So your free, hosted blog solution has treated you pretty well. You've gone from barely knowing how to operate e-mail to publishing your unique thoughts on the world wide web. You've even tinkered with your template design and
managed to add links and buttons to your sidebar. Your audience has grown beyond your sister and your mom and you're ready to move beyond free blogging tools.
You'd like to spread your wings a bit, grow up a little and get your own domain. One that's easy to remember. With a publishing platform that's easier to customize. We applaud you. And? We're here to help.
On day two of the Blogher '07 conference, Heather and I are going to walk you through the sometimes intimidating process of leaving the comfortable, but often frustratingly limited hosted blog solutions during our lab segment; Taking your Blog to the Next Level in Section #2.
We would love to get an idea of how many of you would be interested in attending our hands on and interactive lab session. So raise your hand and give us a shout out if you'd like to leave Blogher with a grown up, shiny new blog on your own domain!
What would be great for those of you who are interested in attending - but certainly not required - would be if you'd be brave enough to take a few steps on your own before you get there. It'll allow us to dive right into the meaty bits: Installing Wordpress on your own domain. (We can help with other blog tools as well, but our greatest experience lies in Wordpress). If you'd like to help us cram as much as we can into our hour and fifteen minutes follow these (fairly) simple steps:
- Skip on over to GoDaddy.com and purchase a domain name. If you're nervous, you can follow our step by step guide. It's almost like we're right there, holding your hand!
- After you've done that, you're going to need to purchase hosting. We use and highly recommend Liquid Web. Order their shared hosting plan for $14.95 a month. Once again, you can follow the web hosting tutorial here if you'd like.
- You're nearly there! Your host will send you a welcome letter with some very important information in it referred to as your DNS or Domain Name Server address. Follow these very important instructions to set your DNS. Doing this in advance will allow your domain and server to "get to know each other", so they'll be all ready for us come Blogher.
- Make sure, when you come to Blogher, you BRING THAT WELCOME LETTER. It's okay if it's saved on your laptop, we'll need your cPanel access information so we can walk you through setting up your very own Big Girl Blog.
Important: if you decide to go with a different domain registrar and host, make sure the host offers what your blog platform of choice requires.
Now, if this is still too intimidating for you, never fear. We'll help you from the ground up if need be.
We hope to see you there!
Kerflop and OMSH
Come to our lab session, Transitioning to a Self-Hosted Blog, in Chicago at Blogher '07!
Photo credit: Teira Joisu
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For those that attended the Taking Your Blog to the Next Level lab session, Transitioning to a Self-Hosted Blog in Chicago, it was great to have a chance to meet you.