Getting professional about my blogging

Background

I haven’t been happy with where I am in the blogging world for some time. I’m not prolific enough to maintain four blogs, plus my micro-blogging activities on Twitter, etc. My blogs don’t look professional, and I don’t have the coding skills to be able to put lipstick on the Blogger/Blogspot pig.

Another factor: If someone asks me for the name of my blog, as people often do, I want to be able to give the short answer “here”, not “mostly here and here, but also sometimes here”.

So, I need a blog that looks smart and professional, with more choice and control over settings and appearance (but that doesn’t require high level technical skills to maintain). I need to focus on a single blog initially, that revolves around me and my interests (Maskil) rather than a particular issue or approach (e.g. Altneuland).

I would have preferred the blog to be hosted/managed for me. For this reason, I was initially attracted to Typepad, but one hears too many bad reports about them. I also started doing a little research into migrating my Blogger posts to Typepad, but it’s a nightmare and there was no support to be had. It would also be nice if all templates were signed off by the platform, and I need to be able to use my custom domain name (Maskil.info), as this is what I’m building my “brand” around.

That’s the background, so where does that leave me?

Well, I’ve decided to toe the conventional line, which says that all serious bloggers are using self-hosted WordPress. So be it.

Host

My first step was to select a Web hosting service. No real science here; I picked up a few names from other blogs I trust and Googled them. Most had more negative than positive reviews, but this appears to be par for the course with this industry.

I eventually settled on Bluehost.Com, whose negative/positive ratio was better than most. I selected a 24-month contract, at $3.95 per month (about R750, billed in advance), which gives me unlimited “just about everything”.

After completing the form, I received the error message “Your order is NOT YET COMPLETE. To complete your order, please call our Billing department as soon as possible …". I phoned the number in the US (no idea what that’s going to cost me). My call was handled swiftly and I was told I need to fax or e-mail a copy of my identity document and the credit card I paid with. After hanging up, I encountered the next problem: no e-mail address for the Billing Dept. on the Bluehost site! I got the address from their abuse@ mailbox and scanned and sent the documents off. I received my confirmation fairly shortly thereafter.

Next steps

So, I have my domain name Maskil.info (have had it for a while) and a host. Next steps are to install WP (I’d like to set up both Test and Live installations, if possible), select a WP Template (that’s another story!) and start installing it and my plug-ins and widgets (note my casual familiarity with the jargon).

I’d like to be tentatively Live by 1 July, then start migrating my posts from their old Blogger locations, while cautiously adding plug-ins and widgets.

I want to use the convention blog.Maskil.info if possible, otherwise Maskil.info/blog.

Templates

The choice is so wide it’s mind numbing. This is not even choice, it’s just overload! I currently favour one of the template “frameworks” such as Thesis, Carrington or Onepress. Any thoughts?

Domain registrar

Although strictly speaking it’s not necessary to use the same provider as both Domain Registrar and Web Host, I decided it would make things easier (e.g. by eliminating the who does what thought process each time). I’ve initiated the transfer from Godaddy.com to Bluehost.com.

To be continued…