When you rent a home or apartment, you are paying someone else’s mortgage, but more importantly, you have no ownership over your own space.

If you plant a tree in the backyard, you don’t have ownership over it. Maybe you decide to put tile down in the bathroom, but you can’t take it with you one day when you leave. Renting means that you are living somewhere at the approval of another person.

Owning, on the other hand, means that you can do what you want because you own the space. You can paint, put down hardwood floors and fence the backyard. Sure, you might have some neighborhood covenants that govern certain things, but for the most part, you are the captain of your own ship.

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Using Free Web Hosts

With web hosting, many people make critical areas when it comes to choosing how to host their blogs. There are free blog services like Blogger and WordPress.com that you can use (don’t confuse the WordPress.com free web host with the very popular WordPress blogging software – which we use AND highly recommend). In fact, many people start out using these free services because they want to “test the waters”. However, there is a big danger is using free services if you want to build a long term business as a blogger.

Just as with renting, you can be “kicked out” of your free blog in a heartbeat. Let’s say you spend 6 months building up a blog with tons of fantastic content and a following of faithful readers. Then, one day out of the blue, you realize your blog has been wiped clean.

As unbelievable as it may sound, it does happen and is not a good surprise. When you build rankings to a free blog, you are paying someone else’s mortgage payment in a way. You are building rankings for something you do not own which can be wiped out in any time for no valid reason at all.

Also some free services like WordPress.com prohibit the use of affiliate links on your free blog, meaning you can’t make money with your blog. Which really makes “free” into a pretty bad deal?

When you use a free blog service, you have to follow someone else’s rules. If you break those rules, or they even think that you did, they can click a button and kill your business in a heartbeat. It is like building a house on sand. Who needs or wants the stress of wondering if your business will still be there tomorrow?

Paid Web Hosts

So what is the answer? Get your own web hosting! You can (and should) still use WordPress as your blogging software. Web hosting is very inexpensive (less than $7 per month for basic services) and will allow you to be the ruler over your own virtual “real estate.”

As you learn how to start a blog, you will be able to write what you want and build your business without constantly worrying about the possibility that someone will remove your content tomorrow.

When considering a hosting company, it helps to ask other successful bloggers and Internet marketers who they recommend. Many will have horror stories of certain hosting companies, which will help you avoid landmines in your search for a hosting company.

You also want to make sure that the host you choose has CPANEL (control panel) so that you can easily access certain features that you will need as you learn more about blogging and working online. You may also want to ask if the host has support for WordPress, our recommended blogging software. Some web hosts (like our recommended web host below) provide a simple way to install WordPress in just a few clicks.

Another factor to consider is how much space you really need for your new blog. You don’t want to overbuy and overpay each month for space you don’t yet need.

You can always upgrade your plan later as your blog grows in traffic. When starting out in blogging, it’s important to only spend money on the necessities instead of wasting a lot on things that are not needed yet.

Our Web Host Recommendation

There are many web hosting companies out there, but one of the most popular and most reputable is called HostGator (read our review here). They are well known within the industry for their competitive pricing and great customer service.

Also they’re the ones we started with and we recommend you start with them as well.

They have chat representatives available all the time in case you have questions or concerns which makes it a valuable resource for new bloggers all the way up to advanced bloggers. They offer several plans including dedicated servers, but you won’t need that until you have either a lot of sites or a ton of traffic.

HostGator offers unlimited disk space, unlimited bandwidth and a very easy control panel where you can set up email addresses among other things. They have a 99.9% uptime guarantee which is highly important because that means your website will very rarely “go down”.

Some hosting companies cannot guarantee uptime, and that usually means they experience a lot of technical glitches. The last thing you want to worry about is having your site go down a lot and missing out on traffic and income potential.

As one of the world’s top 10 largest web hosting companies, HostGator has more than 4 million hosted domains. They are certainly not the only hosting companies, but you will rarely hear any complaints about their services.

Another great thing about HostGator is that WordPress can be installed in just a few clicks using a feature called Fantastico. They also have simple tutorials available showing exactly how to install WordPress, and once you do it then you will be a pro at it – and you’ll get your blog started right away.

Choosing your web hosting is important because you want to be sure that your blog is protected and stable. After all, this will be your new business model so you need to take the decision seriously.

Look at all of the factors when you are comparing hosting companies so that you don’t have to move your site later as that can mean a real hassle and potential loss of data if not done correctly. You can also look for special coupons and deals on hosting to get in at a great price.

Check out the detailed review on the ONLY web host we recommend if you’re just getting started – the one we recommend to our own friends and family.  Our recommended web host even comes with 1-click installation of WordPress, our favorite easy to use blog publishing platform: the one we use for all our sites.

Don’t waste your time trying out each WordPress plugin to find out which one you want. Here are the top 10 WordPress plugins that you want your blog to have, hands down.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

W3 Total Cache

For top-notch website performance, you need the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin. Both your blog visitors and search engines care about how fast your website is. If your pages take forever to load, you’ll lose readers and search engine traffic. In fact Google just announced this week that they are not officially taking site response time into consideration for rankings. Of course they are: speed means quality of experience for their users.

W3 Total Cache can reduce your page load time by as much as 50% or even more – something you definitely want to do. AND it will help you keep your site running and available instead of crashing if you get a major rush of traffic all at once, such as getting a popular story on Digg or a “StumbleUpon attack”.  Other major caching plugins like WP Cache and WP Super Cache are OK, but in our opinion they are not as versatile or as powerful as W3 Total Cache (and we’ve used/tested them all).

Google XML Sitemaps

You want search engines to know when you post new content so you get more traffic. Google XML Sitemaps automatically generates an updated sitemap and submits it to top search engines without you lifting a finger. Don’t rely on search engines to crawl your site and find new posts – use this plugin to automatically tell them the instant you post – before someone else copies your post and pretends they wrote it – which happens. And “original content” (i.e. where Google “finds” a post first) gets much more credit than duplicate content (i.e. other places Google finds that post).

GravityForms or cForms

Your readers need an easy way to contact you, whether it’s to ask you a question or to advertise on your site. Contact form plugins like GravityForms or cForms allow you to easily create a great-looking contact form for your website. Instead of putting your email address out there for everyone (including spam bots) to email you thousands of times, use GravityForms or cForms to allow your readers users to contact you easily without cluttering your inbox with lots of spam.

Disqus Comments

Another interactive tool for your blog readers is the all-important comment box. Disqus Comments is an excellent WordPress plugin that allows visitors to comment on your articles with a great looking social interface and great spam control. Use an advanced plugin like Disqus Comments instead of WordPress’s integrated comment tool. It looks much, much better and gives you more control over comments. It’s also a hosted comment plugin that automatically syncs the comments with your WordPress database, and provides great social interaction with your readers.

Two other very popular comment oriented WordPress plugins are JS-Kit Echo and IntenseDebate. We’ve tried them both and feel Disqus is currently the better choice. The backend comment management of JS-Kit Echo leaves a lot to be desired, and we feel the Disqus comment layout just looks better than the IntenseDebate option. Frankly, this is a matter of preference, they’re all good options!

Akismet

This plugin automatically comes with WordPress and does a great job catching comment and trackback spam. If you’re using a hosted comment service like Disqus, Akismet won’t apply to you. Actually you can still use the Akismet service through Disqus, just won’t need to enable the plugin.

FeedBurner Feedsmith

Redirect your RSS feed to FeedBurner and have your RSS subscribers poll Feedburner instead of your site. This WordPress plugin makes your feed much more usable, since it provides far more optimized RSS feed than WordPress alone does. It will also offload the feed reader traffic to Google (who now owns FeedBurner) so it’s much,  much faster than your web server, improving your blog’s performance even more. This will sound a little technical to a new blogger, but do it anyway, it’ll work better that way.

YARPP

This WordPress plugin is an excellent tool to use if you want readers who are interested in your topics to stay on your website longer. YARPP automatically displays the most closely related articles from your blog to your readers at the end of the article, allowing them to easily browse through the content they’re interested in on your site instead of allowing to look for what they want elsewhere.

After The Deadline

This easy to use spell and grammar checker for WordPress is available for free and is essential to use even if you feel like you’re spelling and grammar error-free. It doesn’t cost anything and will ensure each post is error free and looks as good as it is.

Sexy Bookmarks

A bookmarking tool is essential for your blog and Sexy Bookmarks is an excellent tool to use with great eye candy. It adds a nice visual appeal to your blog, while encouraging readers to share the article they’re reading with their friends on Twitter, Facebook and more. This means more linkbacks to your blog and more readers for you!

Viper’s Video Quicktags

To embed your YouTube video on your blog, you’ll need Viper’s Video Quicktags. Newer versions of WordPress (2.9 and above) allow you to embed videos without special plugins, but Viper’s Video Quicktags allows you much better control over how the videos look in your posts. You can set the format for all of your videos in one place instead of coding it in each post – and having to edit ALL your posts to make a change.

After building very successful WordPress blog and online magazine AskDanAndJennifer.com over the last four years, these WordPress plugins are our personal favorites – and for the most part, the only ones we actually use.

So if you’re staring a blog yourself and decide to install WordPress for it (which in our opinion is the only way to go!) these WordPress plugins are a great place to start.

Do you have favorite “must have” WordPress plugins that aren’t in this list? Let us know! Leave a comment.

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Camcorder

One of the obvious things you need to start a successful video show is a camcorder, or possibly more than one if you have them. You don’t have to have an expensive camcorder – you can even use your webcam if you don’t have a more traditional camcorder.

The best thing you can get is a simple HD camcorder which has the following: 1.) a microphone-in jack and 2.) ability to record to an SD card (this makes it very easy to take your recordings to a PC/Mac for video editing) and 3.) a remote control (way better than pushing a button and running to your seat). The Canon Vixia line has worked well for us.

Regardless of whatever camcorder you have, make sure you have a stable place to set the camera up for filming. If you’re using a traditional camcorder, you’ll definitely need a tripod. Don’t have someone hold your camera for you – they’ll never be able to keep it steady enough to keep your viewers from getting motion sickness.

When your video budget justifies it, have someone who knows what they’re doing come in and do the filming part for you. The quality difference will be significant.

Good Lighting

Your living room overhead or a lamp just won’t work if you want good, even lighting for your online video show. Lamps and overheads create shadows, which look unprofessional in a video. Visit a camera store or browse online for some discount lighting fixtures or lighting kits. You don’t need super expensive lightboxes or anything like that. A simple bulb with a broad umbrella will do just fine.

We use and highly recommend this Cowboy Studio video lighting kit. It’s a good price and good quality, and best of all, it is SO MUCH COOLER than our old lighting kit. This one barely puts off any heat.

Lapel Microphone

Strong, even sound is as important as good lighting. For a professional looking and sounding online video show, you want to minimize echos and static. Some computers and laptops have built-in microphones that may work, but your best bet is a lapel microphone, especially if you’re shooting your video on a set in front of a camera instead of with a webcam. Lapel microphones are very inexpensive, but they’re worth their weight in gold.

For example, for a long time we used 2 of  these $20 Audio-Techica lapel mics with 20 foot cords and a $5 cable splitter from Radio Shack to combone their signal into the camcorder microphone-in jack. Until you go wireless, these are probably still your best bet.

Video Editing Platform

Good video editing software is essential for a professional looking video show. There will be lots of things you want to edit out, without spending hours re-recording a video to be perfect because you don’t have editing software. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to have a Mac to have a great video editing platform. Adobe has some great options for Windows video editing, including Adobe Premiere Elements which is available for less than $100. However, their best program so far is Adobe Premiere Pro, which comes in at just over $700 – if that fits your budget.

Just like with filming above, when your video budget justifies it, have someone who knows what they’re doing do the video editing for you. The quality difference will be significant, again. What’s great is today you can share files with your video editor using tools like Dropbox, so no more running hard drives with HD video all over town.

Use Video Sharing Sites

Video sharing websites, like YouTube, are free and your most valuable tool for getting people to see your video show and start making money online. Create accounts with several of the most popular video sharing websites and start uploading your video show online regularly so people can start watching what you’ve created. Tubemogul is an excellent option if you want to upload one video to multiple video sharing websites without the hassle of uploading large files over and over to different sites. Tubemogul allows you to upload the video once and it will distribute your video to various video sharing websites for you.

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Staying Relevant In Your Niche

Using social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook is one of the easiest ways you can stay connected to your blog readers and relevant in your niche. Regular Tweets and Facebook posts keep people reading and keep people “in the know” about your favorite topics. Also, one of the best forms of advertisement is through word of mouth. Fans of your Facebook page will inadvertently direct their friends to your page via their Wall and so on and so on. Your Twitter followers might Tweet about a topic you’ve already Tweeted about and tell their friends about it and so on. Using social media outlets is a must if you really want to be a successful blogger and build your own brand.

The Benefits Of Scheduling Your Tweets

The benefits of scheduling your Tweets is that you don’t always have to be at your computer when you want something Tweeted. While there are applications that can allow you to Tweet from your cell phone, sometimes you just want to take some time off without completely withdrawing yourself from staying on top of things and staying relevant. That’s where scheduling your Tweets (and your blog posts) comes in handy.

Tweeting Responsibly

There is definitely a fine line between using Twitter and Facebook scheduling tools and abusing them. While you can schedule many of your Tweets, it quickly becomes obvious that all you’re doing is scheduling your Tweets and you’re not really relevant in your niche anyways. Your Twitter followers and Facebook fans will ask you questions, and it’s important that you answer them. Although you do schedule some of your Tweets, you should add to it by answering questions and having real conversations with people. This is the best way to build your brand and let people know that you’re available and interested in what your blog is about. Social media outlets give you the opportunity to actually be in the action instead of simply being behind the scenes. Use your Twitter and your Facebook pages to talk about your favorite topics, ask your fans and followers questions of your own and get them involved and interested in your blog topics. Not only will this generate tons of traffic for your blog, it will also generate real interest, and that’s something that can’t be bought. Be responsible with your Twitter and Facebook. Take the time to talk to your fans and followers, and schedule your Tweets and posts when you have to.