In week 1 – "Setting Up Your WordPress Blog", we looked at the things to consider when setting up a WordPress blog. In this week’s post we would be looking at the first step which involves choosing and registering the a domain name for you blog. There are websites that offer free blogs for beginners such as Google’s blogger, WordPress, BlogSpot, Blogger etc. These blogs are automatically set up for you and you have no control over the source code and header tags. To optimize and monetize your blog you would need free access to these areas of your web blog. In this tutorial, we would assume that you intend to start you own blog.
To set up your blog you need to take the following steps:
Register your domain name
You domain name is the name you call your blog. For instance the domain name of this blog is peleodiase.com. You are at liberty to call your blog anything you like as long as no-one else has the same domain name. Your domain name must be unique.
You can find information on how to choose a suitable domain name here at "Choosing a Domain Name" To find out if the domain name you have chosen isn’t already registered, browse to Register.com, type in your preferred domain name and search. By searching, you would find if the domain name is already registered or not and other options are available to you.
Choose a suitable web host
A web host is the computer / server where your files would store and accessed by visitors browsing the web. Just as you rent an apartment or a home, you rent a web space provided by the web hosting company. Visit "Choosing A Reliable Web Host" for guide to choosing a web host. There are some web hosts that offer competitive packages that include free domain name registration which means you don’t have to pay an extra charge to register your domain. The rates are relatively cheaper if you register for a longer term e.g. 2 yrs. I have listed a few web hosts that are reliable and offer the resources required to power your blog.
Provider | Web Hosting | Domain Registration |
---|---|---|
Web Hosting UK | ||
1 & 1 Internet | ||
eUKHost | ||
123 Reg | ||
Blue Host | ||
Go Daddy | ||
Hostamania | ||
Hostpapa | ||
Host Monster | ||
Just Host | ||
One.com | ||
Host Europe |
Each of these web hosting providers offer similar services and features which would come in very handy. The table above also indicates which of the providers offer domain registration and / or web hosting. The domain registration and signup process takes minutes.Payment is made via credit card and confirmation is sent via email. You may receive a phone call to verify your details.
Access your control panel
Once your details have been confirmed, you domain would be online and your username and password would be sent to you. You would need these details to login to your hosting account control panel to set up your blog.