Creating A Blog - Registering Your Domain Name & Web Hosting

Right now, you've got your domain name and blog concept all exercised, time to pay the piper! I'm here to enable you to get the right deal, at the right price, with the best company.

First things first, in order to run the blog, you will need both a domain name plus some web hosting space. Often, you'll get a free website name along with any purchase of web hosting. If you will go for the free hosting option, you'll need to purchase a domain name yourself. I'm going to take this post from the assumption that you're buying both of these separately.

Now, you could order your website name first, but without anywhere to point it... it's likely to be mighty useless. So let's knock out web web hosting first! In any web hosting account, both paid as well as free, make sure that the plan offers the subsequent features:

* MySQL Databases (at least one)
* FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL Access (for uploading files)
* All Major Scripting Providers (PHP 4 and/or 5, CGI, Perl, etc. )

Free Website hosting

If someone is going to give you free web hosting, you need to be skeptical. These can be utter rip-offs and a waste of your energy. However, many are actually great deals. You need to ensure there won't be any ads run on your website to pay the provider. Also, be sure that there is absolutely no size cap on uploaded files (what a pain! ) and that you're allowed to edit your ". htaccess" configuration file. Let's take a look at some of my favorite providers:

* Zymic (5, 000MB Room, 50, 000MB Transfer) = TNF Favorite!
* FreeHostia (250MB Room, 5GB Transfer)
* AwardSpace (200MB Space, 5GB Transfer)

You ought to be safe to go with either of those hosts, and I understand some people that paid for hosting will be shaking within their boots when they see what they offer. Still, it is essential to make the move to paid hosting once business accumulates... so plan for that move later on after you receive your feet wet.

Paid Web Hosting

Looking for the professional setup in the get-go? It's a pain to switch hosts, so I would definitely recommend starting early with paid hosting from one of these simple great providers. Any of these hosts will get you the thing you need at a budget price, and you can rest easy that the website isn't going to see any downtime. Here tend to be my favorites:

* HostGator ("Hatchling" Plan) = TNF Preferred!
* Top Hosting Center ("Speedy" Plan)
* Go Dad (Economy Plan)
* BlueHost (Professional Hosting)
* Host Beast (Professional Hosting)
* 1&1 Internet (Beginner Hosting)

All of those hosting companies are top-notch, and will get you the hosting you're looking for, and the price that fits your budget. I recommend obtaining the smallest packages available... you shouldn't be paying more than $10 a month for hosting unless you've got a whole network of website you are running. You require about 200MB space per blog, and you should bank on having 5MB bandwidth (traffic) for each 1MB space for maximum efficiency... that's my general guideline.

Registering Your Domain Name

Web hosting is out from the way, and assuming you didn't register through your web hosting client, you still need to grab a domain title. You should always get a private registration for protection purposes... trust me, it's worth it. This may price extra, maybe $5 on top, and I'd recommend it most of all.

It really doesn't matter where you register your website name, I would just go for a more reputable registrar that offers you the best value for your money. Here are my favorites:

* 1&1 Internet ($6. 99 + free of charge private registration) = TNF Favorite!
* Go Daddy ($9. 99)
* Title Cheap ($9. 29 + free private registration)
* APlus. internet ($7. 40)

Now, and this is very important, the domain name registrar (if they are smart) are likely to try and get you to order all of these extra features that you absolutely don't need. Most of the stuff is either useless "bonus" software you don't need, or things like SSL Security Certificates that you can just purchase later if you needed.

Putting It Altogether

You've got your domain name. You've got your website hosting. But how do you get the domain pointed for your hosting? Well first of all, if you registered your website name and web hosting with the same company, there should be a method to link your purchases together with relative ease through their own control panel. Otherwise, we have to get smart. I am a bargain hunting fool, so I register hosting and domain names separately typically. To link them together, log into your domain managing page (through the web site you registered with), and navigate to your DNS Administration page. We are looking to modify the "nameserver" configurations, changing them to your hosting account.

So what the heck is really a nameserver? Well it's essential a unique mapping device that's registered to your web host, and your hosting accounts. You can find out what your hosting's nameserver is actually through their support website, or FAQ section. The format is usually "ns1. website. com" and "ns2. website. com". You usually will have to input two nameservers (primary + secondary) so make sure you've both addresses! By default, your domain name will end up being "parked. " What this means is that they are setting your nameserver's to indicate their default page. We need to get this changed which means that your domain name is forwarded to your web hosting accounts. This may take a few hours to one day for the effects to occur, so be patient!

We've got our website all set up, just like we need it. Everything is ready, all we have to do now is build & launch our website towards the public! Stay tuned to Part Four of the "Creating A Blog" series after i will explore different blogging platforms and installing them in your server.