Domain Name

When starting a new blog, plan out what domain name you plan on using. The best domain name you could choose is your business name and also pair the business name with a prefix or suffix that describes what you do as a business.

Let’s say your business name is Awesome Cleaners, so if you are a neighborhood cleaners, a good domain name would be “awesomecleaners.com.” Let’s say your cleaning business is located in Phoenix, Arizona. In order to help get customers who live and do business near your physical location, you need a prefix or suffix such as: “phoenixawesomecleaners.com,” or “awesomecleanersphoenix.com.”

That is a very short lesson of how to choose the perfect domain name for your business.

Blog Hosting

The next thing is to line up webhosting services for your blog. You can choose some good quality hosting such as hostgator.com, hostmonster.com, fatcow.com, justhost.com, to name a few. Hosting your blog through these webhosting services average $4.00 per month.

Blog Software

The only blog software we use is WordPress. You can download this software for free at www.wordpress.org.

Installing Your New Blog

Once you get your domain name registered, go into your administration part of your domain account and “point the domain” to your webhost account. It usually takes about 5 minutes to accomplish this. You can contact your webhost support desk for assistance on how to do this.

When you purchase webhosting, make sure they have a feature called “fantastico.” With this function you can actually set up a wordpress blog software without even downloading anything from WordPress.org’s site. It is totally automatic. Again, in this case, you can contact your webhosting company and ask them for assistance to set the WordPress blog software up for you.

Once you get this software up and running and you have your blog up, you have some setting up to do. In our next blog post, we will go over the things you need in order to maximize the usefulness of your new blog.

The best way to start a blog is by buying your own domain name and then “rent” a separate hosting account in which to host your domain name. You can download blog software for free such as WordPress. To download the program from their site, go to wordpress.org and click on the red download button. You then have the program in your hard drive and can upload it to your web hosting account at a later date.

You then have the best advantage of blogging way into the future because now you have full control over the platform and all the content you put into it. Of course, you will have to go through some technical steps to install your blog software but you will appreciate it in the end.

In our next post, we will go over the procedures to set up a blog on a separate hosting accout.

But if you want full control over your blog destiny, you have to make sure you host it on a reliable and high quality webhost. My favorite by far is Hostgator.com. I have been using them for over 4 years now and can say that I have never had a problem with them. Maybe twice, I had a minor issues with them but they were mostly my fault. Their phone support was quick and response and solution was done within minutes. I purchased the “reseller” package which means that I have access to a master web host account where I can literally set up an unlimited amount of websites on it. Since I manage over 65 blogs, I need a webhost that will never let me down.

A good web host company, other than being super reliable, needs to have the storage space and bandwidth that will more than cover all the websites you will ever use on their servers. A great plus, is that they should have “cpanel” admistrative section that allows you to control many different functions of your web accounts, such as setting up email, looking at statistics, adding sub domains and one click set up of blogs.

I would suggest you “shop” around and compare  the best web hosts out there.

If you set up a blog on these platforms, you have a quick way of “testing” the waters whether you have the patience, acumen, and creativity to blog. Now I am not stating that you have to be professional publisher to start and keep up a blog.

Make note, though, that when you set up blogs on these free platforms, you run the risk of having no control of it because the blog host can delete your blog for any reason they see fit. Although I can’t state a specific instance of how your blog on these platsforms can get deleted, the most common one is if you violate the “terms of service” of the way you use the blog. Some free blog platforms do not allow you to sell products or services from the blog. Other platforms do not allow you to slander or libel other bloggers, people or organizations.

I can’t stress enough the value of being able to “test drive” the blogging process if you do set up blogs there. I would suggest that you blog, for a while on the free platform when starting out, just to get experience if you want to learn on your own. Then, when you get fairly comfortable, you can set up a “paid for” blog and take it seriously into the future.

What is a “paid for” blog system? Simply, it is a way where you buy your own domain name, “rent” webhosting, and download the blog software to the webhost. Domain names nornally cost about $10 and monthly webhosting costs as low as $5 per month. But the benefits are huge. You can sell products or services, and you can just about do anything you want on your own blogging platform that is legal and moral.

Since you control both the domain name and webhosting, there is little chance of being “shut down” from outside sources.

We often hear of too many “horror” stories about a website “going down” for and unspecified time. What can that mean to you your potential profits? You certainly cannot afford to be down even for one minute!

Let’s look at what makes a great webhost company.

First, make sure the web host company has a great record of customer support. They should be available round the clock 7 days a week. They should either have live chat or telephone access.  And when they do respond to your support request, they must resolve your problem within 20 minutes. I use that as my rule of thumb as a reasonable time frame to make my “problem” go away.

Second, the speed and reliability is another important factor. Make sure you know the “uptime” of their servers. If they can prove they have 99.5% or better uptime, you are good to go. You also need to check on the bandwidth per month you are allowed. Depending on how much you do uploads or downloads, this can be a factor.

Third, make sure you know that the web host company has “redundent” servers. In other words, they must have several levels of back up computers that pick up from each other in case one computer goes “down.” Typically, there are at least one back up computer server for every server they have. If anything ever happens to one server, the back up goes “live” immediately and you never notice the drop.

Most likely you are going to have “shared” hosting unless you want to pay extra for your own server space. By shared, we mean that, your account with the agreed space and speed are going to be paired up with many other users on the same server. It is normally not a bad thing….the company just wants to maximize every inch of space and “pack” all their customers in neat packages next to each other on the hard drives of the servers. The only drawback in this situation is that, if you have one “bad apple” of a shared customer who spams or over uses their bandwidth or space inappropriately, they can affect performance on your website.

Lastly, make sure you are paying a reasonable monthly price for your service. Stay away from “free” services. They are usually unreliable and do not have the speed capability to handle your site. Support for free web hosts are usually nil. Average monthly pricing usually goes from $18 per month to as high as $50 per month.

When you plan on making your blog give you the return on investment, don’t skimp on the webhost. Make sure they are reputable and check out their performance record and find out if they had any lawsuits against them or bad reports with the online BBB.