Everything you need to get started with your iBall Hosting plan is included in your ‘Welcome’ email.
You will need the link to your cPanel (Account Control Panel), your user id and your password.
Click the cPanel link and log in when prompted. Allow the cPanel Home Page to load up. Bookmark your cPanel or add it to your favorites.
Take a look around your cPanel – familiarize yourself. You will find a wealth of information and all the setup help you need in the videos and the ‘Getting Started Wizard’.
Check out the FTP, Emails, Addon and Sub-domains, File Manager and Fantastico de Luxe. It is a good idea to check out the various sections before making changes and creating your first site.
Try expanding the stats on the sidebar. You can get more detailed analysis of your account’s disk and bandwidth usage from the ‘Logs’ section in the main cPanel area.
Once you have made yourself comfortable with cPanel you should go ahead and check or set up your domain name servers. If your name servers are all set you are free to start building your first website or blog.
Here are a few steps to set up a basic WordPress blog. If you are an experienced user then feel free to set up any kind of website you like. This is just an example for those who need a little help…
For anyone who has never built a blog before, creating a WordPress Blog is a great place to start learning the ropes.
You should now see a page that allows you to enter some details. At the top, your domain name should be visible in a drop down box. Below that, an empty box where you can choose a name for the folder where WordPress will be installed. If you leave the box blank, WordPress will be installed in the root directory of your account.
For instance:
If your domain name is ‘absolutebeginners.com’ and you leave the box empty, your WordPress Blog’s home page will be located at http://www.absolutebeginners.com
However, if you wish to install WordPress in a folder called ‘myblog’ then you would type ‘myblog’ in the box, and your WordPress Blog home page would be located at http://www.absolutebeginners.com/myblog/
Next, move down and enter a new username, nickname, password and contact email address for an admin user. You could simply use the name Admin, or your own first name. Choose a secure password. If you want to use an email address linked to your new domain then you will need to set up the account from your cPanel before it can receive any emails.
The last two boxes are for your website name and description. The website name should match your domain name apart from the extension, although a number of websites do include the extension (the .COM or .NET part of the domain) in the site name. The site description should be descriptive or quirky. Note: You ARE able to change the website name and description once the WordPress Blog is fully installed but you cannot easily change the domain name itself.
Hint: It can be a good idea to build your first blog in a directory like in the ‘myblog’ example. This will keep the root directory clean for the time being. You could later install another WordPress or other type of blog in the root directory or even set up a regular html website in there and still have the WordPress Blog safe in its own folder. Many companies these days have their main website on the root directory and a blog installed on a sub-directory.
Go ahead and click to complete the installation. You will then be given a link to your admin-login section for your blog. Log in – your new ‘Dashboard’ will open up. Bookmark that admin page or add to your favorites. At the top of your Dashboard you will see the name of your new blog site. Right-click on the name and open it in a new tab. Now you will have your Dashboard open in one tab and your new blog open in another. This makes it easy to track changes to your site.
You are now the proud owner of a WordPress Blog; the world is your oyster. Personalize your blog with new themes and plugins, add new pages, write blog posts and insert your videos and images.
By default, WordPress creates ugly URLs for your new blog posts, so it is a really good idea to go to the ‘Permalinks’ section and define a custom structure.
One suggestion for a custom structure for your permalinks is:
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/
or;
/%category%/%postname%/
Read the help that is included in your Dashboard for more options and choose a setup that you think will suit your site. You can change the structure later but that can cause problem with your existing older posts.
Ok, you now have enough information to get started with your first blog. Remember, you can create subdomains from your cPanel and even add more domains to your account with the ‘Addon Domains’ function.
For specialized help to get you making money from your sites be sure to visit www.howtodointernetmarketing.net
New accounts with iBall Hosting are usually set up within 24 hours. You will receive a confirmation email with links to your cPanel, login id and password as well as your DNS Domain Name Server information.
If you purchased your domain from another domain registrar, you will need to contact them to set your name servers and then allow some time for the settings to kick in. Sometimes this happens within a few minutes but it can take several hours for the changes to take effect.
As a guideline, it can be a good idea to set up your hosting account 24 to 48 hours before building your new website or blog to allow the domain name servers to fully propagate across the web.
iBall Hosting uses Paypal to handle all payments. As the universal payment processor of choice, Paypal accepts payments from all major credit cards and offers a high level of security.
To help you make the most of your iBall Hosting account we have linked to some additional resources for you here:
When you really need some one on one help, log in to our Live Online Chat Help – the ultimate online resource for sorting out any web hosting problems. Our operators are friendly and really know their stuff.
When choosing which iBall Hosting plan is right for you, the main considerations are disk space and monthly bandwidth. Also, accounts are limited to 100,000 iNodes regardless of disk space, so try to avoid putting too many complex sites on one account. Generally speaking, a WordPress blog is likely to use many times more iNodes than a regular html website.
For a single blog or personal website the Blogger is the ideal web hosting solution, providing ample disk space and monthly bandwidth to allow your website or blog to flourish. You can actually build a number of blogs on one Blogger account without any problems then shift them out into separate accounts as they grow. Recommended for hosting 1-3 WordPress blogs or up to five standard html websites.
The Enterprise plan is the perfect web hosting option for small to medium business websites, with some serious disk space and a hefty twenty gigs of monthly bandwidth. This plan is ideally suited for a single domain utilizing a number of subdomains or a network of html websites. Recommended for hosting 3-5 WordPress blogs or up to twenty standard html websites.
The iBall Hosting Empire plan is for serious online business builders. With 10,000 email addresses, 5 gig disk space and 50 gigs of monthly bandwidth, this plan is perfect for large business websites that receive massive amounts of web traffic. Absolutely essential for hosting lots of video and upload/download content. Recommended for 5-10 WordPress blogs or up to fifty standard html websites.
Selling your websites is easy to do, and having a dedicated iBall Hosting account for your website means you can easily transfer your website files to the new owner once your sale is made. Check out Flippa.com to see how much you could expect for your website.
As your website or blog grows you may need to upgrade your iBall Hosting account for greater disk space and bandwidth. To upgrade, just send us an email with your new requirements.
The File Manager built into your iBall Hosting cPanel gives you full access to your website files and folders, allowing you to upload and download, edit, rename, delete, and set permisssions for all files stored in your account.
To use the File Manager, log in to your cPanel and click on the ‘File Manager’ link.
To create a new website in your iBall Hosting account you can use any of the templates or site builders included in your package or you can upload your own html files using either the File Manager in your cPanel or an FTP client such as Filezilla.
To create a blog, click the Fantastico de Luxe link from your cPanel and install one of the blogging platforms from the selection. WordPress is a popular choice highly rated for its ease of use and versatility.