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We’ve spoken about getting a domain registered but once you’ve done that you need to find somewhere to store all the text and photos that you’re going to produce in your blog. This is called a hosting service.

Your registrar will usually offer a hosting service but that’s not always the best one to use. For example, we recommended that you register your domain with GoDaddy but they’re based in America. If you are in America too and you expect your main readership to be in America as well, then you could use them but even then there are restrictions on their hosting accounts and removing those restrictions means an expensive upgrade.

In general terms, your main requirements for a hosting account are:

1. a host that is based in the country of your target audience ie if you are aiming at a UK audience, you should use a UK host;
2. a host that offers MySQL and PHP relatively cheaply (these are required for a blog);
3. one that offers preloading of blog software for you is useful but far from essential;
4. preferably one that offers add-on domains (you won’t need this initially but if you add another blog later you will);

Usually the add-on domain feature is what knocks out most services. If you don’t have this, then each time you add another blog you’ll need to pay for more hosting. For example, if you are paying £30/year for your hosting plus £5/year for your domain that’s £35/year. If you want to add another blog or website to that £5/year is enough if your host offers the add-on domain feature but £35/year if they don’t. That adds up quite quickly if you add a few domains over time.

So who should you use?

First off, ignore all the free hosting sites. They will generally exclude you from making paid posts (which we’ll be getting on to later) and also they place adverts on your site. If anyone is going to place commercials on your site, it should be YOU. Also, don’t make it a decider for you that the hosting service will pay for a domain registration: this just ties you in to them and you shouldn’t take up this option (after all, it’s only saving £5/year).

If you are in America or aiming at a North American market, BlueHost at $7/month is very good (and they’re not even paying us to say that!). They offer unlimited add-on domains and even one free domain registration (don’t use this as it ties you in to them).

For the UK market, we use EUKHost which at £30/year with unlimited add-on domains is hard to beat.

When you are choosing the hosting plan, take the lowest charging option that provides MySQL and PHP; realistically you won’t need any more for a long time, if ever.

So, off you go and sign up with a hosting service and next time we’ll tell you how to get the blog software loaded.

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Opening a PayPal account will offer you the benefit of being able to be paid by advertisers without any hassles. In fact, once you start doing paid and sponsored posts on your blog PayPal is the way that they will want to pay you. You can also use PayPal to pay for many products and services with complete security as you dont have any bank account or credit card details to disclose.

At the start opt for the ‘Personal Account’ as there is always the chance to upgrade your account later on - there are low fees attached to the upgraded accounts but they suit merchants and those with established businesses.

You can link your savings account from your own bank with your PayPal account so that you can then transfer (withdraw) your money out of PayPal into your bank account.  If you are in the UK you must link your PayPal acct with a UK bank account - you should wait until your PayPal balance hits £50 before withdrawing it to your bank acct as there is a small fee of 0.25p for withdrawing amounts under that amount.

One word of advice: from time to time you may receive emails asking you to ‘verify’ your PayPal details, or, informing you that your account has been ’suspended’. Ignore these as they are fraudulent. Delete them and do not reply to them. PayPal never contact their account holders in this way. Avoid accessing PayPal through any links; the best thing to do is to type in the PayPal url each time you wish to access the site.

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The Dept of Revenue and Customs, as well as the Govt, has gone into massive damage control mode since a junior civil servant ‘lost’ the personal details of 25 million child benefit recipients this week. The personal information of every parent in the UK was downloaded onto two unencrypted CD discs and subsequently lost in the mail.

The population are questioning how a junior civil servant had access to such sensitive data; the fact is he/she would have been authorised in line with their job. But he/she was totally unauthorised to simply post via mail these discs. He/she should have followed dept guidelines and personally delivered these discs to their destination.

Fears of the threat of identity fraud are being taken seriously with people being urged to keep a check on their bank account details. Information such as this would be a veritable gold mine should it fall into the wrong hands and could easily be released around the world via the internet within a matter of hours. No wonder the people are angry and no wonder Alistair Darling and his colleagues are ducking for cover.

The writers of ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ would have a field day with this one.

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