In a previous post, I gave you five reasons why, as a small business owner, you should consider having a blog. In this post, I’ll show you how to get started.
Here’s what you need:
- Blogging software
- A web hosting service
- A domain name
Let’s look at these in turn.
(1) Blogging software
Technically, this is known as a “content management system” (CMS). The most popular blogging CMS is WordPress, and I absolutely recommend it for the sort of straightforward blogging you will be doing. It is very easy to use WordPress. Its CMS makes it easy to do the most important things you will need: writing, categorising, tagging, scheduling your posts for publication, and publishing your posts.
To learn more about WordPress, you can visit their website here.
(2) A web hosting service
Your CMS has to sit somewhere on the internet. By which I mean, it has to be “hosted” somewhere on the web.
If you choose WordPress as your blogging CMS, there are two ways to host your blog on the web:
(a) Ask the guys at WordPress to host it for you. They will then host it on their own servers.
(b) Contact a web hosting company and pay them to host your WordPress blog for you. This is known as self-hosting. Here, what you pay for is a place to host your website. You can then install your blog on the website.
So what’s the difference between the two options?
Here is the main difference.
Let’s say your blog is titled mynewbusinessblog, and you want to use that as the domain name.
If the guys at WordPress host it for you, it will be found at: www.wordpress.mynewbusinessblog.com
If you take the self-hosting route, your blog will be found at www.mynewbusinessblog.com
Which of these two is the more professional-sounding one?
You guessed it, the second one. So I would advise you to take the self-hosting route.
To get self-hosting, you need to contact a web hosting company, and pay them to host your website. One very popular company for bloggers is Bluehost. You can find them at Bluehost.com.
Once you have a web hosting service, you will have to load the CMS onto it. This can be a complicated matter, but it need not be so. Some web hosting companies make it very easy for you to load your blogging CMS onto the website. For example, one thing I like about Bluehost is that they have a so-called “one-click install” for WordPress. There is a very nifty button in the Bluehost back-end; you click it, and it installs the WordPress software for you. In under a minute, you will have a gleaming, brand new blog.
(3) A domain name
Of course, you need a domain name. Under point (2) above, I showed you how your domain name will differ, depending on whether you choose the WordPress-hosted route or the self-hosted route.
Whichever route you take – and I strongly advise you to take the self-hosted route – you should choose a domain name that conveys authority and trust. It can be very tricky to choose a domain name that is appropriate for your business. Most of the good names are already taken, and it can be quite time-consuming to come up with a name that works for you. But it is worth the effort to get it right. To help you with this, I have written two blog posts on how to choose the right domain name for your business. You can find them here and here.
Conclusion
As a small business owner, blogging is an effective way to build up an online community of loyal customers. It will also give you great visibility online, and help you to grow your reputation. In this post, I have given you some pointers to get you started. If you would like further help, please feel free to drop us a line.
Do you have a blog? What technical challenges did you have in trying to set up your blog? Share with us in the comments, and let’s see how we can help.
(*Here at Harcourt Lane, we use WordPress as our CMS, and our website is hosted by Bluehost. However, we do not have an affiliate relationship with either company. We recommend them because they give great value.)