How To Set Up A Self-Hosted Wordpress Blog Without Spending A Dime!
I have set up this blog on a free webhost because, well… its FREE! I wanna get my feet wet in blogging but I don’t have the money yet so I’ve decided I should take the path to free webhosting if I want to setup my own Wordpress blog. I have a few other blogs on Wordpress.com and Blogger.com, but I think its better if you have your own hosted blog. So this is my take on a free hosted Wordpress blog.
Here are the instructions on how I set up my blog in at least 3 days.
STEP 1: Get a Free Domain Name (Co.CC)
You can buy your own .COM domain, of course, but we are aiming at totally $0 spending, so we also need to sign up for a free domain name. In my case, I’ve signed up for CO.CC and got the domain name “DaddyMike.co.cc”. When you sign up, you are allowed to register up to 2 domain names per account. Other free domain names are available, it depends on your preference. (Note: setting up with a custom domain name will take 24-48 hours for propagation, meaning, you can’t access your something.co.cc site after you signed up for it).
Most free webhosts offer you to have your domain name under a subdomain, say daddymike.netz90.com or daddymike.890j.com. This is ok, although having your brand name under a subdomain doesn’t really have a kick. If you want to save the hassle of signing up for a free domain name, then jump off to step 2.
STEP 2. Sign up for a free PHP/MySQL webhost (000webhost)
You will have a big list to choose from. Try googling “Free PHP MySQL host” and you’ll see a lot of sites offering totally free web hosting with no ads. I chose 000webhost because based from my experience, they are quite a reliable free web host. I have an account with them a year ago and I can still access my account until now. And you can setup multiple sites with just one account! They also have a hefty amount of storage memory and bandwidth for your site.
Plug in the domain name you registered on CO.CC (or any other free domain host you chose) on the “I want to host my own domain” field. Or if you skipped step 1, you can type in your prefered free subdomain. Then click “Setup New Account”.
STEP 3: Set up the nameservers in your free webhost to point to your free domain name.
(NOTE: Skip this step if you chose a free subdomain.) Once you’ve set up your account, you need to set up your nameservers to point to the domain you registered. Click on the “List Accounts” tab, then click the “Go to CPanel” link.
You should see something like this. It means that you need to point your domain to the nameservers ns01.000webhost.com and ns02.000webhost.com. So now we log into our CO.CC account, then go to domain settings, and click on the domain name we registered earlier, then click the “Setup” button. You should see something similar to the one below:
Click on “Manage DNS” and type in the nameservers you had in your account; in our case its ns01.000webhost.com and ns02.000webhost.com.
Step 4: Wait for 48 hours, then Install Wordpress
If you try to access “yourdomain.co.cc” right away, you’ll arrive at a page from the CO.CC domain. It will need some time to propagate through all the nameservers in the world. After 48 hours, acces your domain from the browser and you should arrive at a page saying “Your website is up and running!” This is the time you install Wordpress.
Installing Wordpress (WP for short) should be fairly easy for those who know a bit of FTP. For instructions on how to install WP, please go to this link: http://codex.wordpress.org/Getting_Started_with_WordPress#Installation. It best explains the process of installing and configuring WP.
Step 5: Get some nice WP themes and plugins!
The biggest advantage of having a self-hosted WP blog compared with Blogger or Wordpress.com is the flexibility offered by plugins. They are scripts that adds functionality to your WP blog. Some of the plugins I personally use are:
There’s a whole bunch of WP themes and plugins available all around the world wide web! You can also make your own since WP uses an open-source scripting language: PHP. If you know PHP, you can surely make your own WP themes and plugins.
I’ll be posting some of the best WP themes and plugins around, so subscribe to my blog and be updated!
Conclusion:
You don’t have to shed some cash to start up your self-hosted WP blog. If you’re someone who’s still trying out blogging, or have been blogging before but don’t have the budget for owning a hosted WP blog, then this option is for you. For a free host and a free domain, you won’t get any support from the companies themselves, but the support lies on the community that uses the free services. If you are a dedicated blogger and want to make a business out of blogging, then its better you host your blog on a premium paid server.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
You can also try Host4Pro !I use them for Moneybookers Web Hosting (http://www.host4pro.com/payment/moneybookers/) And Unlimited Web Hosting (http://www.host4pro.com/hosting/)