Creating a Custom Domain for Your Blogger Blog
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
There are a lot of factors involved that will help us monetize our blogs. If you registered with the free Blogger service (check this out if you don't know how), creating a custom domain name is a snap. And doing so will help you in the long run with: branding and ease of use. We don't want our readers to type in: http:///mycoolblog.blogspot.com - we'd rather a cleaner url like: http://www.mycoolblog.com. This article will show you how.
First off - you're going to need a domain name. Here at Earn Money to Blog, I like to preach about our free tools. But I have some bad news for you - this is going to cost you - and big… $9.99/yr (can you sense my sarcasm?) Definitely not a requirement for earning money with our blogs but a small investment that's well worth it.
Head on over to Go Daddy and sign up for an account.
For this article, let's just assume you created the domain name: superapplepies.com. You just can't wait to take the shinny wrapping paper off your new domain name and apply it to your Blogger blog! Let's go log into our Blogger accounts and at the dashboard, click on Settings. You'll see the familiar tabs and menu options - We're interested in the Publishing link.
Your picture may differ than mine, but here is what my Publishing page looks like:
If it looks a bit different, try poking around for an “Advanced” link. That should do the trick.
Notice to the right there is a “Need a domain?” option from Blogger. Google has actually “tried” to make life easier for you by allowing you to purchase one right here (they actually partnered with the Go Daddy service that this very article talks about!). This may not be a bad idea (if you didn't already sign up at Go Daddy yourself), however, I had mixed results with this in the past. And besides, signing up at Go Daddy ourselves will give us more flexibility.
Before you go typing your new domain name in there… WAIT! We need to make some quick configurations over at our Go Daddy account to point the name to the Blogger service first.
Log into your Go Daddy account if you aren't already, and click on the My Domain Names option.
You should see your new domain listed there. In this example you would see superapplepies listed. Simply click on the link to drill down into your domain options (note: If you don't see your domain name right away, don't panic. Sometimes this process can take a few minutes).
You're now at the Domain Control Center. It all seems pretty overwhelming for some of us, but I'm going to point out the option you need to select called - Total DNS:
Again, if you don't see that option there - relax… go talk to your loved ones for a little while, they miss you.
Back Already?
Now you're sitting at the Total DNS Control Panel. Here we're going to make one simple change - we need to edit the “www” in the “Host” column, in the “CNAMES” table.
Change your “Points To” value to match the picture above: ghs.google.com, by hitting the edit button.
Save your changes and switch back over to your Blogger account. We left off on the Publishing screen and now we're going to wrap up the process. Under the Advanced Settings, in the Your Domain section, enter your new domain name.
Save your settings and you're done! Now the only downside (what? I have to give it to you straight) is that your domain name changes won't happen automatically. In some cases it can take up to 48 hours, but my experience has been less than a couple (yours may vary).
Congratulations - you now own a piece of the pie (pun intended) with your custom domain name. Well, we did have our space before but now it's more personal. And earning money with our blogs is all about our personal touch on the World Wide Web.
First off - you're going to need a domain name. Here at Earn Money to Blog, I like to preach about our free tools. But I have some bad news for you - this is going to cost you - and big… $9.99/yr (can you sense my sarcasm?) Definitely not a requirement for earning money with our blogs but a small investment that's well worth it.
Head on over to Go Daddy and sign up for an account.
For this article, let's just assume you created the domain name: superapplepies.com. You just can't wait to take the shinny wrapping paper off your new domain name and apply it to your Blogger blog! Let's go log into our Blogger accounts and at the dashboard, click on Settings. You'll see the familiar tabs and menu options - We're interested in the Publishing link.
Your picture may differ than mine, but here is what my Publishing page looks like:
If it looks a bit different, try poking around for an “Advanced” link. That should do the trick.
Notice to the right there is a “Need a domain?” option from Blogger. Google has actually “tried” to make life easier for you by allowing you to purchase one right here (they actually partnered with the Go Daddy service that this very article talks about!). This may not be a bad idea (if you didn't already sign up at Go Daddy yourself), however, I had mixed results with this in the past. And besides, signing up at Go Daddy ourselves will give us more flexibility.
Before you go typing your new domain name in there… WAIT! We need to make some quick configurations over at our Go Daddy account to point the name to the Blogger service first.
Log into your Go Daddy account if you aren't already, and click on the My Domain Names option.
You should see your new domain listed there. In this example you would see superapplepies listed. Simply click on the link to drill down into your domain options (note: If you don't see your domain name right away, don't panic. Sometimes this process can take a few minutes).
You're now at the Domain Control Center. It all seems pretty overwhelming for some of us, but I'm going to point out the option you need to select called - Total DNS:
Again, if you don't see that option there - relax… go talk to your loved ones for a little while, they miss you.
Back Already?
Now you're sitting at the Total DNS Control Panel. Here we're going to make one simple change - we need to edit the “www” in the “Host” column, in the “CNAMES” table.
Change your “Points To” value to match the picture above: ghs.google.com, by hitting the edit button.
Save your changes and switch back over to your Blogger account. We left off on the Publishing screen and now we're going to wrap up the process. Under the Advanced Settings, in the Your Domain section, enter your new domain name.
Save your settings and you're done! Now the only downside (what? I have to give it to you straight) is that your domain name changes won't happen automatically. In some cases it can take up to 48 hours, but my experience has been less than a couple (yours may vary).
Congratulations - you now own a piece of the pie (pun intended) with your custom domain name. Well, we did have our space before but now it's more personal. And earning money with our blogs is all about our personal touch on the World Wide Web.