Blogging Tips

You hear all kinds of excuses to why someone wont’ get into blogging. Some people say that they have nothing interesting to say. Others say that they don’t have the time. Others still say that they are intimidated by the terminology and technology.

Let’s face it. Most of us aren’t coding experts and, for some, even the “simple” installation of WordPress can be quite daunting. Thankfully, there are services out there than can streamline the process, making blogging accessible to even the newbiest of newbies.

One such service is the WordPress web hosting offered by HostGator. In addition to offering a number of different hosting plans, HostGator also allows for near one-click installation of WordPress.

Easy and Affordable Web Hosting

I haven’t used HostGator‘s services myself, but I’ve heard good things about their reliability and price.

For the beginning blogger, the smallest hosting plans (which start at $4.95 a month) are probably a good place to start. These allow for plenty of storage space and plenty of bandwidth. Heavier users can look into virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated servers when the time comes.

What About WordPress?

The main hosting plan offered by HostGator that caters to the WordPress market starts at $7.95 a month. With this price, you are provided with the ability to host unlimited domains, have unlimited disk space, and set up unlimited MySQL databases.

I’m always a little apprehensive about hosts who claim to provide you with unlimited disk space and bandwidth, since that can never be completely true. That said, for the purposes of the average starting blogger, it doesn’t matter.

WordPress Installations Made Easy

So, what’s all this talk about an easy one-click installation of WordPress? Under normal circumstances, you would have to manually create your own database, edit the appropriate files in a text editor, and upload the WordPress directories via FTP to your web server.

The process is reasonably straightforward for people who are already savvy to these types of technologies and standards, but they can be intimidating to just about everyone else. To help ease the process, HostGator offers Fantastico-based installations.

When you access your HostGator account via cPanel, you will see an icon designated as Fantastico De Luxe. Clicking on this reveals the page shown above. Rather than going through the manual process of setting up databases and uploading files, Fantastico does the work automatically for you.

This interface is not unique to HostGator — several other hosts offer Fantastico — but it is a feature that you’ll want to look for if you want an easy way to get into “professional” blogging with WordPress.