choose one of the several hosting providers that have this feature built in.
The one I use for my own sites as well as my clients sites is HostGator. I have another article on this blog where I go into more detail as to why I chose this company titled...Choosing a Hosting Provider for your Website. Your hosting account and domain name registration is going to be the only things you will have to spend any money on. Fortunetly HostGator is not only one of the best hosting providers out there, they are also one of the cheapest. I would recommend you start out with their "Hatchling" account which is their cheapest plan. You can always upgrade your account later on if you need to. If you choose to pay month to month then the price is $8.95 per month or you can prepay for up to three years and get the price down to $4.95 per month.
The one I use for my own sites as well as my clients sites is HostGator. I have another article on this blog where I go into more detail as to why I chose this company titled...Choosing a Hosting Provider for your Website. Your hosting account and domain name registration is going to be the only things you will have to spend any money on. Fortunetly HostGator is not only one of the best hosting providers out there, they are also one of the cheapest. I would recommend you start out with their "Hatchling" account which is their cheapest plan. You can always upgrade your account later on if you need to. If you choose to pay month to month then the price is $8.95 per month or you can prepay for up to three years and get the price down to $4.95 per month.
If you have a domain name in mind to use for your website then you can register that at the same time that you set up your hosting account. If you have already registered a domain name then you will be able to set that up to be pointed to your hosting acount while you are setting that up as well. If you don't not know what you are going to use for a domain name yet, that's ok. You can set up your hosting account without a domain name so you can start building your site and they will give you temporary a URL. Then later on after you decide on a domain name you can go back in and register and point it to your account.
After you have your hosting account setup at HostGator then you need to install Joomla on your site. I think you will find this step to be surprisingly easy.
First, you need to go into your cPanel for your site. You access this by going to the URL for your site followed by "/default.html". So if you have a domain name already on your account it will be http://your.domain/default.html or if you are using a temporary URL then it will be something like http://your.ip.address/~username/default.html. A pop-up window will appear for you to login with the username and password you chose when you set up your hosting account.
Once in the cPanel, scroll down to the section entitled "Software/Services". In this box look for a Blue Smiley face icon labeled "Fantastico De Luxe" and click on it. On the screen that comes up you will see a list down the left hand side of the page listing all of the free software programs that you can install with an automated install program. You will notice that there are alot of them. You can explore the other programs later but for right now I want you to find the link for "Joomla 1.5" under the Content Management heading. You may also see a link that just says "Joomla", this is for an older version of Joomla and you don't want that one.
Click on the "Joomla 1.5" link and you will be guided through a short install wizard that will install the program and database to your site. Just accept any default values in the wizard. Pretty much the only place you will have to make any decisions is when you are asked to choose and enter an email and password for the administrator. This will be used to login to the administration side of your Joomla site.
Now you have a fully functioning Joomla website installed and you are ready to start entering content and setting up the layout and graphics for your site, which I will guide you through in the following articles.
You can access the administration side of your Joomla site by going to your domain name followed by "/administrator" and logging in with the email address and password that you choose during your Joomla installation process.
In the next article I will be explaining some of the more common areas in the admin that you will be using.
Next Article in this series: PART IV - Layout and Graphics
Next Article in this series: PART II - What is Open Source?
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