The Casual Tech

Problem: You’ve been blogging on Blogger or Xanga (or any of those free services) but have found not everyone takes you as seriously as those who blog on their own domain. You want to blog on your own domain, but you’re just not exactly sure how to go about it. The whole process seems intimidating to you.

Solution: The Casual Tech’s Guide to Getting Your Own Domain for Blogging! I’ll show you how to get your blog on your own domain so you can start blogging with the “big boys”.

This is post three in the series. Go here for the rest of the series: Post One | Post Two | Post Four

There are four main elements involved with blogging on your own domain: domain name (duh), hosting, blogging software, and FTP. A common newcomer misconception is that once you register a domain name, you’re all set. Not true. A domain name is just that - a name. You own that name on the Internet. No one will see it, however, unless you also have the domain name hosted somewhere. The hosting is where all of your actual files for your website will reside. Your job is to tell the company you registered the domain name from where the hosting resides, so they can point it in the right direction. (I’m over simplifying here for the sake of, er, simplicity.)

If you’re just getting started, make sure you check out the first two posts in this series before continuing on to STEP THREE below:
STEP ONE - DOMAIN NAME
STEP TWO - HOSTING

STEP THREE - BLOGGING SOFTWARE

Now that you’ve bought your domain name, and secured hosting for your website, you need software that will allow you to maintain a blog. If you’ve chosen any of the hosts listed in Step Two and gone with their basic hosting packages, it will be easiest to use blogging software written in PHP. Fortunately, the most popular blogging software packages on the market right now are written in PHP, so this isn’t something you need to concern yourself with, especially if you’re not very tech savvy.

Here is The Casual Tech’s list of recommend blogging software packages:

• WordPress - Probably the most popular; it’s easy to install, upgrade, and maintain
• Moveable Type - Unrecommended, especially for newbies; Difficult to install, too many template files to customize and slow rebuilding after simple maintenance tasks make this one a turn off
• Expression Engine - Highly recommended around the blogosphere; its pricing models keep this one from being a favorite of mine
• Blogger - Although you won’t download this software and install it on a server, you could use Blogger’s free software and point it to your own domain. I’m not a Blogger fan, though, for a lot of reasons. I wouldn’t recommend this route, but I’d be remiss to not mention it as an option.
• b2evolution - Not as popular as the others, but this software has some cool features like file & photo management and multiple blog support
• Joomla! - This is much more than just blogging software - if you’re looking for a bigger, more comprehensive content management system - this is it. If you have no idea what I’m even talking about, stick with another product.
• Nucleus CMS - Similar to Joomla! - when you want more than just a blog
• Text Pattern - A little more unconventional, a little less user friendly, a lot more geeky than the more popular blogging software packages

There are a lot more options than these out there - I just chose the ones I consider to be the most popular. You can check out these external links to read more about other blogging software platforms.

Online Journalism Review’s Blog Software Comparison Chart - Not all are represented here, but still a good reference
Wikipedia - Weblog Software - In depth article
Blog Software Breakdown - Outdated, but still useful information here
OpenSource CMS - Let’s you try out popular blogging software packages without having to install them yourself

Choosing a software package can be a personal thing. Some people just feel more comfortable with certain systems, most likely choosing ones that seem the most familiar to them compared to other applications they use online. I strongly recommend WordPress for a few reasons:

• Sheer volume of clients using it means more chances that you can find someone to help you when needed
• It’s very easy to install, and a lot of hosts have a “one-button” installation and upgrade for it built in
• Themes are in abundant supply and are a breeze to switch
• It’s FREE

Once you’ve made your decision, the next step is to download the software to your computer (unless you are using Blogger OR your host provides the installation through their control panel). Using WordPress as an example, here are the steps to take to download:

From the Download page on WordPress.org, choose the download link that works best for your system. If you’ve opened .zip files on your computer before, the .ZIP link should work fine. Once you click on the link to download, you’ll be prompted to save or open the file:

Save the .zip file to a location on your computer. Once the file has completed downloading, open it and extract all of the files to a location that you’ll easily remember.

Congratulations! You’ve chosen blogging software and are officially done this step now. Continue on to Part Four - FTP.