Blogging Bootcamp: How to set up your blog from scratch

Is a blogging bootcamp really neccesary? Especially with all the free blogging sites out there like Blogger or Squidoo?

 Having a blogging bootcamp serves a couple purposes.

First, people want to learn how to host their own blogs so they can show them off to their friends and family. It is cool to create something from scratch and call it your own. I find the blogging templates at some of these blogging sites annoying and  unoriginal. I prefer to have a fully customizable website with lots of choices and themes to choose from. That is exactly what you get when you set up your own, self hosted, Wordpress blogg. (A self hosted Wordpress blog is diferrent than a  Wordpress.com blog.) Which leads to the second reason for a blogging bootcamp. A self hosted website allows you a lot of freedom in the kind of content you put into your blog. There are diferrent rules for a lot of Free blogging sites that restrict content and what you can do with your site. In fact they have ultimate control and shut your site down if they want to.  Plus there is a third reason, and that is search engines prefer self-hosted sites over those lame cookie cutter sites. (Now even though they are lame they do serve a purpose but I will reveal that at a later time.)

 How to set up a blog from scratch

The best way to learn how to set up your Wordpress blog is to watch and learn. Lot's of have gladly paid hundreds of dollars to learn how to do this. However, there are a plethora of  blogging videos  on Youtube to show you how and there are some Free Blogging Bootcamps on the internet mostly by other bloggers. But for now we will just outline the process.

1. Purchase a domain name. Select an appropriate name for your blog. You could use your name or the name related to your business or hobby. If you can't decide the settle on using your personal name. You can't go wrong here because no matter what you are using your blog for your name will become synonomous with what you are blogging about over time.

2. Purchase a web hosting account. There are some really good and inexpensive web hosting sites. Many domain providers offer web hosting but I would shop around. Don't pay too much and don't get over sold on a web hosting account. You don't need dedicated servers for what you are doing with a blog. I use Hostgator for my blog because it is cheap and you can set up your blog with a few clicks of the mouse. Also Bluehost offers a great all-in-one package, domain and webhosting with 1 click install of Wordpress.

3. The last thing is to install your free Wordpress website. Wordpress is a fully customizable blogging program. What is great about it is that there are a gazillion pluggins, themes and widgets you can install onto your blog. But don't let that overwhelm you because Wordpress make it easy to find a theme you like and the pluggins are easy to install to. Just click your mouse and that is it for most of them.

 Lasting Benefits for Blogging

Having a blog for your website is far better than paying for an expensive profesional website that never gets any traffic to it. A blog with great content will please your visitors and the search engines. The key is to have good content which is the fun part. Of course creating articles linking to your website like this one helps too. And once it is up there it never goes away. It is there for your visitors to enjoy. Click on the resource links below for more instruction on setting up a self hosted blog.