How I got my own Domain Name

So a few days ago I announced that no longer was I a blogspot.co.uk but instead I had become just a .co.uk for my blog, going from beautyqueenuk.blogspot.co.uk to www.beautyqueenuk.co.uk and I did so in less than 2 hours. This is something I had debated doing for some time, though my biggest fear was losing everything I had worked so hard to do.  Before I continue, I just need to point out that I am not quite self-hosting a website, I have simply got my own domain name and am still using blogger as I always have done to write, draft, schedule and publish my posts.  I figured that once I got used to my own domain name and am using it properly, I would then, with more time see how easy self-hosting would be.

Anyway....

How did I do it? read on to find out.  Firstly I had a look around online at sites where you can buy domain names from and settled on using GoDaddy which seemed to be a favourite site with fellow bloggers.

Then it is time to see whether or not your Domain name is available so in the middle section where it says 'Search for a new domain' you type in the name of you blog and decide whether you want .com, .co.uk, .net and so on...Then if your favoured domain name isn't available it will show you what is and how much it is.

As .com for me was taken, I settled on beautyqueenuk.co.uk and added it to my basket. Then you need to create an account if you do not already have one, takes a few minutes. Once you have bought your name for the number of years you can afford - mine was £5.98 for 2 years, you will get an email confirmation and then you are ready to go and transfer from Blogger to your own Domain  Name and this is the guide I used - HERE and it is really straightforward to follow.

You will need to be logged into both Blogger and your GoDaddy account to complete all the steps:

To Edit Your CNAME Record

1. Log in to your Account Manager. - this means your GoDaddy Account
2. Next to Domains, click Launch.
3. From the DNS menu, select DNS Manager. The DNS Dashboard displays. - the second tab
4. For the domain name you want to use with your Blogger account, click Edit Zone. The Zone File Editor displays.
5. In the CNAME (Alias) section, click the www record. - 3rd option down (see below)
6. In the Points To field, type ghs.google.com.(see below)
7. Click Save Zone File, and then click OK.

Then you need to leave your blog for about an hour for these changes to take affect and then log into your blogger account to complete or check every 5 minutes like I did.

To Configure Your Blogger Account

1. Log in to your Blogger account.
2. From the Settings tab, select Basic.
3. From Publishing, click Add custom domain.
4. Click Switch to Advanced Settings, and then enter your domain name. For example, enter www.coolexample.com.
5. To specify another location in which to look for files, in the Use a missing files host? section, select Yes and enter the path. If not, select No.
6. Click Save.

Then click save and it should now look like this:

As you can see every blogspot.com/co.uk depending on what your blog was will now be redirected to your new Domain, as mine shows above.  Again, it might take up to an hour before you can enter your new domain name and again I was checking it every 5 minutes.

At this point you should be able to simply refresh the page and all of your changes will have taken place - it is as simple as that! Then you log in and use Blogger as you always have done, nothing changes that, as I mentioned above, you have simply got a new domain name, not a website - that comes next.

That is how I became www.beautyqueenuk.co.uk and hopefully I have explained it well enough and simple enough so that should you make the change, it goes smoothly for you. I am by no means an expert but if you do have a question, please do ask for tweet me @Beautyqueen_uk and I will try and help you.