The Basic Tools For Blogging

March 13, 2008

If your going to blog you are going to need some tools. Some are free and others aren’t and if you go the completely free route, good luck to you junior! When you decide to get serious come back and read this post again.

First and foremost you need a domain name. I use GoDaddy.com, but there are many others that can do the trick.

Godaddy.com
NameCheap.com
Register.com
Google spit out 44,300 search results if you need more choices than the above.

Next your going to need hosting. You can go cheap on this but is saving $2 a month worth the hassle? I didn’t think so. I use 1and1.com and they have been great.

1and1.com
Bluehost.com
Hostgator.com
Wordpress.org/hosting Yep they even do hosting.

Speaking of, you need a blog/CMS platform. I have heard the rants and raves on this for a long time, some people claim wordpress isnt a true CMS platform. WHATEVER!

Wordpress is the biggest, most screwed with, has the most info/resources etc not to mention themes and so on. My feeling on this is the same as driving a car, if I want a go cart I will buy a go cart, if I want to drive I will drive a real car. Hands down. Wordpress.

So, now you have the foundation your going to build on, you have hosting and a domain name for your blog. You need to build a theme if thats your gig or you can buy one or use a free one. There are a lot of really great free themes out there. Again, if your going to do it — do it right. Buy a theme. Hoever if you do go free I would suggest pearsonified or structure

Revolution Theme. My favorite and the one I use, even for my affiliate site’s. BTW, if you go with Brian’s REV Themes the support forum is excellent.
Dream Theme. Also very nice theme, Created by Ben Cope. If you dont like the Rev Theme get this one.

Ok, now were getting somewhere.

Now you need to get it all set up and then get some extras.

1. Plug-ins, heres a list of what I use, you may not want them all but then again if you need one they are almost all free.