GreatWebGuySelf-proclaimed greatness is a hard thing to prove.

There are several sites such as wordpress.com and blogger.com where you can sign up for free and start your blog right away.

But if you’re like me, that’s not good enough, you want to express your individuality, make your own name, control your own destiny. You want your own domain and your own host so that you have everything you need to express yourself. This article will give you the down low on where to reserve your own domain name, set up hosting, install blogging software, all this at the low cost of $8.95/yr. for the domain and $3.95/mo. for hosting.

Step 1: Reserve a domain name at GoDaddy

• Get on over to Ajaxwhois and find an available domain name. Of course I’m assuming that based on the time constraints of this exercise you already have a name picked out. I only recommend this whois site because it’s very slick and a lot less painful than using the one at the registrar.
• Now you can go to my favorite registrar and reserve your name GoDaddy.com!!!!
  

Step 2: Get a hosting account from Interadvantage

My favorite host for hosting small new sites is Interadvantage The $3.95 plan is plenty. Choose the option that says you already have a domain and that your going to just update your name servers. Follow the rest of the instructions and before you know it your hosting account will be reserved.

Step 3: Update your name servers on GoDaddy

Interadvantage should have sent you the names of your name servers to the address you set up your hosting with. You’ll need to login to your godaddy account.

• Under domains choose My Domain Names.
• In the Domain Control Center Click the Domain Name you just registered.
• Click the link under Name Servers
• Choose custom name servers and enter the two names provided in your Interadvantage registration email
• Save the new names

Step 4: Install Wordpress using Fantastico

Use the cpanel address provided by InterAdvantage in your registration email, either it’s http://IP/cpanel or http://YOURDOMAIN.com/cpanel depending if the new name servers have been picked up.

• Login with the username and password you chose for your InterAdvantage account.
• Click the Fantastico “Blue Smiley Face” icon
• Find WordPress in the list of Scripts under blogging
• Click and fill out information to install

If you’ve done everything right, you should be able to go to http://yourdomain.com and get your WordPress site, you can login and start blogging right away.