HOW TO: Build A Custom Website With WordPress and GoDaddy

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Lately, people have been asking me about websites and internet businesses in general. Is their internet idea a good one? Is it realistic? How to build it? Who to involve? But in all of these conversations I’ve been asked every single time “How could I build my own website?”

Today, you don’t have to be a computer expert, graphic artist or an electrical engineer to build a website. We are no longer in the HTML only days and there are enough tools available that can help you look like a sophisticated internet guru or savvy businessperson in this so called knowledge era. Starting a business? Creating a web presence for yourself? Blog? eCommerce Site? You can do all of this yourself. Ain’t that complicated.

If you have a few bucks to spare and are willing to learn a thing or two about web development and hosting, I would encourage you to read my quick guide below to building a killer site using wordpress (note: there are many other ways, free ones at that, which could enable you to build your own site. I prefer to use wordpress.org and this guide is all about wordpress and godaddy).

Things you need:

  • Willingness to learn and explore new things
  • About $25.00

Let’s Begin. We will build this site using the WordPress platform, using wordpress.org (open source) files. We will also be using Godaddy as our hosting service provider.

1. Head over to GoDaddy.com, create an account and register your domain name. You can get a domain for about $10.00/year

2. After you purchase a domain name, and your still logged in to your account, go to “Hosting” -> “Hosting Plan” -> “Website Hosting”

3. Buy a Linux Economy Plan for 3 months @ $4.99/month. (As you check out you will be blinded by hundreds of extra bells and whistles. You don’t need any of these. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “NO THANKS..CONTINUE TO CHECKOUT”). You will now officially own your very own domain name and a hosting plan.

4. Once you’ve obtained your domain name and your economy hosting plan, go to “Hosting” -> “My Hosting Account” -> “Setup Account”. Here you will follow the steps in order to link the Linux Economy Plan with your domain.

5. Once the Linux Economy Plan is linked to the domain, you can now follow instructions right off of Godaddy’s site.

To Install WordPress on Your Hosting Account

  1. Log in to your Account Manager.
  2. In the My Products section, select Hosting.
  3. Next to the hosting account you want to modify, click Manage Account.

  4. On the Hosting Control Center home page, click Your Applications or click GoDaddy Hosting Connection

  5. Click the Blogs category on the left, and then click WordPress.
  6. Click Install Now.

  7. NOTE: The Install Now button displays only when the selected value application is compatible with one of more hosting plans in your account.

  8. Read the End User License Agreement, and then click I Agree.
  9. Choose the domain to install WordPress to.
  10. Enter a database description and password, and then click Next.
  11. Choose an installation directory, and then click Next.
  12. Enter the Admin Name, Admin Password, Email and Blog Title for your WordPress installation. Click Finish.

WordPress will be installed to your hosting account with the options you selected. When it is complete, you will receive a confirmation email.

At this point you have successfully built your own website. Now its time to customize. To do this, you will want to play around with different themes, widgets and plugins, all of which you can download and install directly from your wordpress administrator panel. Another post to come on themes.

If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section.

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61 thoughts on “HOW TO: Build A Custom Website With WordPress and GoDaddy”

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  6. erica Eden

    this was amazingly helpful…i have been looking for help for days and i couldn't find any clear way to do this. thank you so much for understanding that not everyone speaks web-talk! you say that after these steps are done, you can play around with themes. but HOW?

  8. Noam

    Great info, just walked through it all and got it done no prob! Thanks so much.

    Now, i've got an egsisting blog on wordpres how to I import that into godaddy without losing any content, etc. and not affecting my google rankings/traffic?

    Lastly, I need to install a custom theme.

    Thanks in advance!

  9. danreich

    MIGRATING From WordPress.com = > Other Hosting with wordpress.org software

    1) In your wordpress.com account, go to your Admin => Export and export your
    blog. It will give you a file to save and make sure you keep track where you
    put it!

    2) In your new host wordpress blog go to your Admin => Import and chose to
    import the “WordPress” blog. Point the import process to your file from Step
    1 and import! Voila!

    3) As for files and images, don't delete your wordpress.com blog and they
    will still be accessible without having to change anything!

    Taken from Trent <http://trentadams.com/> @ WordPress.com
    forum<http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/transfer-wordpresscom-to-wordpressorg&gt;

    This will affect your google rankings and traffic since your site, although
    the same, is hosted at a new location. Google will need to re-crawl your
    site and index it.

    You can also download custom themes from within the admin panel.

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  13. helterskelter42

    When it comes to blog hosting, I am not sure i would choose GoDaddy. They are fun… but i don't think they are as efficient as blogspot. I admit i never tried their hosting, but i have many friends complaining about their speed, options etc.

  14. Frank C. Tannehill

    I finally decided on the domain name and now I really need to learn how to build my own site. Thanks to your tutorial I think that WordPress is a good idea. I must check and see if GoDaddy has the domain I want. Thanks again!

  15. Frank C. Tannehill

    I finally decided on the domain name and now I really need to learn how to build my own site. Thanks to your tutorial I think that WordPress is a good idea. I must check and see if GoDaddy has the domain I want. Thanks again!

  16. Alyssa

    I've been digging around for info on this topic. These were the simplest instructions. Thank you so much!

  19. Horses For Sale

    I really need to learn how to build my own site. Thanks to your tutorial I think that WordPress is a good idea. I must check and see if GoDaddy has the domain I want. Thanks again!

  21. Sonia Trevor

    WordPress really fits for GoDaddy 🙂 I can say that GoDaddy is next to Hostgator in terms of service and support because they are always there also to answer your issues about the system that a user avail. This step by step guide is really useful and important especially on those who want to have a website on their own.

    Sonia Trevor
    Marketing Consultant of Naples Web Hosting Services

  24. Anonymous

    I have my own website. In the “fishing” section I want to be able to have users comment and share info on the different articles that will be written(many different topics). I don’t know if disqus is what I need to use or wordpress. I have disqus now, but I can’t figure out how customize it to only bring comments up about certain topics. I am so new to this, any help would tickle me silly. checktheplace.com
    thanks, Chubby

  25. Forgottennomore

    I’m confused about the difference between installing into the root directory or a subfolder. If my website is going to be an online store with links to my ebay store, wanting my domain name to rank high in SEO, which is the best way to install?

  27. Cbearsfan101

    the only problem is you only have a 3month hosting plan for 5/month, anything longterm would have to be 12months or more which would be over $50 just for the hosting plan

  28. Aj

    on godaddy.com, they have 2 types of webhosting options:
    1. 4gh website
    2. wordpress website

    If i build a website using wordpress will the 4gh version support it?

    i want to build a content based website(articles, reviews, pictures and videos)
    which one should i opt for?

  29. Dan Reich

    I would recommend using wordpress. I built this blog using a combination of wordpress and the thesis them. WordPress is very customizable without having to know a lot of code.

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  31. Emely

    Thank you so much for this article. I’ve been going in circles all day trying to clearly understand what I need to do!

  37. Belinda Whitehead

    Hi Dan, I’ve recently purchased a GoDaddy domain name and website builder package. It lets me link to my WordPress blog and import it onto a tab in my website, but I can’t seem to make any formatting changes to the blog once it’s been imported. The writing is small and grey and it just looks totally uninviting. As a total novice I’m unsure what to do – perhaps I should purchase a hosting plan as you detail and install wordpress that way, ditching the website builder altogether? Any advice welcome!! Thanks 🙂

  38. Dan Reich

    To make styling changes to your blog, you’ll need to adjust your “theme” settings. There are plenty of free themes available that you can download and install which will dramatically change the look and feel of your blog.
    Here is information on the latesttheme of my blog.

  39. Gurp

    Thank you for this post. It is great. I have few questions. I’m in the process of designing my very first website and have registered for my domain name. However, I’m having trouble deciding whether I should use the website builder service through go daddy or use wordpress to build the website and host it on go daddy. If you could give me some information on the difference of both services or forward me to a link for me to see the comparisons it would be greatly appreciated. Thank You :)! The website will be used for a small business.

  41. Lighterdayz

    Great article! What if you have already started with Website Builder and want to transfer to WordPress?

  43. sugarinjection

    i love this, thank you so much. i was literally lost for the past week. 🙂 you rock!

  50. Patrick

    Hi Dan

    Great Job!!!

    Would u add or change some information of the above to keep this article more up to date? Just want to make sure, before I proceed these steps.. I saw that you wrote this 4 years ago, right?

    Thank u very much!!!

  51. Dan Reich

    Thanks, Patrick. Yes, this blog post is a bit outdated. GoDaddy makes it much simpler now and feel free to leave questions in this comments section as you try the installation.

  52. Mariangela Elarja

    Hi Dan, this a excelent information….i been looking around for a week!!! I have a hosting account ( deluxe) with multiple websites there madre in dreamweaver. I trying to get a program that is faster than DW…i was thinking on Godaddy Biulder and, now i like the wordpress.org. My question is: websites made with WP.org can be host in the same deluxe hosting that i have??? or I will need to buy another type or hosting? And I will have to download/connect WP.org every time i do a website? or is one time download and i can used for all websites???? Thanks a lot for this blog again!

  53. Dan Reich

    Hi Mariangela, glad you found this helpful. If you have a deluxe hosting account with GoDaddy you should be able to host multiple WP.org sites on your hosting account. You would just need to create a new folder in you GoDaddy database and then point the wordpress files to that folder. A GoDaddy service representative should be able to help you and it shouldn’t take too much time to set up.

  55. Mariangela Elarja

    I am reading and reading about wordpress, i never used before neither knew nothing about it.Now i was try to simplify my way of working.Go daddy web builder is a good option but i dont like having everything done….in your opinion, what will be the pros and cons of them. Thanks once again for your tme helping people like me!

  56. Dan Reich

    GoDaddy web builder is limited in functionality but seamless with GoDaddy hosting.

    WordPress has better functionality but you might encounter issues when syncing with your GoDaddy account.

    I would still recommend wordpress or if you want an even easier blogging platform try tumblr.com.

  57. Kimberly

    Hi Dan,

    Thank you so much for this!!! I do have a question for you though. I have read many articles regarding the differences in WP.com and WP.org and have determined that the additional freedom .org offers is the way for me to go, mainly for the options of the extra add-ons and the freedom to upload my own background image under the template.

    As I was setting this up through godaddy I called to verify that they offered both WP options. The man that took my call basically called me an idiot and said that org is the entire site and com is just the blog/website program. I tried to explain the differences between the two that I’ve been reading about and he became even more condescending and told me that I was wrong, there are not two different platforms, and that he knows more about this than I ever will.

    Can you offer any advice/clarification on this?

    Thanks,
    Kimberly

  58. Dan Reich

    Hi Kimberly,

    WordPress.com lets you use the wordpress CMS and lets you use them to host the blog, but you should still be able to download the wordpress installation files and host on a 3rd party like GoDaddy.

    Dan

  59. Ryan Bowman

    Godaddy is fine for domain names, but I’ve never been impressed with their hosting. Do you use it for your own sites?

    Their control panel is slow and takes forever to update things. I always have to make changes and come back and refresh later to see the results of the change. I’d usually recommend other hosting for a WordPress site.

    Godaddy’s website builder is an OK option for people some people. I explain who and show a video walkthrough of their version 7 builder in this post: http://webeminence.com/godaddy-website-builder-review

  60. Abhay Singh

    Sir,
    I purchased a domain “headlinebazar.com” from GoDaddy.com.
    Now I want to make a website on WordPress.com but I am facing problem. Is it once again billing required on WordPress also ??
    I want to proper info pls reply !

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