How to Create a Blog: Getting started
\n\nOne of the biggest barriers that many developers have with creating a presence on the web is getting started. I’m going to try to make getting started as easy as possible, but not gloss over some of the important details that could hurt you later on when you grow.\n\nIn life, I have learned there is always a balance that needs to be achieved between doing things the best way and doing things in a way that is easy enough that you will actually do them.\n\nSo, I am going to present you with a few options for how you can get started with creating a blog and you can choose which path to follow based on what fits for you.\n\n
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Blogging software
\n\nThe first thing we should talk about is blogging software. What kind of software should you use for your blog?\n\nThere are quite a few options out there, including writing your own custom made blog, but I think the best option for most developers is to use WordPress.\n\n
\n\nI don’t say this lightly, and I realize that in the developer community WordPress might not seem like the best option, but let’s dissect this a little bit.\n\nWhen you are creating a blog, most of the time your goal is not to show how good you are at creating a blog or using blogging software, but instead your goal is to get your message out, control your image, and build a home base for yourself on the web.\n\nIn business, we’d say that your blog software is not your core competency, instead the content you put on your blog is your core competency.\n\nMany developers are tempted to start out by creating their own blog or use a less popular blogging software solution, and they end up wasting a huge amount of time messing with or creating software instead of blogging.\n\nI choose WordPress, because it is the most popular and widely used blogging software, which means it is well supported, has tons of plugins and just works.\n\nYou can literally get a new WordPress install up in minutes, even from a bare server, and you can find plugins for just about anything you can think of.\n\nSure, I come from a .NET and C# background, and WordPress is PHP, but I can’t deny how easy it is to use and customize WordPress.\n\nYou can, of course, use another popular piece of software or write your own blog from scratch, but if you want to get up and running quickly, I’d recommend you just use WordPress for now and you can switch later if you want to, once you have a better idea of what you are doing.\n\n
Buying your lot
\n\nYour first goal should really be to create something that belongs to you and only you.\n\nIf you spend a large amount of time producing content for a blog and someone else is ultimately in control of that content, you are putting quite a bit at risk.\n\nJust like you wouldn’t build your house on someone else’s lot of land, you shouldn’t build your blog on someone else’s domain.\n\nSo, the first thing you want to do is buy your lot. You are going to need your own domain that is owned by you.\n\n
\n\nSeveral free blogging platforms will gladly host your blog for you and give you an address within their domain. Even though this is free and the cheapest way to get started, you need to look a little bit deeper into the future and realize it is worth the $1.99 or whatever it costs to buy a domain for a year.\n\nWhatever you do, don’t botch this one up, because you will regret it. Everything else can be changed later on, but moving domains and trying to keep your search rankings and all your content in place, is a pain that you don’t want to have.\n\nYou can register a domain pretty cheaply by using a service like GoDaddy. I usually use GoDaddy for initially registering my domains, even through I may move the registration later.\n\n
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Choosing a hosting method
\n\nAs long as you have your own domain, the choice here won’t be as important when you are first starting out, but it is still good to consider your options.\n\nThere are three main options to choose from for hosting your new blog.\n\n
Completely Free Hosting
\n\nThis option is the cheapest and will allow you to get a blog up without having to do much management of any software or any operating systems, but it has the drawback of giving you the least amount of control over your blog.\n\nI started out my blog with this option using WordPress.com, but you can also use a fee service like Blogger, from Google, or one of the other free blog hosting companies.\n\n
\n\nI originally started out with this option, because I didn’t want to make a big investment in something that I didn’t know if I would stick with. But, I later came to regret that decision, because of the lack of control over my blog.\n\nWith this option, you basically just register a new blog and can start posting immediately. The hosting company gives you access just to create and edit posts and a few management functions, but you don’t have access to more advanced options that you would get with your own install of WordPress or other blogging software.\n\nThis might not seem like a big deal, but if you eventually want to put ads on your site, sell something, or customize your theme, you may quickly regret this decision.\n\nIf you do go with this option though, make sure you pay the optional fee most of these services offer to allow you to use your own custom domain for your blog. Don’t make the mistake of skipping this. You do NOT want to change your domain later—trust me.\n\n
Shared Hosting
\n\nWith this option, you are usually using some space on a web server that is shared with other blogs or websites, but you are in control of a large portion of that space.\n\nShared hosting companies usually will have some options to preinstall or automatically install WordPress or another blogging platform for you and give you access to that blogging software as if it were installed on your own machine.\n\nYou usually access your “server” through the use of a control panel application that gives you options to add and remove certain software applications, access your database and files directly, and do other administrative tasks that you can’t do with a free hosting platform.\n\nOnce I got off of free hosting on WordPress.com, because I wanted to be able to fully control my theme and add plugins to my blog, (something you can’t do with free hosting,) I switched to Bluehost.com, one of the most popular shared hosting platforms for WordPress. I was able to get everything migrated from WordPress.com to my WordPress install on Bluehost pretty easily, and my readers never even realized it.\n