So if you are shifting away from blogspot.com or some other free blog-hosting service read on. (This is a very long torial so you may want to print it out or bookmark this page to return later.)

Firstly, get an email address. If not how is your domain people gonna contact you or send you your site login/password info? Next….

1. Get a domain name from a Domain Registrar

a) .net and .info domains may be cheaper but they are associated with many spamming sites so choose your domain name with caution. Heard that .me is already available. You may wanna check that kinda domain name like http://www.sweetis.me

b) It makes sense to get your domain name as a seperate entity from your webhosting (i.e. domain name from company ABC, webhosting from company XYZ). You do not want to give 100% domain name control to your webhosting service provider only to give them a chance to claim YOUR purchased domain name as theirs (not saying all webhosting providers are unethical but it can happen).

c) Consider if you want to keep your domain name locked so NO ONE can say you authorised them to use your domain name (keep your domain name with one domain registrar). This should come at a very affordable price (about US$5 to US$9 per year).

2. Your choice of free or paid webhosting service provider

a) Make sure your chosen webhosting service provider is not on any <a href=”http://www.myqute.com/2008/11/how-to-find-out-if-your-websiteblog-is-blacklisted-what-you-can-do-about-it/”>’blacklist’ list</a>.

If your website hosting provider is on a blacklist, it may mean that your site/blog (hosted with them) gets inaccessible or possibly blocked and banned by your internet service provider. This means people from certain geographical locations will not be able to visit your website and you don’t want that.

b) Take into account bandwidth – can your website accomodate more than say 500 visitors a day? If not, your 501th visitor will get a server down notice. 2MB or 5MB bandwidth from most free or extra-cheap webhosting plans may not be sufficient, especially if you have a busload of friends visiting your site/blog every other day!

Also, good webhosters should not be using unethical ways to direct your traffic to their own sites without visitors ever seeing YOUR homepage (usually this holds true of some free webhosters); some free webhosters set file limitations eg. image files larger than 2mb cannot be uploaded, or that you cannot upload more than blah number of files a day.

c) Ask about what constitutes “excessive use of CPU resources”.  They can be anything from chat rooms to image-hosting galleries.  Or even a mere WordPress login that is more than 20 minutes!

Make sure that what you want is also what they allow.  I learned this the hard way when my webhosting account got suspended without any warning.  There was no time to go back and retrieve my wordpress backups as they weren’t willing to restore my account.

If you’re afraid that this may be a problem for your hosting, consider using co-located or dedicated hosting. That’s the difference – shared hosting means hundreds or perhaps thousands of websites hosted online, dedicated hosting means you have all the webhosting space and resources all to yourself.

d) Commercial hosting may provide your own IP address for a little extra (people want their own IP address to connect directly to payment gateways for example, or for use with a secure https:// URL ). But if you are using the likes of PayPal and Moneybooker to take online payments, you DO NOT
need an IP address nor a payment gateway.

There – Free hosting versus functionality and convenience in Commercial (paid) hosting – carefully weigh this yourself.

e) 200 to 500mb webhosting space should be enough for a start (sufficient for uploads of a few generations of photo heirlooms!).

f) find out all upgrade charges so you won’t be disappointed to fork out extra $ for any future upgrades (some webhosting plans do not host video files, for example unless you pay more)

g) Your webhosting provider should also have a cPanel (control-panel, dashboard or admin login whatever) so you can set up at least one MySql database. [At this moment don't ask why, you will find out why later!]

h) If you are planning to buy a script (example, a game-hosting script or a directory/community listing/forum) makes sure your webhosting provider has the hardware requirements and minimum configurations for it to work.

i) Do some shopping before you decide on using a webhost of your choice.  Read web reviews!  It’s pretty easy to see if a review is genuine or not!

j) Change ‘Name servers’ (eg. NameCheap.com) with the info provided (your webhost).  Wait approximately 24 hours for your domain name to propagate with your webhosting provider’s.

3. Download the latest version of your free wordpress script at WordPress.org

a) Remember where (which folder) on your pc you intend to download the compressed WordPress script file (.zip file).

b) Double click on the .zip file to unpack (unzip) all files to your chosen folder destination – you do this with a software like 7-zip (free).

4. Download a free FTP (File Transfer Protocol) - a software that helps you to upload files to your webhosting server later. You can get a bloody good and free FTP – just google for FILEZILLA.

5. Set up one MySql database. Basically you login to your control panel (Cpanel) with the provided information given by your webhosting service provider. You need to make up a database name and password.

6. Using Notepad, edit the files as mentioned in the wordpress’ HELP or README document (i.e. wp-config_sample.php). It should match the database name and password you created in step 5. Save the file as as wp-config.php

7. Using your FTP (like FILEZILLA you may have downloaded in step 4), upload all files to your server before chmod-ing all files (set file and folder permission) as mentioned in the wordpress’s HELP or README document.

8. To CHMOD, key in 644 or 755 or whatever that’s mentioned in the wordpress’s HELP or README document.  (Folders should be Chmoded to 755 and files should be Chmoded to 644.)

9. Online Installation.

a) If you’ve installed it to http://www.abc.com go to

http://www.abc.com/wp-admin/install.php , fill in the details and click NEXT. You do these for the next few pages.

b) Installation should be complete at this step. Take note of your admin name and password.

c) Delete the install.php (for security purposes).

10. Login to your wordpress: http://www.abc.com/wp-admin/login.php

You’re ready to start blogging now!

Installing themes (layouts)

Changing a theme is good because it allows your blog a fresh new look. you can find many free wordpress themes around as well as the premium themes.

10 Advanced WordPress Themes Video Tutorials at just US$0. 99!

How to install WordPress Plugins

Plugins add more “functions” or features to your wordpress blog. Some of them can be widgets.

VERY helpful references:

• Understanding your wordpress structure and how to edit your free wordpress theme
• A free download from WPcandy.com: Advanced WordPress Helpsheet (for more customisation options)

How often to blog? As often as your heart desires.  Unless getting visitors/readers to your blog is not important for you, do not leave your blog “unattended” for too long.  There are resources to help
you with blogging automatically even while you’re on vacation or just want to slag a bit!

The latest version of WordPress 2.6.3 (at the time of publishing this blog post) allows you to post blog entries months in advance!

UpStartBlogger reveals the inner-workings of your WordPress Admin dashboard.