How To Get Started With Domains and Hosting
First, to get almost anything done with your own website or blog, you’ll probably have to buy a domain and hosting. A domain is the site address - for example, millennialentrepreneur.com is a domain that I bought. Domains usually cost around $10 per year of registration and have to be renewed each year.
One of the most popular places to register a domain is GoDaddy. At the GoDaddy site, you can do a domain name search to check if the domain you want has already been taken. If you’re lucky, and it’s still available, register that bad boy! Note: GoDaddy usually has a bunch of silly offers that they throw at you when you buy from them, so just be ready to ignore those.
You’ll also need hosting. The simplest way to describe hosting is it’s like renting space on the internet. You pay a small “rent” for a place to put all your stuff online. There are tons of web hosts out there. For simplicity I’m recommending Bluehost. It’s reliable, reputable and fairly priced. There’s cheaper or even free hosting available elsewhere, but hosting is one of those things where you get what you pay for. You wouldn’t want your beautiful site crashing, would you?
If you can’t wait to set up your site, you can buy a plan at Bluehost. Longer plans are cheaper per month, but I would caution you against buying a really long plan if this is your first website. I bought a 2-year plan almost a year ago and didn’t use it for almost the entire year! That effectively doubled my hosting cost, so be careful unless you’re sure you’re going to use it right away.
PS: You can also buy domains at Bluehost, but usually only if you already have hosting there. I buy all my domains at Bluehost.
Even if you’re not ready to buy hosting and set up a website, it’s a good idea to register your domain name before someone snatches it up! It’s cheap and you can always buy hosting later.
So let’s say you want to start a blog like this one. You’ve registered “www.yourblogsname.com” and bought hosting at Bluehost. Great! The next post covers setting up and starting a blog for free.
