Successfully making money online involves a lot of important factors, not the least of which is maintaining an online presence for yourself.

You need to have somewhere online, some website or blog, where people can find and get to know you.

Unfortunately, not everyone knows where to begin setting something like this up, so I wanted to take a minute to share my results with Bluehost, the company my wife and I use to run the various blogs associated with our online business.

Bluehost Products and Services

Hosting and Registration

Bluehost offers an immense number of different services – more, in fact, than I could ever go over in detail in a single article, but the main ones are definitely worth covering.

Bluehost excels when it comes to domain registration and hosting accounts. Bluehost can host domains that are registered with them, or domain names that have been purchased from a competitor.

Bluehost’s hosting accounts have always been, in my experience, extremely reliable.

One of the biggest benefits of using Bluehost for your web hosting is the fact that Bluehost hosting accounts are not only affordable, but come with unlimited storage space and bandwidth – something other leading competitors put a cap on, or charge extra for.

Bluehost also offers the benefit of a free domain name with it’s hosting plans – the annual registration fee for your account’s primary domain name is waived – so if you’re only running a single site, all you have to pay for is hosting.

Email

Bluehost provides it’s hosting clients with unlimited email addresses, so no matter how large or diverse your business is, you’ll be able to set up as many email accounts as you like.

Bluehost provides a number of different web-based email applications that can be used to send and receive messages, but they also provide POP3 and IMAP support, allowing you to synchronize your email with whatever email application (such as Outlook, or Thunderbird) or mobile device you like. For the less tech-savvy, there are easy to follow tutorial videos on how to set this up.

Application Scripts

For those who want to run an application like WordPress to organize their site, Bluehost is ideal. They provide installation scripts that make setting up platforms like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and dozens of others as simple as a few clicks.

Bluehost’s installation scripts make it possible for anyone, to easily set up a blog, ecommerce site, help desk, photo gallery or social network without having to learn how to install the software.

Support

Another area where Bluehost really shines is their technical support. With a 24/7 call center, you can always get the help you need. In addition, there is an online knowledge base, containing articles and instructions to help users through common problems, as well as an incredibly convenient online chat that is also available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Having logged into the support chat a handful of times, I have yet to encounter a technical support member who hasn’t been knowledgeable and prompt in solving the issues I have run into, even when if I’m looking for help in getting something within a platform like WordPress working.

Bluehost’s technical support is knowledgeable and competent to help not only with their own products, but also with the different applications they provide installation scripts for – making it extremely easy to get the help you need, regardless of the type of site you are running.

All in all, I have personally had a great experience with Bluehost, and recommend them to anyone who asks me about a hosting provider – especially if I know that person is interested in running a WordPress site.

One of the most essential aspects of network marketing is building your brand. Your brand is your voice. It’s your image. Its what comes into people’s minds when they see or hear your name. Your brand is what your audience will rally behind and follow.

Social media is a key component to branding yourself online. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are where people will discover you, but once they’ve found you, it’s important that they can get to know you. It’s vital that you have more to offer than your status updates.

That’s where having a blog comes in. A professional looking blog sends a clear message to your network of friends and prospects that you know what you are doing, and lets them learn as much as possible about you and what you do. A good blog turns those friends and prospects into customers and fans.

Deciding how to go about setting up your first blog is no easy task. Should you use a free option, like Blogger, or WordPress.com? Or is it worth the investment to set up a self-hosted blog? The answer is yes, it is definitely worth it, and when it comes to self-hosted blogging platforms, WordPress is hands down the best option we’ve found.

What’s The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

WordPress.com is a free blogging platform which allows you to create an account and start a blog on their servers, completely free. While this is great for the casual blogger, there are several drawbacks to consider if you want your blog to be taken seriously. First off, your free blog is going to have an undesireable address, since free wordpress blogs look like this: yourblogname.wordpress.com.

Doesn’t exactly present the most professional image. You really want NEED to have your own domain name attached to your blog. To do this on a free blog, you’ll need to purchase the domain name, and an upgrade to map it to you blog – which is no longer “free.” Additionally, you’ll be limited in terms of styling and functionality. We’ll discuss that more in a moment.

WordPress.org is completely different animal. You can download the WordPress platform and install it on your own server or hosting account. This means you have your own independent blog, with your own domain name. You also have access to all of the files associated with your blog, and whatever theme you choose to style it with (oh, and you also have access to literally thousands of more themes than you would with a free blog). This means you (or someone you know/hire) can customize literally every detail of your site, from the color of the background to the size of the font.

You also have access to plugins, which are extensions of WordPress that can be installed on your blog to add virtually any function you can imagine. There are thousands of plugins out there that can do anything from displaying your Twitter updates, to tracking visitors to your site or you can even create an entire product catalog and shopping cart system. Plugins are the real prize of a self hosted WordPress blog, because they enable you to make your site into pretty much anything you can imagine.

How Much?

Okay, so if a WordPress.com blog is free, how much does it cost to use it on my own site?

Surprise! It’s also free. WordPress is a free to use, open source platform (meaning the code that runs it is available to anyone – allowing for the creation of all the themes and plugins that are available) so it costs nothing to download and use. You will need to purchase a domain name (usually under $10/year) and a hosting account (generally around $80/year) and you’re good to go.

Basically, for about $90 a year you can have a fully functional, professional blog building your brand and turning your audience into customers.

Where Do I Start?

1. You need a domain name, and a hosting account. We recommend using one of these registrars:
   • BlueHost – WordPress.org’s top recommended host
   • GoDaddy – One of the most popular domain registrars on the internet
2. Install WordPress. Both of the sites below have easy installation options that do the hard parts for you, or you can always download WordPress from WordPress.org and install it yourself with the provided instructions.
3. Start writing! Once WordPress is installed, you can start creating content. Granted, there are other things to consider – like themes, plugins, optimization, etc. Those will come with time.

If you find you need help or guidance with any part of your blogging adventure, we can help. We run another blog dedicated to helping network marketers set up and optimize their own WordPress blog, which is full of articles and tutorial videos to get you up and running, from installation to search engine optimization. Feel free to stop by over at  WelcomeToWordPress.com if you have any questions or need any advice!