Wednesday

How To: Set Up Your First Blog | Part 2

In this article (part two of three) I will discuss finding a domain name and webhost for your first blog. Let’s start with the free alternatives.

Free Blog Hosts

Check out these sites - all of which will host and manage your blog for free. Having a blog hosted on any one of these sites has the benefit of being free, but it also leaves you very little room to customize your blog.

• WordPress.com
• Blogger.com
• Blog.com
• NoReasonToPanic.com

Paying For A Domain and Hosting

For the purpose of this tutorial and your first blog, I recommend a very cheap and efficient hosting and domain solution provided by 1and1.com. Go ahead and order your domain name and hosting plan. I recommend the linux hosting plan.

Once you have purchased your domain name and hosting, get ready to install WordPress. Begin by going wordpress.org and downloading the latest version of the software.