Meryl's Notes Blog

21 comments

• Posted by Federico Zoufaly on July 21st, 2008, 12:42 PM

  I think there is also a middle way. You can easily setup your blog with a service like blogger and just buy your own domain name for less than $10/year. You can easily change the layout if that is important to you or as soon as it becomes important.
  What I am trying to say is that it is not necessary to build the whole infrastructure to get a blog that bears your name and that looks exactly how you want it to look.

• Posted by Ron on July 21st, 2008, 5:23 PM

  There is also a middle ground. My ISP/web host, Dreamhost, provides one click installs of WordPress. They also provide a easy way/hard way for those installs. One doesn’t let you edit as much, but they take care of all the updates. The other is a full install you are then responsible for.

  And the middle option for a theme is to buy a theme. This means you aren’t unique, but you also aren’t the same as everyone else. That’s what I did with Distinctions For Life.

  Ron

  Ron’s last blog post… How To Use Focus To Change How You Feel

• Posted by Meryl / @merylkevans on July 21st, 2008, 5:46 PM

  @Frederico, thanks for bringing up that important point.

  @Ron, I was just realizing I left that off — many web hosts come with Cpanel, which includes Fantastico and one-click installation of WP like you said. Just take care because sometimes they don’t provide an updated version of the software — which is an issue where security fixes are concerned.

• Posted by Ron on July 21st, 2008, 6:33 PM

  Meryl:

  I use the one click install the first time, but update manually every time after that. Haven’t had any issues in years on my personal blog.

  Ron

  Ron’s last blog post… How To Use Focus To Change How You Feel

• Posted by Graham Strong on July 21st, 2008, 9:14 PM

  Another round-about way to have free hosting and the advantages of your own domain name is to find a domain registration company that includes domain forwarding in the price.

  Then, once you have set up a hosted WP or Blogger.com account, take the URL they give you and forward your domain to that URL.

  Some companies also offer domain masking so that no matter what the URL is, it will always have your domain name in the address bar (i.e. http://www.yourname.com).

  Still not as professional and effective as hosting on your own server, but a “more professional” middle ground — and perhaps a good way to start off at least.

  ~Graham

  Graham Strong’s last blog post… What the Heck is Blog ROI?

• Posted by Meryl / @merylkevans on July 21st, 2008, 9:19 PM

  Graham, thanks for sharing another option. I know someone who uses this — it allows his blog to have its own domain name and he doesn’t have to worry about software upgrades. The downside… he can’t add plug-ins on his developer-hosted site.

• Posted by Graham Strong on July 21st, 2008, 10:10 PM

  I didn’t realize about the plug-in limitation… Just goes to show that the hosted option is ultimately the best way to go.

  It does take a little bit of learning to upload to a server, install a new skin, register your domain and all that fun stuff. But it’s not too difficult — hey, I used to create websites by hand-coding, so we’ve come a long way since then! And as you say, you can always contract it out. I would think most designers would charge about an hour’s work to set up a domain and install WP on a server. A small price to pay to possibly avoid a lot of headaches!

  ~Graham

• Posted by Victoria Cullip on July 23rd, 2008, 1:22 AM

  I wish someone would write more about starting blogs for the absolute beginner. I think a lot of sites and blogs assume you know how to do things. This is a whole new world for many of us stuck in the age of printed newspapers so any blogs like this are always helpful

• Posted by Meryl / @merylkevans on July 23rd, 2008, 12:37 PM

  Victoria, are you talking about the process of getting a site, domain and setting up the blog? Of course, setting up the blog part is hard because there are so many products. It’s probably best to hire someone or use the one-click install that Graham mentioned.

• Posted by David Weiss on July 23rd, 2008, 3:38 PM

  Meryl:

  Being the biased TypePad Hack that I am, I feel as though I have to set the record straight on TypePad.

  Sure, you can do the “easy way” with a pre-made template and have it hosted on TypePad’s servers.

  But you can also use your own domain name, and with a little help from TypePadHacks.org, you can customize your blog to include all sorts of nifty features.

  There are tons of pre-made widgets, and you can even make your own with 3rd party tools. Everyone seems to integrate their toolset with TypePad, so there is no shortage of functionality for your TypePad blog.

  And since your TypePad blog is hosted, things like server maintenance are not an issue.

  It’s the best of all worlds, really. There are some features of Movable Type (made by the same company) that are not available in TypePad, but all-in-all, you get a very robust platform with plenty of opportunity for customization if you have the need/urge.

  David Weiss’s last blog post… Join the TypePad Hacks Affiliate Program

• Posted by Meryl / @merylkevans on July 24th, 2008, 9:53 AM

  @David, that’s another option I overlooked. Thanks for adding that to the discussion. This should help those who want to set it up without installing MT on the server.

• Posted by amy on July 28th, 2008, 6:47 AM

  My situation is that I have a website to help promote my book, Brewing Battles: A History of American Beer hosted by Network Solutions. The package came with blog capability via Wordpress. When I tried to set it up I realized that I would, in essence, be creating a new website with its own domain. I tried to intergrate it into my website with ftp file transfer but it didn’t work. I also tried the same thing with blogger but it also didn’t work. After a lot of frustrating phone time I went the old fashioned route and set up a page on my website called “musings’ with a message board. It works okay but I have to do everything manually and each time it is like redesigning the web page. I would like to have more of the features of a regular blog and also be able to just post and publish. Typepad seems to offer something called domain mapping. Would this give me a blog page on my website with my domain name? Any advice would be great.

• Posted by Graham Strong on July 28th, 2008, 7:23 AM

  @Amy - Do you have a Windows server or a Linux server? For the PHP blog software, you need a Linux server with a MySQL database (some Windows servers have this too, but not many). WordPress gives you instructions about how to get into your server control panel, set up a database, etc. It is not extremely difficult, but it is a little technical. You might want to hire this out if you are at all intimidated.

  As an added touch, I changed the basic WordPress skin to emulate the pages of my website. If you look closely, you can see subtle differences (the header graphic, for example, is not lined up precisely…) But for the average user, the transition is fairly seamless.

  From a technical point of view (I’ve done a bit of web design), WordPress seemed to me to be the easiest to install and use on a server. If you are having problems, double check the WordPress Help files — they are pretty good, I’ve found.

  Otherwise, as mentioned above, you might want to hire it out. Depending on how integrated you want your blog to be (i.e. simply on the same server, different web design vs. full design integration with your current design) it shouldn’t be that much for a web designer to upload and set up for you. Graphic work can send the price up of course. You could also do it in phases — pay someone to get your blog up for you now and then integrate the graphics later, if money is an issue.

  But first, you have to find out if you have a Windows or Linux server. Take a look at your original sign-up documentation, or contact your server provider.

  Hope it works out for you!

  ~Graham

  Graham Strong’s last blog post… What the Heck is Blog ROI?

• Posted by David Weiss on July 28th, 2008, 11:18 AM

  @Amy:

  All the blogging tools allow for using your own domain name - Blogger, WP, and TypePad.

  Generally speaking, you need to “point” your domain at the host via a simple DNS entry. Then, there is usually some facility with the blogging service/software to tell it to use your domain name in conjunction with a specific blog in your installation.

  We’ve found that this is one of the most confusing things for people to try to tackle on their own. It does take a little bit of expertise to make it work correctly.

  David Weiss’s last blog post… Join the TypePad Hacks Affiliate Program

• Posted by Kate on August 3rd, 2008, 9:28 PM

  I have found that using a domain on blogger is really easy to set up and keep it looking professional . I had word press on a domain with a previous site, but there were way too many code issues with the host, my site was down more than it was up. Blogger is a great choice.

  Kate’s last blog post… A Rant About Spec Work Scammers

• Posted by Harrisburg Web Design on August 4th, 2008, 12:19 PM

  I recommend to all of my business clients to go with a “self” hosted blog for business blogging. A Blogger or similar solution is fine for a personal blog but for business blogs the best way to go long term is hosting it yourself. It may be harder to set up initially but well worth it. No designer would advocate a free hosting service for a business website so why should a blog be any different? Using Blogger with a masked forward etc. is just a bandaid solution IMO. You will have much more control etc. with hosting the software.

• Posted by David Weiss on August 7th, 2008, 10:44 AM

  @Harrisburg:

  Hogwash!

  The bottom line is matching the platform to your ability to create and maintain your blog(s), whether you run a blog for a $10 million company or you are starting a business out of you basement or garage.

  For the vast, vast majority of people out there just starting a blog, whether for business, fun or whatever, setting up and maintaining a self-hosted solution like Movable Type, Drupal, and Wordpress is a non-starter - a hurdle too big and complicated to get over.

  The ongoing maintenance after your install is another huge hurdle - patching and/or upgrading MySQL, Apache, and the blog platform itself is not a task your average small business person would want to do, or is capable of doing. Small business men and women just don’t want to focus their time and effort on this sort of thing. They simply want to write their content and get their stories and messages out there without hassle.

  Shameless plug:

  This is where TypePad Hacks comes into the picture. When you’ve decided you want a blog that has design elements and bells and whistles that aren’t available “out of the box”, you come to us. We are probably the only experts out there who know the ins and outs of how to make TypePad do all the things you want it to.

  In short, we are the bridge between a standard, typical blog and the “self hosted” blog that allows you to have complete control over everything.

  Basically, we provide you with the best of both worlds.

• Posted by Carrie on August 19th, 2008, 12:23 PM

  Hello! I’ve been having problems with WordPress simply because a friend that’s hosting my website space installed an older version of it I guess and I couldn’t get it to forward to my website. So I tried to upgrade it myself and it went terribly wrong after that.

  I decided that since I don’t know THAT much about WordPress to begin with I should go for something easier. I’ve been thinking Blogger, but when I go to create a CNAME record on my domain name hosting service I cannot because it says I must have something “carrie.itsnearlyfree.com” instead of what I tried “www.itsnearlyfree.com/carrie/blog”

  I really don’t know what to do at this point but I would use TypePad if I could figure it out! But I imagine it’s the same as Blogger anyhow. Any help would be much appreciated.

  Oh and yes, I paid for my domain name but a friend hosts my site elsewhere.

• Posted by Amy on September 16th, 2008, 6:10 PM

  I had posted in July about trying to set up a blog on my website which is hosted by Network Solutions. I think I can set it up but I find wordpress very confusing. Will my username automatically appear at the end of every post? Is there a way to post older entries from a different site and have the original date?

• Posted by Jeff Paul Scam on January 24th, 2009, 12:29 AM

  It has been amazing to grow any business on the Internet, I need to market strategically to my customers, using a range for tools from content sharing to email marketing, search engine optimization, co-branding, ad buys, and more, to reach your target audience.

• Posted by Amy on January 26th, 2009, 9:31 AM

  So I finally paid someone to set up a wordpress blog on my website which is hosted by Network Solutions. My main requirement was that it look like the rest of my site. She got it about 85 percent of the way but in retrospect she was a poor designer. I find wordpress impossible to use so then I found someone who works with my husband who helped me get it to 100 percent. To use wordpress effectively you have to read through pages and pages and pages of forum and fag posts. It is too time consuming. Even after you do that you will have to make changes in either html or css. I feel this is beyond the average user. I had previously tried to set up a blog in blogger and it was much easier. I feel that my experience with wordpress shows that sometimes it is worth paying for something.

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