3 Steps to Blogging on a Custom Domain

TweetI recently moved this blog off of Blogger. I don’t have anything against Blogger, in fact I have another blog which I maintain on that service. For this one, though, I wanted to try some different things and host it on its own domain. Since moving it, I’ve had some people ask me how I did it. Here are the three basic steps you need do to move your blog off a free service to a hosted domain:

1. Register A Domain Name
The hardest part about this step is choosing the name. Once you do, registering it is pretty easy – if the domain is available. I did my domain registration through GoDaddy. There are other sites where you can register domains, some of which I’m sure are quite good. I’ve been using GoDaddy for other domains I administer and I already had a hosting account with them so it made sense to stick with them.

The total cost to register crossingmarketingandit.com, .net and .org was $65.54. This cost was without any promo codes or coupons. It included the registration, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers – the agency which oversees domain registrations) fees and the private registration service. It’s a good idea to register at least the three top domains (.com, .net and .org)  just in case your site becomes  a huge hit. Controlling the top domains keeps others from registering them and piggy-backing off your success. Because domain registration records are public, I find paying the extra for the private registration is a worth-while expense as it keeps my phone numbers and email addresses off the public web. This helps cut down on phone and email spam.

One caution I will mention about GoDaddy is that they try to up- sell you at each step of the registration and purchase process. I don’t fault them for that, after all they are in the business of making money. As you go through the checkout process, scroll down until you see the small “No Thanks” or “Proceed to checkout” links.

For more information about domain registration services I recommend this article on consumersearch: http://www.consumersearch.com/domain-registration/compare. There is quite a bit of information there.

2. Find A Host
When picking a host it’s a good idea to browse through their site and see what features they offer. When I was looking to host another web site a couple of years ago I checked out a few services and ended up going with GoDaddy. At the time I was looking for a host to support .NET technology and they were the best I could find as far as price and features went.

You need to have at least a bit of technical knowledge to set up your site and hosting. That being said, GoDaddy has extensive help and assistance available to get you started (and I’ve read similar things about some other hosts). If you’re looking to set up hosting for your blog and you’re already running it on a free service, you shouldn’t have too much trouble setting up a hosting account.

Since many domain hosts also register domains (and vice-versa), it’s not a bad idea to register your domains with the service you choose as your host. That keeps things simple, which may make up for any price difference you might find between registration services. Some services offer discounts for combined registration and hosting packages which might be worth checking out.

For more information on web site hosting services, please check out WebHostingGeeks.

3. Choose A Software Package
Choosing a good blog/content management package is important to help you work your blog. If you have some programming skills you could write one yourself. If not, you could try your hand at creating static web pages. Either of those, though, would be too time-consuming and you probably want to spend more time blogging than developing.

I’d already checked out a few content management packages, Joomla and Drupal specifically, for other web sites I help run. Although those packages were quite good, they didn’t work to my liking. I chose WordPress for this blog and I’m quite happy I did.

WordPress is easy to set up and use – especially on GoDaddy’s hosting. The web-based user interface is easy to get around. It is powerful and very customizable. Themes are readily available to use for your blog’s design as well as many plug-ins and widgets you can use to customize the theme you choose. If you’re more technically inclined, you can even get in and tweak things under the hood if you like. All in all I’m quite happy with WordPress and I recommend it highly.

There is an abundance of information about different blog and content management packages at CMS Matrix. Your actual choices may be limited only to what your chosen host supports.

Setting up domain and hosting for a blog is within the skills of an experienced “free service” blogger. There is a lot of assistance available, so success is almost guaranteed. I think these steps will help you get going in the right direction.

Note about GoDaddy: I mention them frequently because I am a customer. I am not a reseller or affiliate nor was I paid to endorse them.

photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Tags: blog, social media