Essential Requirements For Starting a Blog [Blogspotknol.com]

ShareThis

Share

More and more people have lately been attracted towards blogging. Everyone has their own reasons for starting a blog- some sees it as a way to earn, while others use it as a medium to vent out their feelings. Whatever be the reason though, it is good to have knowledge of essential blogging components, which sadly most blogs on blogging do not cover.

Blogging Software

Blogging Software or Content Management System (CMS) as it is popularly called (CMS is a much broader term not restricted just to blogging) is the first requirement for starting a blog. To put it in simple terms, CMS provides a platform for creating and maintaining a blog and publishing posts on it.

The most famous blogging software are Wordpress and Blogger.

• Wordpress is free open source software which has to be hosted on a platform by the user. To understand it in simple terms consider this example. If you have to create a document you first need to install MS Office on your computer. Similarly, if you have to create a blog you first need to install (host) Wordpress on a web server.

Thus Wordpress provides free software for blogging but no hosting service.

• Blogger is another free software for blogging. It was developed by Pyra Labs and later bought by Google. Unlike Wordpress, it requires no installation on a web server by the user. It is a developer hosted platform. Going by the previous example of creating a document, you can compare it to Google Docs. For creating a document on Google Docs you don’t have to install it on your system.

So Blogger provides free software for blogging as well as free hosting.

• Wordpress also offers a free blogging and hosting service in the form of Wordpress.com.

Hosting Service

Now that you have a fairly good idea of CMS, let’s move on to hosting.

• As I said above, Wordpress requires installing it on a web server before you can use it. Such blogs are generally referred to as self-hosted wordpress blogs.

There are many hosting services you can consider such as Bluehost, Dreamhost, Hostgator etc. All these are paid services which charge up to $120 per year. There are free hosting services as well such as 000webhost etc. But their service is not as good as that provided by premium service providers mentioned above.

• Blogger and Wordpress.com are developer hosted platforms and so you don’t have to worry about hosting in this case.

Since the primary focus of this blog is Blogger, which doesn’t require hosting, I won’t go into much details of hosting services here. However if you need any help on hosting drop me a mail at anshul@blogspotknol.com. I’ll be happy to help you out. You can also visit ShoutMeLoud or NpXp for Wordpress issues.

Domain

The third and last requirement is having a domain for your blog. Domain is the identity of your blog on the web. Do not confuse domain name with the URL. There is a slight difference between the two. Like for this blog the domain name is blogspotknol.com and the URL is http://www.blogspotknol.com.

• If you are going for a self hosted wordpress blog, you will have to buy a domain for it. Generally web hosting companies offer a free domain with their hosting service. But it is better to buy a domain from another source rather than using the one provided by your host. If I go into the reasons now, it will make this post very long. So I’ll cover this important point in a separate post. For the time being just understand that since the domain is the identity of your website, it is better to have as much control over it as possible. If you use the domain provided by your web host, you don’t have much control over it.

You can generally get a domain for around $10 per year from GoDaddy or NameCheap. (The company from which you buy a domain is known as Domain Registrar). Before buying a domain you should do a lot of research. I’ll explain it in detail in a later post.

Note: The links above are my affiliate links. If you buy a domain using those links you won’t lose anything while I’ll get a commission. Still if you are uncomfortable using my affiliate link then use these direct links: GoDaddy and NameCheap.

• If you are using Blogger or Wordpress.com, you don’t have to buy a domain name. They offer a sub-domain of the form yourwebsite.blogspot.com and yourwebsite.wordpress.com. They also offer you the flexibility of using your domain. I’ll suggest you to go for your domain (which you can buy from GoDaddy or NameCheap) since it gives a professional look to your blog. There are other benefits also of using your own domain which I'll cover in another article.

In the meantime if you are looking for a custom domain for your blog, have a look at our services page. We also have a domain GeekWire.in for sale at an attractive price. Contact me at admin@blogspotknol.com if you are interested in it.

Summary

To summarize the above concepts, consider a simple example of building a house. You hire an architect to prepare a design for your house. This is what Blogging Software does. To build on that design you need a land. Web Host provides the land. Once you have your house ready you need an address so that your friends can locate you. This address is provided by Domain.

Hope you are now clear with these concepts. If you are still unclear about any point drop a comment below. Remember this is a do-follow blog.