Unlock The Online World
blogging tips, tricks and other information

Web hosting is one of the things that should be paid and not free. While many free web hosting providers are respectable and just as good as paid hosting there are many that aren’t. Paid hosting is also a bit more stable and reliable. Also, it is said that having a xxxx.wordpress.com or xxx.blogspot.com blog is unprofessional but of course this is up to you.

There are a few requirements that you will need for your blogging software. The three most common requirements are as follows;

• MySql Databases
• Access to FTP
• Scripting services such as php4, CGI, Perl, and other such scripts.

A good amount  of space would be about 1000MB for one blog, but your requirement will probably grow as you add posts and files to your blog.  And as for bandwidth, a good way to figure it out is to multiply disk space by 5. So 1000MB times 5 equals about 5000MB.

Here is a list of a couple web hosting companies I have  used before and recommend. Some are a bit pricier then others and some are more inexpensive. A lot of space and bandwidth isn’t needed too much in the beginning of your blog but it is good to have a nice amount of space.

• Just199.com
  HostGator.com
  BlueHost

After you figure out which one you want to use then its time to order the hosting and update name servers.

Updating NameServers

To update your name servers go into your domain management system with whatever company you registered the domain with. Look around for a link that says either DNS Management or anything to do with Nameservers.

Change those name servers to whatever name servers your web hosting company gave you. It will then take between 12-72 hours to propagate which means for it to fully register and point to your web hosting.

While it is propagating I advise you to choose which blogging platform or CMS you want to use. I always use and highly recommend Wordpress but there are other options which I will cover in my next post which will be up either later on today or tomorrow.

Now, people have asked what the “theme” of the site will be. Like i said in the first article the theme is the television show “Charmed”. Now if you meant wordpress theme, I am creating my own custom theme which I will cover later on.

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So you have your blogs niche and focus, now its time to buy the domain.  This is one thing that I believe you must absolutely spend money on. While some free domain name providers are reputable it isn’t as stable as buying one. Of course, this is only my personal opinion. But before buying the domain you need to decide what you want the domain to be, find out if it is available and then register it.

Finding Your Domain

What I usually do is figure out which keyword I want to use, in my case it was “Charmed”.  Of course it is preferable that your domain name be the actual name of your website. The second option  could be the initials of your domain name but I wouldn’t recommend this as there would be no keywords in the domain.

You could also get hyphenated domain names but this is usually a last resort.  I recommend sticking with domain names that are three words and under. To get ideas on domain names I like to use Psychic Whois which provides suggestions as well as the availability of the domain.

As for TLD’s the most desirable extension would be a .com, with .net and .org being the runner-ups. There are other TLD’s but these three are among the most prominent.

On to what I did.

I used Psychic Whois to find possible names for the Charmed site such as CharmedBlog.com, CharmedOnes.com, and CharmedSite. The names didn’t flow for me, were taken or didn’t fully match what I wanted so I opted to add “The” to the front of CharmedSite.com which resulted in TheCharmedSite.com then all that was left for me to do was to register it.

Registering Your Domain

There are many places where you can register your domain, some are cheaper and some are more expensive. Some have extra features such as free private registration and other stuff.
Heres a list of  five domain name registrars, their price for a .com, and the fee for private registration. I have also linked them so that they go straight to the domain order page.

1&1 Internet-$6.99/year-Free Private Registration
Godaddy-$9.99/year-$8.99 Private Registration
Name-$5.99/year-Free Private Registration
NameCheap-$9.29/year-Free Private Registration
WebTalkDomains-$9.99/year-$7.95 Private Registration

Let me tell you right now to just get the domain and if you want, the private registration. You most likely wont need any of the features that they’ll push on you.
Now that we have a domain name all registered and ready to go, its time to get your web hosting which will be covered in the next article.

To be sure that noone visit’s the site before its time, I have changed the settings so that it redirects to Unlock The Online World.

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I already did this step because I had already gotten the domain, niche, hosting and even the installation of the blogging platform I am using done before I decided to turn it into my guinea pig for my blogging experiment.

One of the first steps in starting a blog is figuring out what you want to blog about and focusing on it.  Jim from The Net Fool talks about this in great detail. I recommend giving that article a good read.

But I have my own spin on things so I decided to create my own post on the subject.

Many people talk about saturated markets and unsaturated markets. But I don’t hold much thought on them since I believe that any blog can become popular even in a saturated niche. I have seen it done, so I will be ignoring that general guideline.

It is important, however to decide on a niche unless, of course, you run a general blog.  When you have a niche in mind, decide how you are going to go at it. Will it be for reviews, a specific genre in niche, or what?

Now on to my guinea pig:

Like I said I had already decided my niche and focus beforehand but I will tell you what it is.
The general niche of my blog is a television show blog, and the focus is Charmed, mainly because I am such a huge fan of the television show.

Stay Tuned for the second part of the experiment. Please remember this isnt really a tutorial but rather articles on how I create blogs.

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Entrecard is holding their own blogging experiment so it gave me inspiration for starting one of my own. This will take place over the next few months. And the site I am using for this experiment won’t be just a blog. It will also have a wiki and forum but I am concentrating on the blog portion first.

I will not disclose the URl just yet but I will say that it is a fansite for a television show. In this experiment I will be using only free resources, since most bloggers starting out have no or very low funds for all the jazzy softwares and advertising.

The only thing that I may have to spend money on is banner ads but I might be able to do them myself. Of course not all good things are free but I am known for looking for the free alternative. No worries I will share all resources with you.

I will be disclosing the domain later on in the experiment although people will probably be able to guess from the banner ads when I have them done.

In my one of my next posts I will talk about the two main ways of installing wordpress as well as a third option. Amazingly many people have been asking for such a post And now I will provide it.

Of course, off the bat you can tell that i am doing things differently then Graham. For example, I am not starting optimization just yet. I am currently creating my own wordpress theme for the site, so i will also provide resources on how I learned to do that :D.

So off we go!

Update: I should also mention that two things that i NEED to spend money on is a domain and hosting. Of course, I will provide information on the most affordable options

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In the next few weeks, my updates may be slow and a bit far between.  I am heading off to college in Thunder Bay. Right now everything is a jumble of web registrations, freakouts, happy dances (Im allowed to like school arent i? :p ) and packing.

I am cooking up thing in my head for articles but right now things are too hectic for me to properly make a well informed post. Not to worry though. Things will speed back up once I am settled in, and am settled into my class schedule.

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Well, the week has gone by in a blur of todays and yesterdays. Its Sunday again which means it is time for my weekly link love and updates.

Link Love
The following are five articles that are worth a look-see. This list is pulled from my top commentators in random.

1. Jeff Starr of Perishable Press compiled a comprehensive list of do-follow wordpress plugins.
2. Normal Joe of IM With Joe talked about developing a strategy for blog commenting.
3. Dablogger wrote an article about the different ways to network with fellow bloggers.
4. ThemeLib told blogger.com bloggers about widgets for displaying your recent posts/comments on Blogger.
5. Pageran warned bloggers what Google may see as a link farm when you wouldn’t even think it was one.

Announcements

• I will be going on a vacation tomorrow but I will try to update while I am gone. If you dont see anything from me then that means that I have no access to the Internet.
• I will also be doing a complete blog redesign. I am currently learning the ropes of wordpress theme creation, and will hopefully have it done by the next month. If push comes to shove then I will simply get a custom theme But hopefully not.

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To celebrate the deletion of no-follow from Unlock The Online World I am making a post about five Wordpress plugins that I think are worth a look.

The first is NoFollow Free which is the plugin I am using. You can even set it to show how many comments a person has made on your website.

Second is Nofollow Case by Case which allows you to select some comments to make into nofollow while the rest is dofollow. Useful for taking off link juice for all those “I agree!” commentators.

Third is Lucias Linky Love. This is useful if you would prefer your commentators to use their own names although if you dont mind, you could just change the amount of characters.

Fourth is DoFollow which is said to be one of the first dofollow plugins for wordpress.

And last but not least, Follow URL, it removes the nofollow from all links on your blog.

Of course, there are quite a few other plugins available for making a dofollow blog but these five were the most prominent and raved about.

Please bear in mind that i dont know which ones are compatible with 2.51 and 2.6 of wordpress. There are a few people still using the older versions so this list is also for them.

Update: Here is a comprehensive dofollow plugin list created by Jeff Starr.

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I am happy to say that I have been approved by Market Leverage! i need to fill out w-8 forms though. Need to read up on that, since I dont know what they are. Signed up for the web banner thing.

Well, I am pretty sick so thats all I can do for today. Hopefully tomorrow I feel better

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Now normally I would be posting this on my Blog Contests Magazine but I thought it would be nice to promote this contest here since BCM is still fairly new. Its not even on Entrecard yet :O.

My buddy Yan from Thou Shall Blog-Blogging Tips For Beginners is holding an awesome contest.

Prize List

The Grand Prize

A ticket to the “Event Apart” which is held in the USA. The Ticket is worth about $1,000.00 and will be good for any 2008 event.

Courtesy of PB from Piss Biscuit

Winner #1

1. 12-month private membership at LifeFoc.us, courtesy of FullTiltBlogging.com, the brain child of Aaron Abber (Worth $324)
2. 30-min live blog consultation by Rockfuse.com (Worth $30)
3. 1 month 468×60 Ad Spot from Tech Suave (Worth $30)
4. 3,000 Entrecard Credits from Brian Hawkins @ Extreme Ezine

Winner #2

1. $500.00 dollar credit for Blog Re-design courtesy of Piss Biscuit.
2. 30-min live blog consultation by Rockfuse.com (Worth $30)
3. 1 month 125×125 Ad Spot from Piss Biscuit (Worth $40)
4. 2000 Entrecard Credits from Brian Hawkins @ Extreme Ezine

Winner #3

1. Blog Review courtesy of Piss Biscuit (Worth $100)
2. 60-min blog consultation by The Net Fool (Worth $60)
3. 1 month 125×125 Ad Spot from Etienne Teo (Worth $25)
4. 2,000 Entrecard Credits from Jay @ DatMoney.com

Winner #4

1. 1 Copy of Premium Theme from WooThemes by Piss Biscuit (Worth $100)
2. 1 Custom Banner Design (468×60 or 125×125) from DatMoney.com
3. 1 month 125×125 Ad Spot from Yours Truly, Blog for Beginners (Worth $20)
4. 2,000 Entrecard Credits from Jay @ iBlogtoBlog.com

Winner #5

1. 1 Copy of the Revolution WordPress Theme from Brian Gardner (Worth $80)
2. 1 month 125×125 Ad Spot from Etienne Teo (Worth $25)
3. 1 month sidewide PR3 link on both DatMoney.com & iBlogtoBlog.com
4. 1,000 Entrecard Credits from Michael Aulia’s Tech Blog

Bonus Prize

The contestant with the highest no. of points (both maximum and referral points) will win 3,000 Entrecard Credits from WP Beginners

A Word About The Sponsors

1. Blog for Beginners is a great resource for beginner bloggers.
2. Piss Biscuit is a great blog resourse for bloggers of all kinds, inexperienced and experienced
3. FullTiltBlogging.com is an excellent blog about marketing and making money online.
4. The Net Fool is a blog that provides stock information, blogging tips and more!
5. Extreme Ezine is an awesome e-zine for all internet marketers.
6. DatMoney.com is a blog full of blogging tips and they also do awesome banners!
7. Rockfuse.com provides great tips for making money with your blog and getting traffic.
8. Tech Suave provides tech news, and awesome blogging tips.
9. Micheal Aulia provides awesome tech news, and reviews.
10. Brian Gardner is the creator of the awesome revolution themes. Need i say more?
11. Etienne Teo provides perspectives on internet marketing, social media and more.

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