Picking a domain name

You can use any available, or not currently owned, word or phrase as your domain name. You can make your domain name a company name, a nickname, or your favorite food group. For years, professional web designers and developers have been saying that all the good domains are gone, which is far from the truth. After all, new websites and blogs are launched all the time, and many of them have great, memorable domains!

Even if a domain name is available, that doesn't necessarily mean that it is safe to choose that name for your blog and purchase that domain. You should also check to see whether that blog name has already been registered as a trademark so that you can avoid accidentally infringing on someone else's mark. You can search registered trademarks for free at www.uspto.gov.

For an example of a great domain name, check out the blog Wine Carolinas (www.winecarolinas.com), a name that perfectly describes the online home of a husband and wife team hoping to help others experience the great wines of North and South Carolina (see Figure 3-1).

Think up a phrase or sentence that says something about you and your blog as a starting place. Write your topic keywords on sticky notes and then move them around. That trick may lead to something great.

What exactly does a domain do for you? It has several purposes:

• Your readers can easily remember where to find your site.
• Having a domain of your own looks professional; it's a nice marketing benefit at a small cost.
• You can change web hosts or hosted blog solutions with impunity because your address is actually a separate service. If — or when — you move your blog, your web host can help you use the same domain to get to your new server on the web. Think of this much like taking your cellphone number with you even if you change service providers!

Your domain should represent your blog's name and purpose, although at the end of the day, there are no hard and fast rules. Here are a few quick guidelines that you might want to follow. Try to choose a domain that

• Matches your blog name
• Is based on your topic keywords
• Is a play on words or slang based around your topic
• Is humorous or otherwise memorable

If you're having trouble coming up with a name idea, consider using your name. In fact, even if you ultimately want to use another domain for your blog address, owning the domain for your own name is a good idea. You can use several domain names to reach the same website or blog, too, so using your own name as a domain might help people find you in search engines.

Many online tools can help you choose a domain name if you're having trouble. Domain-name-choosing websites help by suggesting word combinations and coming up with randomly generated choices. One good site to use for this purpose is Bust a Name (www.bustaname.com), which is shown in Figure 3-2.

Even if you end up using a hosted blog solution and therefore don't need to get web hosting, you can buy a domain and forward the address to your blog. This is handy to do because it makes your blog's address easier for readers to remember. After you register your domain, check the Help text of the registrar to find out how to forward the domain to your blog's web address (URL). Instructions vary by registrar.

Registering a domain

Registering a domain is a straightforward process. First, use a domain registrar to buy your name. After you own the name, you just need to point your new domain at your web host. This process basically involves telling your domain registrar which web server your website is on; your web-hosting company or domain registrar gives you the information and tools to make it all work.

You can use many domain registration services. The choice really comes down to the domain management interface — the tools that you get to manage your domain. Some management screens are incredibly difficult to work with. Finding a host that has a clean and easy-to-use interface makes a world of difference when you're updating or making changes to your web domain. Be sure to shop around, as well. The annual fee for domain registration varies widely, and for the most part, the price differences don't equal a difference in what you get.

Domain registration services often offer coupon codes. Be sure to use your favorite search engine to locate applicable codes before purchasing your desired domain names.

You can choose to register for your domain for a single year or for multiple years at a time. Typically, registering for multiple years earns you a small discount. If you choose to register for only a year, you need to renew the domain in a year (assuming that you want to keep your website going). Registration services also allow you to choose an auto-renew option. Many domain registration companies also offer web-hosting and email packages.

Make sure that you keep your domain registration up to date. If you have any changes to your domain or contact information, including your email address, update your domain information immediately. If your information isn't current, you can lose access to your domain or miss email reminders to renew your domain. Print a copy of the login information and store it safely.

Visit any of the domain registrars in the following sections to check whether your domain is available, and then register it.

For an additional fee, usually about ten dollars a year, you can choose to keep your contact information private. This may not seem like a worthwhile cost, but if you register a domain and do not elect to hide your information, prepare to receive spammy outreach for everything from email hosting to web design services.

Doing your research

Your primary concern when selecting a web host for your self-hosted blog is to find a web host that meets all the requirements of your blog software. Most blog software uses a LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) web server, a mix of several kinds of web server technology that is ideal for running dynamic websites such as blogs:

• Linux: A very common web server operating system. It's very stable and considered a standard for web servers. As a blogger, you probably don't need to make too many changes to the operating system, as long as it's in place for you.
• Apache: Apache is web-page-serving software, which means it looks at what web page is requested and then feeds the browser the appropriate file. It does most of the hard work of serving web pages to visitors coming to your website.
• MySQL: MySQL is the most popular database software for blogs. For any blogging package, you need some kind of database system to store all your blog posts and run the other functionality of the blog software. MySQL is the standard database tool for most blog software.
• PHP: PHP is the programming language that a lot of blogging and content management systems use. It sits between the blogging software and the database, making sure all the parts work together.

The preceding four technologies are considered the bare minimum that most blogging packages need to function. But you should consider these requirements, as well:

• Disk space: For blogging, disk space is important if you decide to store a lot of images on your blog or upload audio and video files. Uploading images is relatively easy to do, but you need the space to store those images. For the average blog that has a few photos, you most likely want about 500 megabytes (MB). Blogs that have a lot of photos require several gigabytes (GB) of disk space. Video blogs need a whole lot more disk space (unless you use an online video-sharing service) than text or photo blogs, so you want more than 10GB. Those files do take up a lot of space!

  Running out of disk space is an easily solved problem: Most web hosts allow you to add disk space when you need it for an additional cost. Check with your web host to find out what it charges for additional storage.

• Email management: You probably want an email address with your new domain. If you want to use your blog for business purposes, having an email address that matches your domain looks more professional. Some web hosts allow you to create multiple email addresses under one domain, which is ideal if you would like to segregate contact inquiries from personal emails, for example.
• Backups: Consider how you plan to back up your data (including your database content) and whether the web host will also back up the files on your web-hosting account. Knowing this information can save you from disaster and data loss in the future. Daily backups aren't a bad idea!
• Bandwidth and CPU resources: Computers and networks can take only so many visitors and downloads, and hosts usually set a quota on how much bandwidth you can use for the particular web-hosting package that you buy. Ask about what happens if you exceed your monthly allowance of bandwidth. (Usually, you have to pay for the extra resources.) For most bloggers, this won't be an issue, but if you develop a very popular blog with lots of visitors, or are serving very large files like videos, bandwidth can become an additional cost.

Subscribing to web hosting

After you purchase your domain, you should be able to pick a web host just as easily. But the reality is that web host offerings are all over the map, so you need to do your research, ask for recommendations from friends and colleagues who have websites, and compare the details of what different hosts offer. Remember to also look into the web hosting provided by your domain registration site. This may save you money and will also streamline the management of your blog.

When comparing web hosts, always confirm the numbers provided in sales materials. Here are the top questions to ask a prospective web host about its web-hosting packages:

• What's your reliability and uptime guarantee? Most web hosts will tell you the amount of time in a given month that they guarantee your website to be available given normal traffic loads. None of them, however, can absolutely guarantee 100 percent uptime.
• What's your data transfer limit, and how much do you charge for additional bandwidth? Bandwidth/data transfer is used as visitors visit your website and download pages from your site to view them. If you have a lot of files being transferred, or a single file that thousands of visitors download, you may hit your limit and need to buy more.
• How much disk space does the package include, and what do you charge for additional space?
• What kind of technical support do you offer? What are your telephone hours? How do you handle email support?

When you find a web host that interests you, check out the packages offered. Many web hosts provide a handy comparison chart that you can use to quickly compare pricing and features, as Siteground.com (www.siteground.com) does in Figure 3-3.

The following sections help you get started with your web-hosting search by discussing three top web-hosting services.

Budgeting for software

Many of the hosted services available to bloggers offer a basic blogging package at no cost. A great number of the non-hosted blogging software packages are also free, but the web server that you need to install them on most definitely isn't. How much money you can commit to your new blog can help you figure out what platform you should acquire.

Consider how much financial commitment you want to dedicate to your new blogging life. Costs can be associated with

• Blogging software: Some packages are free; others aren't. In some cases, the blogging software might be free for personal use but can cost money if you use it for commercial purposes.
• Upgrades: When you choose a software package that has a price tag, be sure to note the costs for upgrading that software down the line. Blog software is in flux, and you'll need updates!
• A domain name: Regardless of whether you choose a hosted or non-hosted solution, you can buy a domain name (also called a web address) and point it at your blog.
• Web hosting: If you choose a blogging software package that needs to be installed on a web server, you need to find web hosting.
• Support costs: If you have questions about your blog software or web hosting, getting answers might cost you. Find out what the support policies are for both software and hosting before you buy.
• Web designers: If you choose to hire a web designer or developer to produce a design, install the software, and get your blog started, you have to pay those folks.
• Special bells and whistles: You might find that you can purchase and use extra add-ons with your blog, from cool functionality to exciting designs.

It is possible to start a blog completely for free by opting for a hosted blog with a free basic package and choosing not to buy a custom URL.

Making sure you get the basics

Most blogging packages include a variety of options. Some options are designed to trick out your ride, making your blog into a thing of beauty and delight. Some options are really less optional by definition and more a necessity. Good blogging software must have the following five features:

• A usable publishing interface or control panel: Check out how the control panel looks before you commit yourself. A good user interface is important, and if you can't make sense of what you see, chances are good that you won't enjoy using the software.
• Comments: A blog isn't a blog unless your readers can leave comments on your posts. You don't have to use the comments, but blogging software without comments takes away a vital element of blogging — allowing your readers to cultivate discussions.
• Spam deterrents: Spam comments are a part of every blog, but that doesn't mean you have to live with them. Like email spam, comment spam tends to be an automated process that posts on your blog useless information and includes links to all kinds of other sites. Look for blogging software that has functionalities in place to help you moderate and block spam or is, at the very least, compatible with anti-spam tools you can install later.
• Media tools: The Internet has evolved from a focus on the written word to a focus on visual media. Although it is still possible to catch the attention of readers through quality writing, nearly all blog posts do — or at least should — feature a photograph or two. Be certain to choose software that makes uploading media to posts an easy task. Many software options even allow you to edit images within your posts.
• Search engine optimized: With millions of blogs filling cyberspace, it is critical that the posts you write can be easily optimized for indexing within search engines. Although you may certainly add plug-ins down the road, it’s ideal to select blogging software that helps search engines such as Google and Bing see your blog.

I highly recommend two other features, although not all bloggers use them:

• Categories: Blogs often jump from topic to topic. Categorizing your posts gives your readers a quick and easy way to sort through your content, focusing on what most interests them. The Finer Things in Life (www.amysfinerthings.com) uses categories, called topics here, to sort blog posts. Figure 3-4 shows the categories in the horizontal navigation bar above the blog posts.

  Categories are high-level organizational tools. For example, a food blog might have posts sorted into categories like Vegetarian, Dessert, Main Dish, and so on.

• Tags: A tag is a term associated with a blog post. For example, when I write a blog post about a trip to Disneyland Park in California, I tag that entry “Disneyland.” Tagging has proven to be one of the best ways to sort through blog data quickly.

  Tags are like keywords that you might use when doing a search on a search engine website, and they tend to be more specific than categories. A blog post on a food blog might use categories as I describe in the preceding bullet, and then tag individual posts with more specific terms, such as chocolate, hazelnut, and brownie. To differentiate between categories and tags, think of categories as describing a group of blog posts, and tags as describing individual posts.

According to the Pew Research Center (www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile), 77 percent of Americans own smartphones, making it possible for them to access the Internet via their phone at least as easily as from a desktop device such as a laptop computer. Do you want people to read your blog? Be sure that your blogging design is mobile responsive, meaning that your blog’s appearance and interaction experience changes when viewed on a phone, making it easier for smartphone and other mobile device users to read and respond to your writing.

Upgrading with bells and whistles

You can implement a number of cool toys on your blog:

• Backup: The last thing you want to do is create a blog that you love, populate that blog with weeks, months, years of content, then lose the whole shebang because of a technical disaster outside your control. Backup tools automatically back up your site — including everything from the words in your posts to the graphics in your sidebars — on a schedule that you can choose. These backups can be sent to a cloud storage system, your email, or even your computer’s hard drive. Backing up your blog is a great way to buy peace of mind for little or no cost!
• Spam blacklist: Most blogging packages have some kind of blacklist protection against spam comments. These blacklists are often centralized lists of email addresses, URLs, and IP addresses that spammers use, which the blog software prevents from commenting in any blog post on your blog. With an up-to-date blacklist, you can stop a lot of spam before it becomes a comment.
• Contact forms: Chances are that at some point, you will want to allow readers to contact you. Although some bloggers post an email address on their blog contact page, many prefer to keep their email address private and instead use a contact form. Most contact forms require that the users prove they are not a spamming system before allowing them to send a message to your inbox.
• CAPTCHAs: CAPTCHAs are images that display letters and/or numbers that a person can read but a machine can't. When someone wants to leave a comment on a post, he or she must correctly type these letter/number combinations into a text box, which proves to the blog software that the commenter is indeed a human and not a computer spam system. This process blocks out the comment spam and lets through the valuable feedback. Variations on CAPTCHAs include simple math problems that a user needs to solve in order to post a comment.

You can tie together more and more web services these days, from your pins on Pinterest, to your Twitter updates, to your … well, you have a lot of possibilities. Some blog software allows you to automate those kinds of connections, so if that interests you, keep an eye out for software with these features. I walk you through some possibilities in Chapter 17.

Reaping the benefits

An upfront cost of zero is very attractive to new bloggers. If you want access to blog technology and have a limited budget, free looks just about perfect. Not all hosted software is free, but most of them generally have quite reasonable costs. A hosted blog that charges a monthly fee is still a minimal investment, on par with other inexpensive hobbies.

But free or inexpensive isn't the only upside to hosted blog services. They really take the complication out of starting a blog. For the technophobe, a hosted solution is ideal because you have very few technical issues to worry about. Hosted services take care of

• Web domains
• Software maintenance and updates
• Data storage and backup
• Template design and management

Hosted solutions are also generally quicker to set up than is software you have to install on your own server, so you can start blogging sooner when you choose one of these solutions. Plus, as mentioned earlier, should you choose to migrate your blog to a self-hosted server in the future, free software is available to make this process possible.

Updates on hosted blogs are generally free, and the software is available to the end user 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sounds like a really good deal, huh?

Living with the limitations

Before you sign yourself up, be sure you understand the tradeoffs that come with using a hosted blog service. Ultimately, you don't control your own blog. If the company goes out of business, takes servers down for maintenance, or decides to change its offerings, you're pretty much stuck with the results.

A free hosted solution, for example, might suddenly decide that it should start charging; one that already charges can always raise its rates.

Despite limitations, there are multiple hosted blogging platforms that have been around for what, in the blogging world, feels like a lifetime. These platforms are owned by reputable companies such as Google and offer stability that comes from years and years of working out the kinks. If you’re leaning towards diving into blogging by creating a site with a hosted blog service, don’t let the limitations of this type of platform hold you back!

Most hosted solutions let users make some modifications and tweaks, but some only allow you to install a limited selection of plug-ins and extras. In some cases, the level of customization is quite limited. With hosted blog software, that ubiquitous WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) acronym is a double-edged sword: You can't actually always do more with less. On the other hand, should you begin to feel adventurous, some hosts allow users to play around with the backend of their blog without the danger of breaking the entire site. Others, such as WordPress, offer nearly endless and often free upgrades thanks to the open-source developer community they’ve fostered.

If you blog on behalf of a company or business, you might want to cross a hosted solution off your list for a couple of reasons:

• You probably need to make your blog part of an existing website, integrated into the look and feel of the company brand. Hosted blogs don't allow this customization or integration.
• With a business blog, you need control of the data. Putting the blog on your own server removes any doubts about security or data ownership.

When you think about whether to use a hosted solution, be sure you understand the terms of service of that host. Some hosts reserve the right to cancel or remove your blog or blog posts.

Make sure to read all the fine print for the host that you want to use! You don't want to run into legal restrictions that mean you can't actually use your blog the way you want to, and you definitely don't want to suddenly find your blog missing if the hosted software company decides you're in violation of its rules.

Choosing hosted software

In the following sections, you can take a look at some of the most popular hosted platforms to see which might be the best fit for you and your new blog. These blogging software packages have been around for quite a while and are regarded as some of the best that the blogging community has to offer.

Remember to read the terms of service carefully when selecting a hosted blog platform. You may not actually own the rights to the content you are posting!

WordPress.com

www.wordpress.com

In 2005, the popular WordPress blogging platform launched a hosted service, in addition to software that you can install on your own server. WordPress.com, shown in Figure 3-5, offers a clean, easy-to-use interface, and bloggers tend to see it as more flexible than anything else on the market.

In short, WordPress.com …

• Is free to use (although premium levels are available with additional functionality)
• Has many options for design templates, letting you choose a look that suits your content
• Includes features such as tags and categories, permitting easy organization of your posts
• Offers spell-checking, rich-text editing, and photo uploading
• Lets you measure your site traffic and statistics to help gauge your popularity
• Is optimized for SEO, making it easier for your blog to be found by search engines such as Google and Bing
• Provides a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) posting and editing environment, which means you don't need to know HTML
• Includes tools that allow you to insert photos, videos, and audio files into your blog posts
• Gives users access to hundreds of thousands of plug-ins and provides ways to upgrade your blog and add additional features and tools
• Integrates an excellent spam-fighting tool, Akismet

On WordPress.org, you can get software to install WordPress on your own website. I talk more about WordPress.org later in this chapter, and in Chapter 5, you can find out more about both versions in detail.

Reaping the benefits

If you use non-hosted blog software, you're in full control. You can do just about anything to the software after you install it:

• Personalize the design: For those who have web design skills, stand-alone blogs generally are very adaptable. Some blogs have incredibly diverse and clever designs, many created by the author of the blog to match the style and topic of the blog. Installing the software on your web server gives you access to every part of the blog software's innards, from templates to graphics, so you can make your blog look exactly as you like.
• Customize functionality: A lot of the blogging software available is open source (meaning the code for the software package is available to developers so that they can manipulate it). Programmers can add, remove, update, and improve functionality for each package. Some packages offer many different options, and independent programmers might also offer additional functionality either for free or at a low cost.
• Look smart: The blogging world, like any other world, has social divisions, and at the top of the blogging heap, you find geeks. If you want to play with the cool nerds, you need to install your own blog software. Technical bloggers will recognize your prowess and give you props.

Living with the limitations

The first stumbling block you discover when installing your own blogging software is … installing your own blogging software. Somehow, you have to get the software files onto your server, run the scripts, modify the code, and generally muck about in the ugly innards of the software. This process can either be simple or a complete nightmare, depending on your technical savvy and the complexity of the blog software package that you choose.

You can shortcut this issue by choosing a web-hosting company that offers blogging software. Most blogging software companies provide a list of web hosts who have in-house expertise in handling their software; just browse around on the software company's website to find that list. You can also have the blogging software company install the software for you. For a fairly reasonable fee, you can put that job into the hands of an expert. This solution makes sense for one big reason: You need to install the software only once. If you don't already know how to do it yourself, you don't have to spend hours beating your head against a wall to obtain knowledge you'll probably never need again.

Of course, all software requires some level of maintenance, and most web hosts don't handle software upgrades and tweaks. Be prepared to handle those requirements when they come up by doing them yourself or finding an expert who can handle them for you.

Using non-hosted software has some other downsides as well:

• Design personalization and code customization: Making your blog look pretty sounds great, but you need a cornucopia of associated skills to make that happen — everything from graphic design to HTML coding. If you don't have these skills yourself or access to someone who does, you don't actually have the ability to customize your blog, despite your software. The good news is that online resources are nearly unlimited if you want to learn these skills!
• Domain registration and web hosting: Unlike the hosted systems, you can't avoid spending money to host your own blog software. Several costs automatically kick in, such as domain name registration and web hosting (explained in the sections “Registering a domain” and “Finding Web Hosting,” earlier in this chapter).
• Technical support: Even if you pay to get the blog software installed for you or sign up with a web host that does it automatically, if the software breaks (and doesn't all software break at some point?), many web hosts can't or won't fix it.
• Backing up: If you install your own software, you're responsible for making sure that the software and data get backed up or for finding a web host that includes backups as part of the hosting package.

Choosing non-hosted blogging software

If you're ready to make the leap into the deep end of the blogging pool, the following sections give you recommendations for a range of well-respected non-hosted blogging tools.

Installing blog software

After you purchase your domain and web hosting, you can get into the nitty-gritty technical task: installing your blog software. To get started, look for installation instructions on your blog software company's website. Each blogging package has a set of instructions for doing the job yourself and details about hiring company technical support to do the job for you.

Keep in mind that installing blog software is a one-time task! When you finish, you never need to do it again, and you probably don't need the skills necessary to install the software in order to use your blog.

Unfortunately, the steps that you need to take to install a particular blog application vary dramatically from software to software, so I can't give you detailed step-by-step directions. Each blog software package has its own particular requirements for installation, but the general process follows these steps:

1. Download the latest version of your blogging software.
2. Uncompress the package and upload it to your new web host by using FTP (file transfer protocol).
3. Execute the installation application associated with your software.

To make your installation experience as trouble-free as possible, watch out for the following common problems:

• File location: When you upload your blog package, make sure that you upload it to the correct location. All web hosts tell you where to place your web files and software so that visitors can find your blog. If you put your files in the wrong place, no one can access your blog.
• Database requirements: Sometimes, you need to create a database prior to installing your blog software. Each web host has a different procedure for creating a database, so if your installation instructions mention this requirement, consult the web host documentation or support materials to find out how to set things up properly.

Sound like gibberish? The truth is that almost anyone can use blogging software, but only quite technically advanced computer users can install it themselves. If you're a web designer or developer, you may be able to install the software yourself. If you aren't technical but want to be, this project gives you the chance to really get your hands dirty.

However, if tech stuff makes you cringe, you can investigate having someone else install the software. My main advice is to find a professional, which you can find among the following:

• Bloggers: Many bloggers make a living with the skills they’ve developed while blogging rather than through blogging itself. Ask around the blogging community to find someone who may be able to help install and set up your site.
• Web designers: Many people who build websites for a living can help would-be bloggers get blogging software installed and running. Of course, you need to pay these folks for their time, so shop around for several quotes to get the best deal.
• Blogging software companies: The best blogging software companies offer inexpensive solutions to this problem: They install the software for you on your own website. Check with the blogging software company to see whether it offers this service.
• Web-hosting companies: Some web hosts install software for you if you ask (and pay them), and some even offer a one-click installation. These one-click installations can save bloggers from headaches, pain, and midnight crying sessions. You just click a button to install the desired blogging software on your web server. If this option sounds appealing, check with the web host you're eyeing before you sign up to see whether it offers one-click blog software installations.

Many blogging software companies have figured out that installing blog software creates a real barrier to the nontechnical customer. As a result, you can often go to a blogging software company's website and find a list of web-hosting companies that offer one-click installation for a particular blogging platform.