A lot of people have trouble understanding all the blogging concepts, lingo and jargon—domains, hosting, blogging platform, WordPress, huh? It's a bit confusing. Or a lot confusing, depending on where you're at in the process.
But lucky for us, blogging is like ice cream.
It's true…but I'm getting ahead of myself. So before we talk about blogging, let's talk about something we all know.
Let's Make Ice Cream
Imagine we're going to start our own business. In fact, we're going to open our own store. But before we get started, we'll need a few things:
- A location. We've gotta have an address for our store right? When we're telling people about our store, they need to know where to go. A high-traffic, easy-to-find location is key.
- A landlord. We could buy our own property and build our own store with our own bare hands, but who needs the stress? So next we need to find someone from whom we can rent space. We need a place where we can set up shop.
- A store. So we've got an address and we've got some space. Now we need to put our store together.
- A product. A store without something to sell isn't a great idea. What should we sell? I choose ice cream.
- An ice cream-making machine. I don't know about you, but I don't want to make all our ice cream by hand. So, let's find a good, efficient ice cream-making machine, shall we?
- Ingredients. We'll also need some delectable ingredients. Throw those babies into that machine and out comes the world's best ice cream.
Our customers are so smitten with our ice cream, they come back again and again. And we become gazillionaires!
Sound good? Good.
Now let's talk blogging.
Let's Start A Blog (or Website)
We're going to start our own business. In fact, we're going to start our own website. But before we get started, we'll need a few things:
- A location. We've gotta have an address for our website. When we're telling people about our site, they need to know where to go. Our website address is called our domain (ex. BloggingWithAmy.com or AmyLynnAndrews.com). A high-traffic, easy-to-find location, or domain, is key. See: How to Choose a Domain: 12 Tips.
- A landlord. So we have a domain, but now we need to rent some space on the internet — a place where we can set up our website. Our "landlord" on the internet is called our host. We purchase hosting from our host.
- A store. So we've got a domain and some space on the internet (hosting). Now we need to put our site together. Our ice cream store is made up of bricks & mortar; our website is made up of files. We decorate our ice cream store; we design our website.
- A product. A website without anything on it isn't a great idea. What should we put on our website? I choose a blog. A blog is a type of website.
- A blog-making machine. I don't know about you, but I don't want to code our blog by hand. That is, I don't want to tell the computer to make our blog understandable to humans using only 0s and 1s. So, let's find a good, efficient blog-making machine, shall we? This is called our blogging platform. There are many blogging platforms from which to choose. Blogger and Typepad are popular choices. But I choose WordPress. It's flexible and expandable and easy to use (not to mention the rockstar of ice cream making machines, I mean, blogging platforms).
- Ingredients. Now all we need are some blog ingredients. This is our content — our words, our images and our brilliant ideas. Throw those babies into WordPress and out comes the world's best blog.
Our customers readers are so smitten with our blog, they come back again and again. And we become gazillionaires! (In theory.)
Sound good? Good.
How?
Read my How to Start a Blog or Website series.
Cute!
LOVE IT!! As always you are eloquent in HELPING everyone to understand the concept and thirst for MORE!!
I am on the edge of my seat as always!
Amy, you are just so darn cute! I can't wait for the official launch of your website.
Do you know how many emails I get every week asking me how to start a blog….YEA – I can just sending them to you.
Thank you for this…it's a gift.
Jen
Send 'em on over, Jen!
Cute, Amy!
Awesome word picture, I totally get it
Woohoo!
You're the best, You really know how to educate people with ease. I have sent your post to many and than some.
Thank you again
I don't really enjoy e-mails after e-mails but I look forward to yours.
Thanks, Brianne. I can't tell you how encouraging that is to me. I'm so glad the stuff that's been crowding my brain all these years is finally helping others!
As someone who aspires to setting up a business (one I figure out what I'm selling), I really found your blog helpful and informative. A little more than "cute". Thanks fi sharing. Time to go check out wordpress.
I don't know if this is the right place for this question but I thought I'd give it a shot. I am looking to start an online business that will sell and actual product but have a blogging component. Can I still download WordPress and use that as the "guts" and build product pages around that? Trying to decide if I can use that (with all the widgety things I see available) to get the functionality I need without doing too much coding or hiring a developer. Your thoughts are greatly appreciated!
I highly recommend WordPress for both blogs and websites. It's a great Content Management System (CMS). Like you said, provides you with a great base and has amazing functionality. I've used it for both "traditional" websites (as well of blogs of course) and it has worked great!
Of course to get the functionality (and ability to monetize fully), a self-hosted WordPress site (as opposed to a WordPress.com site) is a must. Here's how to do that.
You are speaking my language! I've been thinking of getting my blog going for a while now and this is making sense about each of the steps necessary to be successful.
You're a star! I'm excited to keep learning! Thanks so much!
Well, how can you go wrong with ice cream, right?
Glad it was helpful.
Thanks Amy! I'm trying to figure out where I want to go from here and am excited to follow your tutorials! (Just spent all my morning "free" time checking out several steps.)
Thanks for stopping by, Christy!
So if I start a blog at WordPress, can I later update it to my own domain? Will I be able to transfer everything over? Or will I need to start over?
Yes, you can transfer it if you'd like.
That was the questioning I was asking as I was reading along—thank you!!!
Converting or trans to .com
Hi Amy, I found you through Money Saving Mom (Cannot remember how I got there though)at 11pm AEST (I live in Australia).
Thanks to you (lol) I was up until 4:30am watching your series in You-tube. You were the first person I could really relate to because in your videos I could hear the kids (and it was so cute and yet so REAL). I am a mother of 5 myself. I have had so many journals full of ideas since I was 20 years old. These journals piled up and ideas moved from journals and diaries every year and increased almost exponentially with having kids and all the learning curves they provide.
I feel that al of my ideas are now converging together to one place and it surprised me that it will begin ONLINE. I am part of a small business mentoring program here in Australia and it will end in November this year. The outcome of the program is to have my own business showcased at an expo event. (OMG I am just freaking out-but in a great way).
I just launched my website last week as it is and developing along the way. After reading your posts I though to myself "WHAT HAVE I DONE" lol. I decided to launch my website in the concept of "parenting a new website" and writing in that way. It is a journey that I want to share with others and have others be part of the journey.
Your posts and videos have already allowed me to understand things so SIMPLY that I started trying some stuff out on WordPress.
Today, I could not help myself but come straight back to your site and do my research and even purchased TELL YOUR TIME. Thought I was getting a bit out of hand. Thank you for confirmation that IT IS ALL OK . (My schedule looks like yours and it just gave me a sense of : "yes, this is how others do it, thank goodness")
If you do get a chance to check out my site http://www.untaplife.com (because I consider you an expert) please don't keep your "OMG what on earth is she doing" to yourself. lol.
Thank you very much. Seriously you are a LIFE SAVER!
oops I forgot to mention that I really get now why you keep saying your name at the beginning and end of your video tutorials. MASSIVE LESSON LEARNT for me.
I thought I bookmarked your site (I didn't) and I was trying to remember Money Saving Mom site (I only remembered the Mom bit) and then finally I remembered " again this is Amy Andrews from Blogging with Amy.com"
I'm so glad you found it helpful! Congrats on the new journey ahead of you. I did take a look. I would recommend switching to dark text on a light background, but otherwise, looks like you're off to a great start!
My thoughts exactly. It's very dark & serious looking. lol I was looking in the style sheet (learned that from one of your tutorials) to find and switch the colours but ahem (cough) will need a .css tutorial I think. It is top of the list of my requests to my site developer/husband/breadwinner (for now). For me it's time to put FEATURES ASIDE and FOCUS INSIDE and get all this content thats buzzing around in my head out into the world. Is it ok for me to indicate you as being my "life saver" in terms of parenting a newborn site kind of like the "experienced parent that provides guidance without judgement but allows you to make your own mistakes and see what works for you".
Thank you X infinity for providing all your knowledge for me to devour.
LOL, you are cracking me up. Thank you very much and I agree that the best thing to do as a new "blog parent" is to focus on content! It's much more important that that blog baby has enough food rather than the right color jumper.
Love this idea so cute how you set this whole thing up & so simple to understand
Hi Amy! I am so grateful to have found your site! I recently decided to "jump right in" and start a food blog. I chose blogger because it was free and it walked me through it. I probably should have researched a little bit more! I have spent the last month working on posts. I haven't really let any friends know about my blog yet, because I wanted to have more of the blog world figured out first. My dad is my only member, so far!!
My question is, should I continue with my current blogging platform until I am somewhat established, or should I switch to wordpress now? What would that entail? Will I need a new domain, as well?
Thanks for what you are doing! I love the new education.
I am wondering the exact same thing. I just bought my domain name, but wondering if I should just start it on wordpress or stick with Blogger until it's established then have it migrated. Thanks so much.
Amy, I am completely new to blogs and am trying to start one. Your website is so easy to follow, it's great!
I hope it continues to be helpful as you start your blogging journey. Congrats!!
Amy,
This is so helpful. Another question that I had is once you have your domain name–is it yours or can someone choose the same name? Don't know if I am making sense?
Thanks to Laura from MOMables I found you
No one else can register it, so once you have it, it's yours to use. However, note that you are not buying it, just registering it and the registration needs to be renewed regularly. If you fail to renew it, it can expire at which time someone else can get it.
Finally someone who can explain all this host, domain techie gibberish in a way even I understand it. Thanks Amy! I am currently using blogger, but am not very happy with it so want to migrate to wordpress and also set up my own URL (I am currently using the blogspot URL). I noted that in your article you are using title case in your URL BloggingWithAmy.com (although in the actual URL box it is all written lower case). Would you recommend doing title case URLs? Thanks. Tammy
Hey Amy,
Just wanted to drop a line and say that I am really diggin the whole Ice Cream analogy thing. A lot of times I forget just how little the inexperienced person really knows about blogging and have to remind myself that I was there once as well.
Then I come to a kick butt site like yours and get really humbled about how much I still have to learn.
Thanks for the post and I look forward to connecting.
Ciao for now,
J
Glad you stopped by, John. And I can pretty much make anything related to ice cream.
Hi Amy, this may be a completely dumb question, but how do bloggers actually make money?! Who pays them? If the readers read for free, and you're doing these classes for free, who buys the ice cream? Thanks.
Oh, you must have missed my only rule here: there are no dumb questions!
I'm so glad you asked because we've all had the same question and I think it's an excellent one! Here's an overview of how to make money blogging.
Day 1, have understood the principle……and your love of ice cream!
LOL!
I found you by accident and read your blog on how to start one, OHG it was so much fun to read and I, not being a tech person, could understand it completely. Thank you so much. By the way, your picture is cute and are you Irish with that long red hair. Red hair in my very favorite hair and I have been keeping mine red for many many decades now.
thank you again for the wonderful infor!
You're welcome. Thanks for stopping by, Sherian. (You're right that I am part Irish, although, I'm afraid my hair is not that red in real life…as much as I would love for it to be!)
Haha – this was brilliantly written and short enough and detailed enough. Thank you.
Is it all right to blog about several topics on the same web site?
What an excellent analogy! Even I get it. So I've got all of my ideas and plans ready to go.
I have a son who just graduated from college & although very aware of social media, is not very techy. He will help me set up my blog on WPress. But…….do I go that route and use a free template or do I hire a designer and get it right from the start. My goal is to make $ some day – hopefully it will start in a couple yrs and to look professional & fun. Or…..should I start free & buy later? The designers I've contacted are asking about $450? Is that a pretty fair price? Any thoughts you have are appreciated. Started following your blog a couple months ago & really enjoy it!! Thanks so much!……Dana
Enjoyed the ice cream explanation; easy to understand. I'll be back here often for more information. thanks!
I'm going to share this page with a friend who wants to start a blog. Even though I'm fairly new, started June 2012, I have a lot to learn. I'm starting here.