1. Self hosted Wordpress Blog – buying domain + rent hosting and install the blogware wordpress. (which we already talked before )
2. Custom Domain Blogger.com – making blog in blogspot, buying domain, direct the blog in blogspot to the domain we purchased which we will discuss now

The concept of custom domain is very simple. Having blog in blog spot is very easy and cheap even free. However the blog in blogger / blogspot has one problem: the URL address will be very long since you have to add : blogspot.com), which look very general and not very professional.

Therefore you need to have custom domain. Here is the concept : supposing you have one blog in blogspot with address : http://yourname.blogspot.com. looks cool enough, but the problem is : too long and too general and well.. does not look very professional, does it ?

You can have this domain http://yourname.com. with custom domain : http://yourname.blogspot.com that set up become http://yourname.com

In a simple way, custom domain blogger that is made under http://yourname.blogspot.com can be accessed through this address http://yourname.com.

Quite Simple, isn’t ?

1.Make the blog in blogger.com
2. Buy domain
3. Configure the domain and arrange the Custom Domain Blogger.
4. it will take sometimes to make your domain configuration fix and works properly, usually takes 1 X 24 hours until 1 X 48 hours.

The benefit of using Custom Domain Blogger

* It is not like self hosted worpress where we need to purchase domain and arrange the hosting, with custom domain blogger, we just need to purchase the domain and to arrange the host, we just use the server blogger.com

* We don’t need to be worried with the security since the server was handled by blogger.com

* the visitor that enter the blogger address, ex: http://yourname.blogspot.com) will be directed to the domain custom page (ex: http://yourname.com)

Selecting the name of the domain is more than just giving an identity for your blog since it could also give impact about how many visitor would visit your blog.

Start with an end in mind (Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits). First of all you need to set the goal about what you want to achieve through your blog. Different purpose of the blog would have different rules as well. Naming personal blog, corporate blog and niche blog which content of certain topic would also be different. In other saying, you need to know what do you want to explore through your blog, how do you want to write it and who do you expect to visit your blog and read your writing.

Refer to Darren Rowse (ProBloger), in order to know the traffic source of your blog, at least you have to know about this three traffic sources :

1. Search Engine (where the visitors come through engine like Google)
2. Loyal Readers (Direct Traffic)
3. Refferal Traffic (from other website that link to your blog)

These three traffic sources would usually create another three categories on how the blogger named their blog in general.

1. Naming the blog that has keyword.
2. Naming the blog with brand.
3. Combining the domain name that has name and brand.

While giving the name of the domain, you need to pay attention to thsese things :

1. Find the name of the domain that could easily remember
2. Find the name of the domain that easy to type – so that the visitor would not type it wrongly
3. Make it as short as possible so that it’s easy to remember and easy to type
4. Avoid using number – because if somebody says; one seventy dot com, how do they supposed to write it ? www.170.com or www.oneseventy.com?
5. Select the name that can be used for long time. Avoid the funny name since the funny thing that may populare now, it may not be populare anymore in future.
6. Avoid using blog name that has copyright. Avoid unnecessary trouble with law

Domain and hosting are actually part of webmaster and blogger. We herewith would like to introduce you about them.

* Domain

What is domain ?
Domain is like a domicile or one place where you could dominate, you need to have this domicile area in this internet for your website or blog

Domain is very variant, it depends on the purpose of the website made. The type of this domain was determined by the word after the dot, such as :

* .com ( read; dot com ) : this is the type of commercial website
* .org : it is usually used for organization website
* .info : for website that has content about information

There is also another domain that is indicating more to the territorial, such as :

* .co.id ( read : dot co dot id ) ; this indicate that the website is in Indonesia or for Indonesia territory

* .us ; for American website ( US = United States)

There is also another terminology for this domain that is called sub domain ( which is a part of the major domain)

You can recognize this sub domain from the way they named it which usually separated by dot, for example : if it is for main domain, it’s written like this: domainname.com however as sub domain we could make it with additional name before the main domain such as : blog.domainname.com; tool.domainname.com or else.

* Hosting

For your light illustration, you could consider domain as one computer and hosting as the electricity which will support each other.
Or you could also understand them with another comparison such as one laptop with the battery. Hence, one website should have domain name and the hosting so that it could be accessed by public

You could rent this webhosting in monthly bases or 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and so on. Of course, one webhosting would have different term and condition with the others.