In my last post, I mentioned that you should “host” your own site, as it is easier to move it if you should need to in the future. I probably should have discussed hosting a little bit more.

I will try to make this as simple as possible….

When you purchase a domain name, such as this one (www.MyOtherIncomeBlog.com), you need a hosting company that will place it on their servers and allow you to direct the name to them. Think of the domain name as an address and you are trying to send a letter… you just need to know what the address is so that people can find it. The host provides the actual connection to the internet.

There are many different hosting companies out there. They range in the services they offer from very basic for a couple dollars a month to the nearly “everything you need in one place” for up to hundreds of dollars a month. Some hosting companies include Hostcabin.com and Flux Services (which offers to host unlimited websites for just $7.95 a month).

My personal favorite and the one that I use often is GoDaddy. By using this link, you can get your .com domain name for just $7.95.

If you are unfamiliar with how to set-up a web server from your house, most hosts will have detailed instructions for you to follow and an information Help Desk that will walk you through the process. You can even purchase ebooks on how to set-up your server from home in just a few easy steps. 

Once you have the hosting account, you need to start thinking about the type of site you need for what you intend to accomplish. For instance, this is a blog site. It is meant to be fluid so that I can add new material on a regular basis. Many commerce sites are static, meaning that they are not changed on a regular basis, and then it’s usually only subtle changes or updates.

If you should choose a blog, I suggest reading my previous post on MyOtherIncomeBlog.com. It has information that may be handy on creating a WordPress blog. While there are other types of blogs available, I have used WordPress quite a bit and am very happy with the results. You can even purchase a series of videos for about $15 that will walk you through the steps to create your own blog on WordPress. Of course, if you want to be cheap and waste a lot of time, you can always Google “WordPress tutorial“.

If you are going to have a static site, the question is will you build it yourself or will you have one built for you?

We’ll talk about that in my next post.

See ya!