How to start your own blog (choosing a host) |

I am glad you are reading the second post of the how to start your own blog series. Since you are serious about starting your blog, let us get on with it because I am sure you are as excited as I am when I right on this topic. But before we do so, if you have not read the first part of this series I suggest you do so by clicking here. Now shall we begin?

Free blog hosting sites

After deciding if blogging is for you and choosing a name for your blog, the next step is deciding whether using a free service or pay for a hosted service that does not include the name of your free hosting service. There are several sites you can use to start a free blog. I have compiled a list for you of the more popular ones. When you are finished reading this article, you can come back here and click on the name and it will take you to the home page.

Wordpress.com You can create a free blog at Wordpress.com, but there is also Wordpress.org were you can download themes, plugins (separate widgets that allow you to add more functionality to your blog) and a whole lot more. Wordpress is the largest free blogging service out there. There is a large community base so if you have problems, there is already a solution for it or the community will gladly assist you. My blog is not hosted by but it is powered by Wordpress. With Wordpress, you can download and install it on your host (I will talk about hosting companies a little later in this article) or you can use it on their website and not worry about the technical stuff.
Blogger.com
is also a great starting site for new bloggers.
Livejournal.comis almost as popular as Wordpress and offers different account types, free and paid. However, their free account comes with ads; it is reasonable because these ads perhaps pay for them to be able to offer you a free blog.
Blog.comoffers unlimited bandwidth (the amount of traffic you get on their server) for their free blogging platform.
Blogr.comhost pictures, videos and podcasts etc.

This a good list for you to start with but if you like a list with more services to choose from and a brief introduction of them as I have done above, there is a great post that was published by Mashable.com that compiled a list of 40 or more free blog hosting sites. Click on the name link and it will take you directly to the post.

Top 4 hosting services

Choosing the correct (paid) hosting service is critical. Make sure you look at their list of features to make sure they meet what your needs are. For instance, before I chose Startlogic, I took a look at their list of features to make sure they supported all of the features I was looking for. You want to make sure your host supports and is improving their list of features. See what you get with:
StartLogic! You will see for yourself why I choose them. Not only are their features up to date and an easy to use vdeck to manage your account, their customer service and support is excellent. As if that was not enough to convince me, their packages are very cheap as well. With that said, here is my top 4 list of hosting companies. I have had experience with only two of these (Startlogic and Fastdomain) so do your research on the other two eventhough I have read good reviews about them and have spoking with customers on online forums and contacted them when I was looking for a host in case I missed something. With that said, here is my list.

Startlogic Awesome service and up-time.
Fastdomain
HostMonster
Bluehost

Here is a link to the current promotion Startlogic is running.

These hosting companies among others if not all allow you to install Wordpress either as your main domain or as a blog on your website. They are paid services so you do not have to include the Wordpress name on your name of choice when choosing a domain. For example, if you wanted to create a free blog at http://www.wordpress.com, you would have to have your www name like this: myblog.wordpress.com but with a paid service, the host provides the domain name (your www name, so it would just be www.myblog.com with a paid hosting service) and since Wordpress is free, it is included with most paid hosting packages and you can install it in your public directory to use it as your index page. This is how my site is running.

These are cheap web hosting companies that provide more than exceptional service for their pricing.
If you have a host that you think should be included on here, don’t be shy, leave a comment. On the other hand, if from your experience you think one does not deserve the ranking, meet me on the comments floor.

If you have not picked a name for your blog yet

Your domain is your website phone number (except you get to pick it) so choose it wisely. It is wise to choose a name that is short because it is likely to be remembered and easy to type. Make it stand out. Think of the name Google, it is catchy and easy to remember is it not? It sounds a bit silly but once you hear it, it is hard to forget it. You want a name like that. I am not advocating you name your blog moofol or moogle, but you might be on to something if your name is short and catchy because you want people to not forget it. That is the making of a good domain name.

On the other end of something good is something bad. So what makes a bad domain name? You guessed it, it is long, hard to remember, and since it is long, it takes forever to type. By the time you finished typing it, you lose interest and start aimlessly looking for something on Google. A bad domain name does not get many visitors and thus dies a lonely and slow death from lack of exposure. Don’t become one of these.

To dot com or not to dot com

In the world of the web, .com names are more common than the rest, period. Dot com names are then followed by .org as in Wordpress.org. The .org ending is associated with organizations but anyone can purchase a .org name. Then we have .net, .info, .biz, .tv and country names such as .ca for Canada, .fr for France etc. etc. However, try not to use the less popular names because when you tell people about your site, they usually assume it has a .com ending. If the name you choose does not have the .com ending, you can choose the .net ending or tweak the name until you get the .com ending. Stay away from .info because it is associated with a lot of spammer sites.