5 Days To My Blog - Day 2 - Getting Started

 #5Days2MyBlog

Yesterday we took a look at what blogging is and how to get started

We shall continue today by taking a look at how to set up a blog

A blog is actually a  mini-website and like I said at the introduction, we blog because it helps us to let out steam (personal blogs) or offer solution to people's problems (issue based blog) or generally to inform and entertain (generalized blog)

It will make no sense if we write and nobody reads us, we shall not be fulfilled.

So in the world of the internet, everyone wants to be seen, everyone wants to be noted, everyone wants to be heard and for this to happen, you need a vehicle to convey your thoughts and write ups to  your reader or to someone who is in need of the solution you offer in your blog.

That vehicle is the website host.

So before your blog can be seen by anyone you require to have two things in place

a.   Domain Name

b.   Web host

The DOMAIN NAME is the name you already chose after yourself analysis and has a bearing to your passion. That is the blog address and which is usually referred to as URL (Uniform Resource Locator).

It is that name that is typed into a browser to search it on  a search engine to locate your blog.

For instance my personal blog address is http://drjerrythefirst.blogspot.com and if you click on this link or copy it and place on a browser, it will take you straight to my blog.

WEB HOST - A web host provides you with a space to store your blog contents so that they will be accessible to people when they search for it.

It is only when your blog's contents are hosted on the net that people can get to it and the Company that hosts it for you is called the web host.

Once you have chosen your domain name and found a suitable host, then you are on your way to starting your blogging.

Concerning Web Hosts

There are two types

Free

Paid

The free web hosts have your domain  name as a sub-domain of their own domain name

e.g. blogspot

Our blog www.internetbizcreator.blogspot.com is hosted on blogspot and that gives it a rather long name.

The advantage here is that we are not paying for the hosting and the domain name, everything is FREE

But it has a number of disadvantages

a.   the name is unusually long

b.   Blogger can pull down the blog at any time without notice

Other free web hosts include wordpress.com. bing.com, mywapblog.com

But for the purpose of this exercise we shall use blogspot

Paid Host

There are lots of paid hosts out there.

In this case, you buy your domain name from them and they also host if for you for a fee

Their fees are renewable every year whether or not you are making money from the blog.

You can also convert your blogspot.com domain into a com url and host for free on blogger.

So depending on what you want, you can start for free (domain and host(, operate for a while and then switch to paid or you can go straight to paid after you have set up your blog.

The choice is entirely yours

The essence of all labour is for money; so we expect that you would like to start an online business with your blog.

And in this era, you would need to on social media sites to be able to promote your blog and lead people to it (drive traffic) so that they can read it and if possible buy into it.

Day 2 ends here.

So now, you have a domain name and we have told you about web host, you would decide when we come to the end of this training whether you would go along with the free domain and the free host or whether you would want a paid domain and a paid host or a paid domain and a free host.

Assignment

a.   In 4 sentences, summarize what you learnt today

b.   If you don't have account on the following social media sites, then open them now:

www.facebook.com

www.plus.gooogle.com

www.twitter.com

www.stumbleupon.com

www.pinterest.com

www.tumblr.com

www.digg.com

www.instagram.com

www.linkedin.com

Submit your assignment on this blog before 12 noon tomorrow 15.04.15

God bless you

Dr. Jerry - the First Oguzie

Lead Resource Person

#5Days2MyBlog