Domain Registration & FTP Connection

In this tutorial we’re going to look at first researching a domain name, then purchasing that domain name and setting up an FTP connection to your server so you can host your website and videos.

So here we are at Googles’ keyword research tool. So I’m interested in getting a domain name that has something to do with making videos. So I can start by seeing what’s searched for with these keywords.

Let’s start with “make video” and see what it shows.

As we scroll down the list of keywords we can see the relative competition and monthly search results for various keywords.

Here’s quite a good one, “how to make videos”, with a monthly search volume of 60,500.

Now a quick check in either Godaddy or Namecheap shows that this name is already taken, but it’s encouraging to see such a good search volume for these keywords.  

So as well keep scrolling down we can see that pretty well all terms related to “make video” have good monthly searches which shows that there is an interest in making videos.

Ok here’s a couple “make video” and “make a video” that I like. Short and to the point with good monthly search volume of 450,000, and growing I presume.

Now there’s a good bet that both these terms as are taken but there’s probably a name I can create from these words. For example, using the words “tutorial”,” help” or “tips”.

So after a bit of thought I like the names make video tips or make a video tips. And a quick check shows that both these terms are available.

For this tutorial then I’ll reserve the name “make a video tips” .com and order this domain name through Godaddy.

Here we are then at Godaddy. I start by typing in the domain name make a video tips .com and hit search, and we can see the name is available.

From here on in it’s just a matter of working through the purchase process. Godaddy does like to try and up sell you “whatever” at every occasion so if it’s just a domain name you want to purchase, ignore all the up sells and cross sells until you reach the final check out.

If you already have an account with Godaddy like I do, most of your details are already stored so you don’t need to fill in all details about yourself and your credit card.

Once you have purchased the domain name and you are logged into your account it’s time to set the name servers and point them at your hosting account.

I use Hostgator for all my hosting so I need to point the name servers to my Hostgator account.

To do this I go into “my account” and click on the “domain management” tab. Then scroll down to the domain name I wish to set the name servers for – “make a video tips.com”. 

Then I go up and click on the name servers tab, and then click on “set name servers”. Then I want to go down and click on the “I have specific name servers for my domains”.

Then put in my Hostgator name server information in both the name server 1 and name server 2 text fields.

Click ok and the name servers for my domain name makeavideotips.com are now set to my Hostgator account.

And that’s it for Godaddy.

Next I need to set up my hosting account for this domain within my Hostgator account.

So I’ve logged into my Hostgator account and here I am at the cpanel where I can manage all my hosting.

The account I have at Hostgator allows me unlimited domains or websites so I need to create a new hosting for the website I’m going to build with the name “make video tips .com”.

To do this I scroll down to “Domains” and click on the “add on domains” link and fill in the details for my new domain. Create a password of my choice, and click “add domain”, and my new hosting for the domain name makevideotips.com has been created.

Next I need to set up an FTP that will allow me to upload videos, files etc, basically everything I need to create a functioning website on the internet. There are various and many different FTP programs (many free) that you can use to do this.

For this example I’m going to use a program called WS FTP95 LE. Don’t be shocked by the age. It’s simple, free and very reliable and I’ve been using it forever in conjunction with the FTP facility in Dreamweaver.

Just do a search for it on the internet, or any other free ftp program and install it on your computer.

Once it’s installed on your computer click the icon on your desktop and open the program.

Then fill in the details of the website you’re creating. I’m just going to name it video tips.

Then fill in the host name address. As this is an add on domain, the address is makevideotips.babyfirstjapan.com. Babyfirstjapan.com is the primary address or main domain name for my Hostgator account so this is why the address is like this.

Next I come down to user ID and instead of  “makevideotips.babyfirstjapan.com”
I change the dot babyfirstjapan.com to @babyfirstjapan.com Put in the password I created when setting up the hosting for this domain, click on save password and my ftp is now created for my domain name and hosting for makevideotips.com

Click ok, and the FTP will now connect to my hosting at Hostgator.

And there it is. I can now start uploading files to my new website makevideotips.com.

On the left hand side of the screen is my computer and on the right side is my new hosting at host gator. To upload or download files from my computer I just click on the arrows between the two screens. Very simple as you can see.

So now let’s make a simple page and upload it to my hosting and the internet for the world to see.

Here I am in Dreamweaver and I’m going to make a simple page in html and upload it to the new website. I’ll just put a bit of text on the page, edit the font and save it in a folder that I’ve named Makeavideo on my computer.

Since this is the first file or page I’ll be uploading I’ll call it index .html.

Open up FTP95 to make sure the new address makeavideotips.com is properly saved, which it is. Then navigate to the folder Makeavideo. Click on the index.html file then click on the arrow that will send it up to the server.

And as we can see, index.html is now on the server and should be able to be seen on the internet.

We can check this by opening up a new browser and typing in the domain name makeavideotips.com and our page should be displayed.

And there it is. So we know that everything is working and connected properly.

Just fix up that typo resave and resend it to the server.

The last thing we can do is stick some relevant meta tags in the page. This will at least give search engine spiders a basic indication of what the page is or is about to become.

Here I’ve prepared some meta tags including page title, description and keywords.

Once I’m sure there aren’t any typos, I’ll cut and paste these meta tags into the code of the page.

In Dreamweaver I just hit the code button then paste the meta tags in the head of the page like so. Delete any duplicate content. Save and upload the new version. Refresh the page, and for now we’re pretty well done.

And we can see our page now at least has some meta tags including the all important title.    
This whole process, of buying a domain name and setting up an ftp to start uploading files should only take about ten to fifteen minutes.