When you are new to blogging, web hosting isn’t really on your radar because most likely, you are using a free blogging platform. You grow your blog, you gain a little notoriety, traffic picks up to the point that you you’d like to be more of a professional blogger. You find that WordPress is generally where bloggers head and find out that you must have your own hosting to place advertisements and monetize your blog. ::::sigh::::

Hosting? What is hosting and why do I have to “buy” it?

Hosting is that complicated middle man between the domain name (URL) and when you can view your blog on the Internet. The “host” does just that. It “hosts” or serves up your site in such a manner as to cause it to be viewable when someone types in or clicks on your URL.

Hosting = Viewable.
Hosting = pay someone to provide that service.
Hosting + WordPress = professional blogging.

Hello, you now have expenses!

Don’t despair. You can get great hosting for less than $100 per year.

Does it really matter who I choose as my host?

If your host does not provide your site with enough speed to load your blog in the blink of an eye, you have the wrong host. It can cost you in traffic, readership, Google page rank and frustrated readers. PLEASE, do your homework and know exactly what you should be looking for.

If you aren’t careful you purchase hosting service from a re-seller from a larger company? Re-sellers are probably not going to give you the same level of service as an actual hosting company. They are only leasing server space from a hosting company. I vote NO especially your first round of purchasing hosting. Watch out for sly, silver-tongued re-sellers who rook you in via a webinar too!!!!

How do I find a great host?

Below is the list of questions about the info I could have used to start with. I certainly wish I had enough knowledge to know before I purchased hosting the first time. I learned the hard way that all hosting is NOT created equally.

1. Will you be allowed to make all the changes to your account yourself, including contact, credit card and other changes?
2. How easy is it to cancel  hosting if you purchase it?
3. What are the limits on the number of email boxes, size of email box, the site size or the bandwidth?
4. Is it possible to install WordPress with “one click”.
5. Is it possible update your WordPress site easily?
6. Do you have full FTP (File Transfer Protocol) access to your files?
7. Do you have full access to your control panel and databases through your phpMyAdmin?
8. Is the host using the most current versions of PHP and MySQL software?
9. Is the host keeping PHP and MySQL software updated?
10. Is tech support available directly from the hosting company?
11. Does the host offer 24/7 phone and/or chat support?
12. Is the hosting company too busy promoting themselves in a manner that is demeaning to women? Have they been sold lately? Does their CEO hunt endangered animals? If so – RUN!

I can’t teach you in one blog post what a lot of the terms mean, so use your fave search engine and learn what they mean or at least get a good idea. I don’t know in detail, but I know enough to have a good feel for their meaning.

Which host do you recommend?

Revka will tell you and (now) so will I, that if you are looking for hosting, we vote for Hostgator (aff. link). Before Revka switched me over to Hostgator, I was personally unable to get my page rank to show at all after 8 months. After 3 days on Hostgator I had a PR2.  I also now  have a WebSite Grade (websitegrader.com) of 99/100. Like magic, I am now getting organic traffic from search engines.

If in doubt, ask for help, use search engines, ask for referrals from bloggers who have been at this for more than a minute.

I hope you find this helpful!

Ginger Jones

Ginger Jones from Attention Deal Shoppers shares coupons, great deals, and other frugal ideas with her readers.

You’re doing great! You’ve installed WordPress, changed your permalink settings to a more user-friendly format, and customized your general settings.

There are a few more settings to go through, but first I want to help you get started creating pages.

Page, Post – What’s the Difference?

WordPress beginners often ask me what the difference is between posts and pages. WordPress.org explains it this way:

“Posts automatically appear in reverse chronological order on your blog’s home page. [Note from Revka: Settings can be changed to force your blog posts to appear on a page other than your home page.] Pages, on the other hand, are for content such as “About Me,” “Contact Me,” etc. Pages live outside of the normal blog chronology, and are often used to present information about yourself or your site that is somehow timeless — information that is always applicable.”

Read full explanation here.

Writing a Page

To create a page, log in to your WordPress admin area. In the left sidebar, look for the Pages link. Click on that. You’ll see two more links drop down underneath as shown in the image on the left. Click on the Add New link shown highlighted in yellow.

When you click on that link, you are brought to the editor.  This editor is how you create all of your pages (and posts, which we will talk about later).  The page and post editors are very similar so let’s take a look at it now. You’ll need to click the image to view it full size and read the notes.

You’ll want to insert the page title and then start writing the body of the page. To use any of the tool bar buttons, first click and drag to select the text to which you want the formatting applied then click the desired button.

Publishing a Page

Once you’re done writing and formatting your page content, you’re ready to save, schedule, or publish your page. These options are all found in the Publish section at the top of the column to the right of the editor.

To save your page to be completed at a later time, click the Save Draft button underneath the Publish heading.

To change the date your page is published, find and click the Edit link to the right of Publish immediately. The time should be entered in 24-hour format. (If you don’t want to convert afternoon times to 24-hour time, just publish everything in the morning.)

When you’re ready to make your page live, click the blue Publish button at the bottom right of the Publish section. (Note that if you have changed the Publish date to a future time, the button will say Schedule instead of Publish.)

Need Help?

We just covered the basics of creating pages in WordPress. If you’re feeling lost, you might benefit from a one-on-one WordPress training session. During the session, you will be taken through all sections of your WordPress admin area and given thorough instructions for how to use and manage your site.

You’re also welcome to post your WordPress questions on our Facebook fan page. Questions are answered on our wall on Thursdays.

The WordPress Wednesday series offers a weekly tip to help you get the most from your WordPress powered site. Click to view all the posts in this series.