How to setup a self-hosted blog

If you are going to be using one of the first three options above, you can skip this section.
If you are serious about blogging and are looking for the best way to customize your blog’s look and other features, then getting a self-hosted blog from WordPress.org is probably the best way to go. It is currently the top choice for most bloggers. It does require more work up front and does have small costs associated with it: buying a domain name ($10/year) and hosting your blog ($10/month).
One of the big advantages is that you can use your own domain name (i.e. yourblog.com). While this might not seem like a big deal, it is a lot easier for people to remember yourblog.com rather than yourblog.blogspot.com which is what you will be given if you use Blogger.
I will warn you, being a non-techie myself, this took me some time figuring out how to get my self-hosted site set up. WordPress.org has a great step-by-step guide for getting you set up. While it is more work on the front end, I am really glad I got good advice and did this at the beginning, than having to do it now.

Pick a Domain Name

1. You should start by purchasing a domain name. Domain Samurai is a great tool that will help you enter in a keyword and then find a bunch of related domains that are still available. I would suggest going to for a .com rather than a .info or .us or anything else for that matter. It is just too easy for people to get confused. A .com is always going to hold more value than any other extension. For a simpler tool, just go to psychicwhois.com and find an open one. 2. Once you get it picked out, you need to find somewhere to purchase it. I bought my first few domains at GoDaddy.com and have bought the remaining ones from my hosting companies. While GoDaddy is about one of the biggest names out there, I can’t say that I recommend them because of some of their advertising campaigns that they run. I now recommend just buying the domain and hosting from Hostgator as it will make the whole process simpler. But if you already have a host, then Namecheap is a good and cheap way to buy a domain.

Pick a host for your blog

The webhost is the company that you pay to store all of your files for your blog. There are also a million web hosting companies out there. I don’t suggest just looking for the cheapest one, because a lot of these companies are not very reliable and your site might be down quite a bit. I like to go with the bigger companies who have a longer track record and are more established.
They may cost a dollar or two more a month when you are starting out and it is well worth it. I have hosted my websites with Dreamhost from the beginning, mostly because I knew a lot of people using them and I got a hosting package for about $7.00 a month.
I still host most of my websites at Dreamhost, but have moved this site to MediaTemple. The main reason was that since my livelihood now depended on the website I wanted a higher level of service from my hosting company. MediaTemple has been great in that regard, but as always it comes with a price. I am currently paying $150 a month for hosting with them.
(Added 01-05-10 – I am currently in the process of buying a website that is hosted on BlueHost, and after digging around the backend quite a bit, I am starting to think they are a better choice than Dreamhost. Their prices are slightly lower than Dreamhost, but they seem to have things a little better organized and create an easier experience for new users. I haven’t dealt with their customer service yet, so I can’t comment on that yet, but my overall experience so far leads me to like them a bit more than Dreamhost. For what it’s worth.)
(Added 05-04-10 – After using Bluehost a bit more and calling their customer service reps, I can safely say that I definitely like them more than Dreamhost. Just the fact that they have phone support gives them a leg up – but the rep I spoke with was very helpful. So Bluehost gets my recommendation for beginner hosting.)
(Added 04-04-11 – After more and more frustrating experiences with MediaTemple’s customer service I started looking for another host that I could scale up with. I still really like Bluehost – especially for the price, but the fact that they only offer shared hosting makes me hesitant about hosting my sites that pay my mortgage each month. After looking at Hostgator‘s site it became very clear that they are a host that you can start with for as cheap as $4/m and they also offer much more thorough hosting packages as your site grows. I had heard great things about them from others, so I figured I would check them out. I called them up and asked a bunch of questions and I was surprised to find out that even though they cost a fraction of what MediaTemple costs, they have some features that MediaTemple didn’t.I opened an account with HostGator and used the chat feature to get help 2 different times and I was very pleased with their knowledge and helpfulness each time. Honestly, I was so impressed that I am getting started on moving many of my sites over to Hostgator. I will let you know how things progress…)

Hosting Companies I’ve Used

Company
As Cheap as…	$3.96/m	$6.95/m	$8.95/m	$20/m
Notes	I started hosting with Hostgator after being increasingly frustrated with MediaTemple. From my experience their customer service seems to be far better than any other host I have used. I have been so impressed with their customer service that I am in the process of moving many of my sites over to them.	I host a few of my sites with Bluehost and I have had a really good experience with them. They are cheap and have great phone support, the only downside is that they one have one hosting package – which is fine for small-medium sites, but not so good for bigger blogs.	I started with Dreamhost and still have a few sites hosted there. I was happy with them for the price, but I always longed for phone support and they don’t really offer it. If you decide to use them, I have a coupon code you can use for 25% off… just enter “Christianblog” as the promo code.	$20/mI currently host this site with MediaTemple. Starting at $20/m they aren’t cheap, and they have been great in terms of site uptime, but I am becoming more and more dissappointed with their customer service.

I worked a deal out for you guys – if you decide to go with Hostgator, just use our 25% off Hostgator promo code: “ChristianPF” and it will knock 25% off for you.