Mums Finance

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.

Copyright © 2007-2008 by Mums Finance. All rights reserved.

Popularity: 7% [?]