How to Set Up a Blog

This time you are going to learn how easy or difficult it can be to set up your own blog. There are two paths that you can choose - either use one of many shared blogging networks, or set one up on your own server (self-hosted). There are 4 things you need to consider when making that choice: cost, reliability, control, and growth possibilities.

If you use a blogging network, you can get a blog for free; whereas a self-hosted option will cost you - you’ll need to buy a domain name and hosting services (about $10-12 per month total). A blogging network might also be more reliable - they have tons of users, professional staff to keep it running, and have withstood the test of time. A self-hosted blog on the other hand is only as reliable as the hosting provider.

But having a self-hosted blog puts you in the driving seat. While on a network you are limited in what you can do, your own hosting account leaves you in complete control. This leaves you much more room for expanding and growth - you can add anything to your self-hosted blog, but not to one on a network.

A self-hosted blog can also look more professional, because you have complete control on the look and feel of it. If you do decide to set up your own self-hosted blog, there are some videos towards the end, that you’ll find useful.

If you want to use a blogging network, there is a ton to choose from - the more popular being WordPress.com , Tumblr.com , and Google’s Blogger.com . Tumblr is quite new (just over 2 years old), and has the fastest sign-up process. They are very minimal - designed to give you fastest access to posting things, but it’s also limited in what you can do with it. I’m not sure you can use a custom domain (e.g. something.com ) with a Tumblr blog.

WordPress has always been my favorite - it gives you powerful functionality for free, and the ability to get more features (custom domain, for example) for paying customers. It has a built-in stats system, the ability to create static pages as well as posts, lot’s of themes to choose from.

WordPress also gets great search rankings, so you blog can instantly get listed higher in search results. It does limit HTML editing options though, and you can’t use Google Analytics with it (or any JavaScript for that matter) because WordPress management uses it for their own stats.

With Blogger you can use Google Analytics, and you can edit the template and layout of your blog. But it doesn’t have static pages, and it’s quite difficult to set up a custom domain with a Blogger blog. Blogger also adds a small toolbar at the top of your blog, that can cause people to leave your blog (it has a "next blog" link, among other things) - you can get rid of it, but I’m not sure it’s strictly legal.

If you have an AdSense account, you can have AdSense ads inserted into your blog automatically and make some money from your blog - other networks don’t seem to offer that.

If you think a shared blog is for you, I hope the above will help you choose. But if you want your blog to look more professional or have more room for growth, then I advise you to set up a self-hosted blog. Here are some videos to help you:

• Setting up a blog on a HostGator account - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbACYEJcxfM
• Setting up a blog on a GoDaddy account - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Stu6a2H4eWs
• Setting up a blog manually - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nse3Gdtvs4

If you want a self-hosted blog, but don’t want to go through the hassle of setting it up, you can hire Johnny B. Truant to do that for you for as low as $39.

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