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13 Lucky Free Web Content Management Systems for a WordPress Hater

August 3, 2011 By 22 Comments

I honestly see no reason for hating WordPress. Millions of people simply can’t be wrong. Just look at the numbers. 13,800,000 blogs running as self-hosted installations, and 13,900,000 active blogs on wordpress.com (2010 data). Of the top 1 million websites (according to Alexa) 12.4% use WordPress. That’s a whopping 124,000 of them.

But still, you don’t have to be preaching WordPress if you don’t want to. So if you’re about to launch a new website you might as well use a different web content management system (CMS). Or don’t use any CMS at all, and build the site from the ground up with pure PHP and HTML. Although this is probably not the best possible idea since there are tons of great systems out there.

Here’s a list of 13 top web content management systems you should consider if you’re not really into this WordPress thing.

1. Joomla!

(http://www.joomla.org/)

I had been a Joomla! (don’t forget about the exclamation mark) programmer for a couple of years before I switched to WordPress. Joomla! is an advanced, full-blown open source content management system that powers 2.7% of the entire web (as it’s claimed on joomla.org). Joomla! provides many functions you would expect from a CMS, plus has an impressive directory of extensions (8,065 of them at the time of writing). This CMS is great for all sorts of corporate websites or portals, online magazines, e-commerce stores, small business websites, and other.

If you want a social proof here’re some websites that use Joomla!: http://gsas.harvard.edu, http://www.outdoorphotographer.com, http://www.quizilla.com.

2. Drupal

(http://drupal.org/)

An open source platform as well. Drupal is close to the top of this list not without a reason. It’s a great CMS for building corporate websites, information portals, enterprise applications and even blogs. Plus, you can choose from more than 8,000 modules (extensions).

Some websites that use Drupal: http://www.fastcompany.com/, http://www.popsugar.com/, http://www.symantec.com/connect/, http://www.observer.com/.

3. CMS Made Simple

(http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/)

The name itself is pretty self-explanatory. CMS Made Simple is the winner of the “overall best open source CMS award 2010″ by Packt Publishing. It’s a scalable platform (suited both for small businesses and large corporations) and provides a really big list of features. Some of them are: SEO friendly URLs, user and group management, multiple language support, multiple themes per website, forms, polls, newsletters, guestbookÖ there’s no point to mention every single feature here, just go to cmsmadesimple.org and find out for yourself.

4. Plone

(http://plone.org/)

First non-PHP CMS on this list. Plone runs on Python. But what it runs on is not important to the end user. What is important though is its simple and easy to use interface. “Elegant minimalism” they call it. The new version of Plone is claimed to be 50% faster than the previous one and to be one of the fastest open source CMS platforms on the market. Its many features and constantly growing community makes it the top non-PHP choice.

5. XOOPS

(http://www.xoops.org/)

Back to PHP systems. Easy to use, feature-rich, and fully modularized ñ this pretty much sums it up. Some interesting features are: expanded users management and theme-based GUI (with over 1,000 currently available themes).

6. PHP-Nuke

(http://www.phpnuke.org/)

This one is old-school. It was one of the most popular systems when I was starting out as a PHP programmer. Fortunately, it hasn’t been forgotten and it’s still developed by a devoted community. The counter on phpnuke.org indicates more than 8,450,000 downloads, which is impressive to say the least.

7. e107

(http://www.e107.org/)

“e107, it’s pimp, init?” ñ one of the random sentences you see when you visit e107.org. This is a great, developer-friendly CMS with many interesting features, and if you think there’s something missing you can suggest a new feature. There’s a special section on the site for that. If you happen to be a product owner yourself then here’s a hint ñ there’s no better way of showing your community that you care than by letting them suggest new ideas for improvement.

8. Magnolia CMS

(http://www.magnolia-cms.com/)

It’s targeted mainly towards business users, so it’s no surprise it’s the CMS of choice for many government and large corporate websites. Among its many features there’s a possibility to preview content exactly as it would be seen by the website visitor. If you’ve been working with other CMS platforms you know that it’s not always the case. Sometimes it’s quite difficult to explain to your client why in the end the content looks differently from what they see in the editor. No such problem here.

9. dotCMS

(http://dotcms.com/)

This one is a Java-based content management system. You can choose from two available versions (free ñ Community version, and paid ñ Enterprise version). Similar to every CMS on this list this one provides a wide range of features as well. You can use it to manage small, micro-sites as well as large online magazines. If you’d like something built around Java this is basically the route to go.

10. b2evolution

(http://b2evolution.net/)

This is a blog content management system (similar to WordPress). Free and open source. It provides some classic, blog features but also many additional ones. It lets you manage files and photos, launch multiple blogs, use detailed user permissions and more. Of course, there’s a lot of available plugins too.

11. CuteNews

(http://cutephp.com/)

If you need something really simple you should consider this CMS. It’s basically just a news management system that uses some standard files instead of a normal database (like MySQL for example). Somehow it still manages to support things like commenting, archives, search function, file uploads, and even backup and restore.

12. CushyCMS

(http://www.cushycms.com/)

This CMS is probably one of the easiest to use platforms on this list. A “truly simple CMS” as the authors say. And it’s hard to disagree. I was really surprised when I learned how the CMS works because it uses none of the industry-standard ideas. The first surprising thing is that there’s no software to installÖ yea, how about that? I encourage you to find out for yourself. The video on cushycms.com is just 5 minutes.

13. Nucleus CMS

(http://nucleuscms.org/)

Basically a blog content management system running on PHP and MySQL (same as WordPress). What’s interesting about it is the fact that you can use it to launch multiple sites with a single installation. If you like to you can extend it with a number of plugins (which is kind of a standard for top-shelf CMS platforms these days). One of the more interesting features is the possibility to backup and restore the whole database with just a single click.

Which one is the best?

There’s no best or worst here. If you need a good, feature-rich, and safe content management system you can go with either one from this list. It’s best to check them all out and see which one appeals to you the most. And when you do, don’t forget to come back and let me know in the comments which one is it.

P.S. My favorite one is still WordPress sorry.

About the author: Karol K. (@carlosinho) is a 20-something year old web 2.0 entrepreneur from Poland who hates to work but loves to train capoeira. But anyway, tune in to get his blogging tips and tutorials.

Filed Under: Blogging, Reviews Tagged With: , , , , , ,

10 Things You Need To Know About WordPress

January 27, 2011 By 7 Comments

The following article is a guest post from Matthew Polo (his details at the end of this article). To submit a guest post to Blogging Labs, hit us up and we’ll get the ball rolling.

If you are ready to launch a WordPress blog and join millions around the world, there are some things you should know while your getting started.

1. Your WordPress Blog Does Not Have To Be On Hosted WordPress

You can use WordPress anywhere. This means that you don’t have to have a .WordPress.com blog, ie your blog doesn’t have to be your-blog.WordPress.com but can be your-blog.com. WordPress can host your blog for you or you can get your own hosting at a different company. Another useful feature is the ability to import or export blog contents to and from WordPress. This will allow you to keep a personal archive off line.

2. There Are No Contracts

Because its free you don’t have to commit to anything. You can leave anytime and WordPress will give you a complete xml download of all your posts and comments, so you can pack up and move your blog if you want

3. You Need A Plan…. And A Name

It is always a good idea to plan something before you do it. Develop a blog plan about why you are creating a blog, including the purpose, the target audience and the level of commitment to maintenance you envision. Try to conduct some market research on blogs that are similar and not similar to your vision and don’t limit yourself to only looking at WordPress blogs. Research some names for your blog that are consistent with your vision. Investigate the “About” sections of other blogs to see why they started as well as how well they are going after how long. This research could tell you roughly how your blog is going to go, but in no way is it a guarantee that your blog will succeed.

You should also decide whether you want to use an existing email account or specifically create one for blogging. I like to create new emails for each site and manage them all through GMail rather than use my personal one. It helps to stop people spamming me personally as well as separates my work and personal life and if I ever want to sell the blog I can give away the email address and be sure that I don’t keep getting blog related emails after I sold it.

4. Knowledge is Key and Keep an Open Mind

It is always a good idea to keep an open mind when it comes to your blogs development. Try to explore each WordPress feature fully before initiating full scale blog development. Getting to know each of the features and how to use them effectively will help your blog run smoothly. For instance, you can blog through email and mobile texting, and allow people to subscribe to your blog with alerts for blog activity. You can also create a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed to allow subscribers to view a summary and updates of your blog content anywhere on the web. These are simple things to set up, but if you don’t get in there and learn how to set them up your blog won’t work as well as it could.

5. WordPress Is Free. But There Is Some Stuff You Have To Pay For

The great thing about WordPress is that it is absolutely free, which is great if you want to give blogging a go because it won’t cost you a penny. However, there are some features that WordPress offer that will cost you a bit of dough. You can check out the paid features at http://en.WordPress.com/products/ but before you go “gun ho” on all the paid features I suggest giving the free version a good thorough go. There are plenty of plugins that you can download that will let your WordPress blog do anything, so I suggest giving them a go first.

6. One Account..More Than One Blog

Another good feature of WordPress is that you can manage more than one blog from the one account. This means that you won’t have to login to each one as you work on them.

7. You Should Subscribe To Other Blogs

You can subscribe to other blogs on WordPress easily. Reviewing other blogs to discover what others are blogging about, how they blog, blog layout, naming, content categories and tags not only will help you get a sense of what you can do with WordPress but will also get you out into the blogging community. Some good places to check out other blogs, topics and titles is through Technorati, Mashable and blog directories as well as check out other blogs blog rolls. You should activate social media buttons on your blog as well as follow other blogs through social media sites. This will keep you in the loop as well as help you get followers on your own social media pages.

8. Pingbacks Are Helpful

Pingbacks will alert others if you link to their website or blog, and will in turn alert you if another blog has linked to you. You can also allow their citations to show on your blog. An easy way to get back-links to your blog is to post articles with links to your blog in one of the free article directories, like top ranked ones Articlesbase and Ezinearticles. Although it won’t impact your blog massively. It is still a good idea to do it as it will start getting your blog out there as well as let the search engines see your blog.

9. Check Your Default Settings

WordPress has default settings that although help you avoid a long and boring set up process isn’t always what you want. For example comments are allowed for each post without prior approval by default, this means that people can write anything they want. You can pre screen all blog post comments before they post or you can turn off comments but I wouldn’t suggest it. The default for blog postings is public viewing. You can create a top level private view or create private viewing by post, allowing just yourself, friends or people with a code that you create. You can also create viewership ratings for content per each blog.

10. Submitting Your Blog To Directories Will Help Get Your Blog Out There

Although blog directories like Blogexplosion, Technorati, OnTopList, Blogdirectory, Blog Web Directory, and others found via Wikipedia and Alexa.com won’t make a massive impact on how many people will see your blog it will still help it get out there, which isn’t a bad thing.

Maintaining your own blog can be a very rewarding thing, so get in there and have a go. After all its free, whats the worst that could happen?

Matthew writes about personal finances for an impartial Australian credit card comparison website where people can find balance transfer credit card offers that reduce interest payments and help them get out of debt faster.

Filed Under: Blogging, Tutorials/How To Tagged With: , , , , ,

Is A WordPress Theme Framework Right For Your Blog?

December 20, 2010 By 13 Comments

Over the past couple of years, WordPress theme frameworks have been growing in popularity. With features like SEO integration and clean coding, frameworks like Thesis, Headway, Genesis and Platform Pro are continuing to take their bite out of the premium WordPress theme market. As you look at your blog and try to decide what look is going to go over well with your readers, it is natural to look towards these options due to their popularity in the market and marketing push, but are they the right option for your blog?

Over the past couple of weeks, I have redesigned my two biggest blogs incorporating frameworks. This blog, Blogging Labs, got the Pagelines Platform Pro treatment and Bike198 made the switch to Studiopress’s Genesis framework. Before we jump straight into if you should be looking to frameworks for your blog, let’s take a quick look at the before and after on each of my blogs.

Pagelines Platform Pro - Blogging Labs

Studiopress Genesis - Bike198

You can see the layouts and themes live by clicking here: Bike198.com | Blogginglabs.com | StudioPress Genesis | Pagelines Platform Pro

The Positives: Theme Frameworks

WordPress theme frameworks provide a lot of positive features for the blogger and these features are what make frameworks popular today. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant.

Easy Upgrades Over Time

In a typical setup, a WordPress theme framework acts as the underbelly to your theme. When installed, you do not edit or make changes to the theme itself, but you instead make a “child theme” that lays over top the framework. All of your coding, design and other changes are made within this child theme separate of the framework. When it comes time to upgrade Thesis, Genesis or any other framework you chose to run, you can completely upgrade the theme without having to change the core files again to reflect your changes. This is HUGE for bloggers who have really created their own look.

Provides A Solid Foundation For Custom Themes

Before theme frameworks, when you wanted a full custom WordPress theme, your designer had to go through the long task of converting their pages into the WordPress format. This procedure had a large cost to it as they are trying to get a specific look to integrate with WordPress. With theme frameworks, designers can take that look and lay it over a solid WordPress foundation seamlessly drastically reducing the amount of time it takes to develop a custom look. This also reduces to the cost to the blogger and allows for more “custom” options to lower budgets.

On the bloggers end, it also does not keep you tied to one designer as most of the community can work directly over these frameworks, so if your designer decides to hang up his designing hat…you can still find someone else that can work on your site without having to dig through custom code. The framework’s code is also very clean, so the blogger does not have to worry about the designers coding ability as that can have an adverse affect on page load speed and SEO if done incorrectly.

Hooks Provide Placement Advantage

Do you want to add a advertisement at the bottom of every article? How about a new global nav? This used to be a hard and tedious procedure as you had to dig through pages of code and test what would work to edit your core files and add that feature. Now…with theme frameworks and their implementation of hooks, you can easily add elements to your blog without having to edit core files. Some frameworks like Headway and Platform Pro allow drag and drop functionality and other frameworks like Thesis and Genesis have plugins that make things easier on the blogger. Either way…you are guaranteed to be able to add elements quickly and easily without affecting your core files.

Negatives: Theme Frameworks

However, like most things in life…nothing is perfect so you need to take a look at these drawbacks to theme frameworks before you make the decision to use one on your blog.

Do You Know How To Design?

When you activate your theme framework for the first time, you are going to notice that your site looks incredibly bland. Have you ever seen those plain white Thesis based sites popping up all over the web? That is because they bought the theme, activated it and started writing without any real knowledge of what it takes to make a blog look unique. Your blog design is one of your most important converting elements behind content. Your blog needs to stand out amongst the competition…not look exactly like it. If you do not have the funds or ability to make your WordPress theme framework unique, you are going to get frustrated as your blog looks exactly like everyone else that just hit activate and got to work writing.

While there are some premium child themes on the market and companies like Studiopress offer different child themes to go over their frameworks, be prepared to spend extra cash on top of the framework itself if you do not have CSS and php knowledge. Theme frameworks are not just plug and play like some other options from WooThemes, Elegant Themes and WPZoom which offer more out of the box options.

SEO Integration vs. Long Term Options

One of the marketing tricks of WordPress theme frameworks has been SEO integration. While I agree that their clean code does greatly help with SEO over time (Google hates messy code), theme frameworks also advertise their SEO integration with titles, descriptions and other elements that were previously handled by plugins like All-In-One SEO. In my opinion, by integrating all of those elements into your theme, you are marrying yourself to that theme over time and insuring your repeat custom basis with that WordPress framework by making it harder to switch in the future if you look to integrate a different look or framework. While it is true that less plugins equal a faster site, I still keep my SEO duties to a plugin so if I want to change my theme sometime in the future…I do not have to worry about porting that integration.

My Recommendation To Bloggers

As you are probably wondering by now…what is my recommendation to bloggers as you look to WordPress themes as a way to make your blog unique? Both of my main blogs are now running theme frameworks for the benefits they provide my sites. However, I have enough CSS and php knowledge to create that custom look that I was after without having to spend any extra money for a custom design. If you do not have the ability or funds to create a more custom look than the standard white on black that theme frameworks provide, I would start looking at places like WooThemes, Elegant Themes, WPZoom and Theme Forest to find a layout and look that fits your blog. There are enough great looking premium themes out there that you should not have to worry about looking exactly like your competition.

If you can afford to pony up for the custom look or premium child theme, WordPress theme frameworks are a great way to get clean code and a custom look without paying the high cost of a full blown custom WordPress option. The cost difference is in the thousands and there are plenty of quality designers that will work straight over any of the theme framework options. That also provides you with a solid platform to create edits as you see fit without having to contact your designer with every change.

As with most things in life, there is not one solution for everyone. You need to look into your needs and abilities to see what is the right choice for you. Just because everyone else is doing it…that does not mean it is the right option for your blog. If you plan on throwing up a stock install of a Worpress theme framework and making a lasting impression on your readers…you are going to be disappointed in the end.

Theme References Mentioned In Article:

WordPress Theme Frameworks

Premium WordPress Themes

Filed Under: Blogging, Wordpress Theme Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

New Look For RobbSutton.com And The Reason Behind The Madness

April 5, 2010 By 16 Comments

You might have noticed that a couple of things have changed around the pages of RobbSutton.com. Over the weekend, the design has gone through some changes and they are pretty drastic. While the actual article format hasn’t changed all that much, the overall site design went through a major overall. It was time for something different that fit the needs of the site and what you see today was the result.

The previous design based off the Headlines theme by Woothemes. While I really liked the way the site looked, the design was very image based and there was a lot of dead space between elements. Over time, I continually shortened up that dead space in the css, but it became distracting to the goal of RobbSutton.com (more on that in a minute).

When I was flipping through potential donor themes (I like to keep things cheap and base my designs off of established premium wordpress themes), I ran across a new one from the crew over at WPZoom that I knew would work perfectly. I downloaded the Yamidoo PRO Magazine and got to work. After several days of hacking away, I got to a compromise that was good enough for launch and initial testing. There are still a couple elements that need to be added and some bugs to fix, but overall I am really happy with the result.

So…back to the real reason behind the madness.

In the world of blogging, there is only room for one king. I know you have heard over and over again that content is king and there is no substitute. Well…I am here to dispel the lie. Content is not king. Why is content not the king in blogging? Because there are thousands of blogs out there with fantastic content that are still only make pennies on the day. Content by itself does not insure the success of a blog as there is an overload of quality content on the net.

So if content doesn’t sit at the head of the table…what does?

Conversion Is King In Blogging

Before you jump off this page thinking I just mentioned a mentioned a spam word…hold on for a second and go on this ride with me.

Conversion is you key into the best part of blogging…the interaction between blogger and reader. The absolute best part of this blog and my others is the connections I have been able to make with other like minded individuals. The only way you can build more relationships is by converting causal, first time visitors into subscribers to your rss feed and newsletter so that you can start the process of gaining trust.

Without that conversion, you can not build your business. Don’t worry though…content plays a HUGE part in the conversion process by attracting that first time reader to begin with, so it goes hand in hand with what I am talking about. It is also your first impression on potential new subscribers, so don’t go thinking you are going to convert well without some kind of quality content on your blog.

Now…what does that have to do with the site design change? While I really liked the way my previous design looked, it was not high enough on the conversion scale for my needs. Sometimes, by using too many images and distractions in the design, you can bring the eyes of your readers away from your content and conversion elements bringing that focus on the peripherals.

Not a good thing if you are a blogger.

So on the new design, you will find the focus back where it belongs: content, newsletter sign-ups and rss sign-ups. No clutter, no confusion and all out converting so I can connect with more bloggers and help them improve their blogs. That is what this site is about and that is the goal of RobbSutton.com. If anything else distracts from that goal, it has to go!

As you can see by the new layout, there is special emphasis paid to newsletter subscription sign ups and other assets for this blog. While I completely believe that many readers are visually attracted to blogs (through the use of images like I have talked about in earlier articles), there is a balance between the two that can not be ignored.

I have found success in blogging through helping others doing something they love…only better…regardless of niche. The more I give back and structure my sites in a way that makes that goal easy, the more success comes my way. It is a beautiful thing and outside of the connections made in various industries with passionate people…it is on of the other things I absolutely love about blogging. This new design is a step forward in the right direction to help more bloggers.

So what do you think?

Filed Under: Blogging, Content Tagged With: , , , , ,

A Look Back: 2009 Blogging and Social Media Recap

December 28, 2009 By 4 Comments

Now that we are all fat and happy from the holiday season, it is time to look forward to 2010 and our blogs. As RobbSutton.com continues to poor high octane content into the cranium of bloggers, lets take a look at where 2009 brought blogging. 2009 was a huge success from both a social media perspective and for blogging as a whole. While the HUGE paydays of Google Adsense are gone for big bloggers (really left earlier than 2009), those unrealistic expectations were replaced with solid business models that will bring the blogosphere into a legitimate money making and business growing strategy. So what happened in 2009?

Twitter and Facebook

Twitter is now a household name. Even if you are not using – or understand – Twitter, you know what it is at the end of 2009. From a social media perspective, Twitter saw a massive amount of growth in 2009 that was unmatched by any other social media outlet. More people are throwing out 140 character blasts than ever before, but that growth will not be sustainable over the long haul…2010 is going to continue the decrease in growth as nothing can keep that kind of rapid growth over time. During 2009, Twitter gave smaller bloggers a wider spread and another outlet to get their voice heard. This meant faster growth outside of search engines for bloggers looking for traffic and connections within their niche. This was a HUGE win for the beginning and small niche blogger as you no longer have to rely on unreliable search engine results to find readers.

Facebook started off as a college student social media site and has grown into the most reliable way to connect with friends, family and other like minded individuals on the net. I know that Facebook is now widespread because even my dad (who said he never would) created an account during 2009. With spam riddling MySpace and LinkedIn keeping its professional atmosphere, Facebook as filled a niche all to its own as the place to hit up to keep your friends, relatives and whoever else in tune with what you have going on in your own life.

Both Twitter and Facebook began this massive growth before 2009, but during this calendar year, they saw numbers that are unheard of globally. As we enter in to 2010, I see individuals, firms and online entrepreneurs finding more inventive and lucrative ways to convert these massive communities.

Blogging In 2009

Blogging is inching its way forward as a mainstream form of communication. What used to be online diaries are continue to grow into full fledged businesses accepted by the general public. Often times, visitors of many blogs might not even know they are reading a blog as the line between full CMS and blogging platform continues to get blurred. As businesses and individuals continue to use blogging as a source of communication and income, we are going to see the line between website and blog continue to merge.

With Julia and Julia, 2009 brought the first mainstream, successful Hollywood movie centered around the theme of blogging. Regardless of your feelings on how blogging was portrayed in the movie, it brought legitimacy to bloggers in the eyes of many individuals who believed that blogging was just a place to rant on the internet.

In 2010, I expect to see more large firms implement blogging and other social media into their business strategy. As of this point, they are still not really sure how to tackle this large consumer base, so there is a lot of testing going on behind the scenes. As Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets continue to grow, we are going to see companies use these as a way to increase their spread on the net. With bloggers attacking the top results on search engine rankings and news media, companies are going to have to rethink there web strategy to stay in tune with the times.

What do you think?

What do you think was the best accomplishment or setback in 2009 for blogging? Where do you think things are headed for 2010? As blogging and social media continue to take shape, your guess is as good as any…so let’s hear what you have to say…

Filed Under: Blogging, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

WordPress SEO: Stupid Simple Tactics for Bloggers

November 9, 2009 By 14 Comments

SEO (search engine optimization) is a subject that keeps bloggers up at night…when it really shouldn’t. As Google and other popular search engines continue to tweak their algorithms to provide more accurate results for their searching public, there are still core SEO values that you need to adhere to as a blogger and – the rest – you need to forget. SEO can become an obsession for a blogger and also become the blogger’s downfall when search engine results are weighed heavier than unique and consistent content.

So…what do you need to do to make sure your WordPress blog is setup properly so you can forget about the little changes and still see fantastic search engine results?

The SEO Basics That Never Change

First, what are the aspects of SEO that have the greatest impact and never change? Pagerank? Keyword heavy articles? Some magic plugin?

Did you pick none of the above?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging, The Web Tagged With: , , ,

Interview with Robb Sutton on WPSwitch.com About Blogging

October 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

In the last couple of weeks, I have been in a string of interviews that have all included unique questions. This latest, posted yesterday, is from the crew over at WPSwitch.com. WPSwitch is a website/service that will help you install a WordPress blog and customize it. They have a range of different pricing options, so check them out when you get a chance.

Through this series of questions, the WPSwitch.com team asked me about my blogging and some specifics behind the monetization and how I actually feel about my projects. To see my answers to these questions…click the link below.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Blogging, Generating Cash, The Web Tagged With: , ,

Setting Up Your DNS Nameservers For Your Blog

September 3, 2009 By 2 Comments

Now that you have setup your domain name through GoDaddy and your hosting account through HostGator, we need to get your domain name and your hosting files to talk to each other. This is done through the admin panel of GoDaddy so you can get your domain pointed in the right direction to your WordPress blog files and see your blog on your url through the use of DNS nameservers. Basically…we need to get your hosting files and the IP address the same so when a visitor goes to your url…they see your blog and not a default “this domain is registered at GoDaddy” page.

The technical aspects of nameservers, DNS records, etc. really aren’t all that important for the purposes of setting up a blog. If you really want to dive into the technical definitions and why everything works the way it does…do a simple search for DNS and you will get more than enough information to geek out on. For the purposes of this tutorial, we are not going to dive into the technical aspects. We are just going to get you setup!

Where do I find my nameservers?

First, we need to get the nameservers in your hosting account.

Sign into your HostGator cPanel. You were given this login information with your account information when you signed up. The cPanel is your blog backend headquarters where you setup email addresses, databases and basically manage the nuts and bolts that are outside of WordPress…but we will get into more of that later.

In the left column, scroll down until you see two nameserver records that should look something like this (yours should be slightly different)

NS1066.HOSTGATOR.COM
NS1065.HOSTGATOR.COM

These are the two records that you are going to need to copy and paste into fields in your GoDaddy account, so leave this window open and open a new window or tab in your web browser.

Inserting Your Nameservers In GoDaddy

Now…we need to go into your GoDaddy account where you purchased your domain names and get the domain pointed in the direction of your files (even though we have not technically uploaded anything yet).

Login to your GoDaddy account and under the navigation tab for domains, click on “My Domains”. This will open up a new window that is your Domain Manager. Click on the domain name that we are working with for this blog and in the bottom left hand corner you will see a heading for Nameservers. Click on the “manage” link in that field. You should get a popup that looks like the screen below.

DNS Nameservers on GoDaddy

Under this field, click on the bubble that reads “I host my domains with another provider.” You will then be shown the Nameserver fields and this is where you are going to copy and paste the two Nameserver records from your HostGator account. Once you copy and paste in the two nameservers, click ok. You should get a window that tells you…

Your changes have been submitted. Please allow a few minutes for the changes to take effect.

Click ok and you are done! Pretty easy right? This process is also the same no matter what hosting company you have decided to go with. If you have your domains and hosting separate, you have to get the two pointing in the same direction for everything to work properly.

Note: In most cases, you are not going to see the page you land on for your url change right away. It normally takes an hour or two for the domain to completely resolve, so just be patient and we will start to work on installing WordPress on your server (hosting account) in the meantime.

Direction Post Image by treehouse1977

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Choosing a Reliable Hosting Company for Your Blog

August 25, 2009 By 6 Comments

At this point in the process, you have your niche blogging topic and your domain name. The next step in the process of setting up a profitable blog is picking a hosting company. With all of the different options out there today, it can get confusing, so let’s take a look at what you really need out of your hosting provider as you start your profitable blog and your business. The following article is going to provide my suggestions and experience as it pertains to web hosting and web hosting providers.

What is a web hosting company?

First, for those of you that are not already familiar with web hosting, what is a web hosting company?

According to Wikipeida.com:

A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web. Web hosts are companies that provide space on a server they own or lease for use by their clients as well as providing Internet connectivity, typically in a data center. Web hosts can also provide data center space and connectivity to the Internet for servers they do not own to be located in their data center, called colocation.

Simply put…a web host rents out server space to you and makes that information available on the web. By renting space in these large data centers, you are able to make your content visible to the world in your search to create a successful blog. You have to choose a web host provider if you are going to have your WordPress blog with your own domain name. When you use free services such as WordPress.com or Blogger, you are using space on their data centers and you have to use their domain names. Using your own domain name and servers gives you the freedom to realize true success through blogging.

Keeping Domain Names Separate from Hosting Accounts

For the purposes of this series, I am going to recommend that you keep your domain names with a different provider (we used GoDaddy in the previous step) than your web hosting company. The reason for this is very simple. If you ever want to change your hosting provider in the future due to any number of reasons, it is much easier to do so when your domains are not tied to that company. Switching hosting companies can be a relatively easy process when you do not have to worry about your domain names.

Choosing the Right Hosting Company for Your Blog

When you start looking at different hosting companies to host your WordPress blog, there are several aspects you need to look at before dropping your hard earned money on server real estate.

  1. Price – Everyone has a limit on what they want to spend. Luckily for you, there are a lot of really affordable options when it comes to web hosting. Typical web hosting plans are going to start around 5 bucks a month and go up to around $12. For beginning bloggers, plans in this price range should suit you perfectly as you continue to grow your readership and traffic. You are making an investment in your future by using your own domain name and host company, but luckily…at this point in time…the investment is pretty small.
  2. Updated Technologies – Your web hosting company needs to keep up to date on all of the latest web server technologies. I know what you are thinking…I have no freaking clue what those technologies are…much less what version they should be running! That’s ok…almost 99% of all of the reliable web hosting companies out there are completely up to date.
  3. Up Time – While most companies are going to claim 99% up-time on their website (who would advertise 75%?), I would do some preliminary web research to see what other website owners experiences are with the host in question. Any down time (periods of time where your website is not available to your readers due to server issues) can really hurt your progress and bottom line. If you see A LOT of downtime in reviews of that host, I would avoid them and move to the next. Nothing is more annoying than down time issues while you are trying to grow your site.
  4. Domains, Traffic and Space – With most affordable web hosting options out there, you are going to get unlimited amounts of all of these (or more than you could possibly use). When you are choosing a web host for your WordPress blog, make sure you have plenty of room to grow for the future.

My Experience With Web Hosting Companies

I have had a checkered experience with web hosting from the beginning, so hopefully my experience can help you avoid the same headaches that I have had in the past. Like most beginning bloggers, I originally setup a Blogger account and got to writing. After about a weeks worth of content production, I realized that Blogger was not going to fit my needs, so I went in search of a web host.

I started off with Hostmonster.com to handle my domain and hosting needs and it ended up being a nightmare. At one point in time, I actually had a 2.5 day down period. During that time, they did not even move to a backup! They were…by far…my most frustrating problem when it came to blogging and it was completely out of my control. After multiple down-time occasions just like that one, I decided it was time to get away from Hostmonster and find another host that would be able to deliver reliable service. The move was a complicated one as I had my domain name tied to my Hostmoster.com account. I was able to move all of the information safely to another hosting provider, but getting that domain moved was a different monster all together. This is why I recommend hosting your domain names separate of your blog’s web hosting company. By taking that step, you are preventing this situation and saving yourself money in the future (you still have to pay for the hosting during that period you are moving your domain name).

After Hostmonster, I moved all of my information over to Hostgator. Hostgator provided reliable hosting for my blogs for a long time. With very minimal downtime (and great reaction time/support if something did come up), I would consider Hostgator a great hosting company for beginning bloggers.

During my time with Hostgator, my traffic on multiple blogs continued to grow to the point where I needed some faster servers and a more “enterprise” solution for my hosting needs. I now had a viable company that I was running, so a little bit more personal attention was needed to bring my blogging to the next level. When it came to decision time, I chose Sliqua (you can even see a screenshot of my MTB homepage on theirs!). Sliqua provides incredible support, speed and reliability that is needed for top level blogging, but you pay for it.

What Is My Recommendation For New Bloggers?

Here the route that I would take if I had it to do all over again. First, I would register my domain names through GoDaddy and then pick up a hosting account with HostGator. You are able to keep your domains separate from your hosting account and both companies do an incredible job. By doing this…you should be set for your first couple of years of blogging until your needs change. Once you hit the big time and start looking for more expensive hosting options, I would hook up with a company like Sliqua or invest in your own dedicated servers. Luckily, you will not have to worry about this until some time down the road, and you can get to posting that juicy content on your blog right away with a reliable set of resources.

Now that you have your domain name and web hosting provider, we are going to need to setup your DNS name servers and your WordPress installation. That is going to be handled in the next How To Start A Blog article.

Filed Under: How To Start A Blog Tagged With: , , ,

How To Start A Blog – The Ultimate Startup Blogging Guide

August 10, 2009 By 4 Comments

Despite what the news media wants to tell you…blogging is not dead. In fact, quality blogs are thriving and bringing in more subscribers and money than ever! As we continue to see blogging evolve and grow, one of the questions I see come across my inbox the most is…

How can I set up my own self-hosted WordPress blog?

While many people can churn out content like there is no tomorrow, the technical aspect of setting up a self hosted blog with your own domain name can be a daunting task for new bloggers. Over the next couple of weeks, I am going to take you step by step through what I believe is the ultimate guide for beginning bloggers looking to setup their first self-hosted WordPress blog. In this series, we are going to cover the following topics.

  • Choosing A Topic/Niche To Blog About
  • Choosing and Buying the Your Own Domain Name
  • Choosing a Web Hosting Company
  • How to Install WordPress on that Host
  • Choosing a WordPress Theme and How to Make It Unique with Little Funds
  • How to Install Feedburner and Google Analytics to Track Traffic and Subscribers
  • How to Install the Necessary Plugins for Your WordPress Blog (and which ones those are!)
  • Getting the Settings in WordPress Right for Your Blog
  • Content Creation and Brainstorming
  • How To Promote Your New Blog
  • Enjoying Your New Blog’s Success

The best part…there is zero charge for all of this content! When other companies want to charge you $500.00 and more just to complete this task for you, I am going to give you the tools to do it yourself! It is going to be published right here on robbsutton.com so that you too can setup your own WordPress based, self-hosted blog that is ready to take on the world. To organize this content, I have created a special category to make finding these posts even easier as they get pubished…How To Start A Blog.

To catch each of these articles as they hit the screen, sign up for the robbsutton.com RSS feed and stay tuned!

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