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When it comes to online marketing and making money on the internet there are a few fundamental things you really need to know and understand how to do. One of those essential things is knowing about domains and web hosting and how to setup a basic website or Wordpress blog. There's dozen's of plugins and templates and softwares out there that can make your live easier once you have your website up and running but you should really know how to at least do the basic steps of buying a domain, connecting that domain to your hosting account and then setting it up (usually adding a blogging platform like Wordpress is the most popular).

The reason why having your own website is because it's like have your own little piece of web real estate that you own. It's an asset...unlike social media accounts such as YouTube channels and Facebook pages, which ultimately you're at the mercy of those social media giants, and they can quickly and easily ban or suspend your entire account and all your hard work at the push of a button.

So, with all the different solutions out there, how do you determine who is the best domain registrar or hosting solution? Mostly through asking around or trial and error. They all basically do the same thing and provide the same solutions, but I try and pick companies that have solid customer support, have interfaces that are really intuitive and simple to use, and that have already been awhile and are established, since again when you're creating a website you're creating a web asset, and you don't want to compromise any of that hard work with a poor solution.

What are domains and hosting exactly and why do I need them both?

Well, I guess the simplest way to put it would be that a domain is like the filename of a file. If you type in that particular name, it will point to your particular website, which is essentially the contents of the file name, since a website is made up of multiple different files such as text and images. So, you need them both. And really the only thing I would point out as a good rule of thumb is that it's a good idea to keep them separate. When I first started out and just had one website I just purchased my domain name through my hosting solution, which is fine, but as you start to create more and more websites over time it just makes it faster and easier if you ever need to switch hosting solutions for whatever reason or you decide to sell a particular to domain or entire website (because again, they are assets).

Now, there are a ton of different great solutions out there for domain registrars and hosting solutions, and some things like hosting options really depend on the goal you have for your site. But as far as the solutions I use and also recommend for 99% of people getting started online that are probably going to creating one or multiple sites that are maybe going to be getting upwards of tens of thousands of visitors per month, for a domain registrar I use and highly recommend Namecheap and for a hosting solution I recommend HostGator, specifically the shared hosting Baby Plan.

Below I have videos on how to connect your Namecheap domain to your HostGator hosting account and how to install Wordpress, which is 90% of what you need to know to be successful in creating your own website. Once you get more proficient at this, these steps take less than 10 minutes.

How To Connect A Namecheap Domain To A HostGator Hosting Account

How To Install A Wordpress Blog

And then as far as Wordpress themes go, it's absolutely fine to start off with one of the free Wordpress themes, however if you're looking for a suggestion on a premium Wordpress theme I highly recommend for installing on authority blogs, I like the Focus Blog theme by Thrive Themes.

TIP: If you're having trouble coming up with ideas for authority domain names, check out this tool.