Should I get my own website?

[Lily]

Should I make my own website and buy a domain instead of making a google.site website?
I want to make a cooking blog for healthy recipes and eventually I'd like to compile some recipes and sell them in a book. Would be a better investment to fess up and buy a cheap domain or since it's my first should I just stick with a google.sites?

[xx x]

I would say use wordpress.com for a free blog that would be a great way to get started. You can get something like yournamecooking.wordpress.com or similar. If it gets popular you can always buy the domain from godaddy for as cheap as 8$ but would have to pay for hosting, etc.

[Jake]

There are a number of for-profit sites using the free Google Blogger.com host, which allows you to create a site with no programming. They have no paid upgrades like many other 'free' sites, this includes a custom domain you would get separately at a registrar like godaddy or namecheap.

To get a feel for blogger blogs you might do a web search for:

site:blogspot.com intitle:recipes

(that gets you simpler ones that don't have a custom domain name)

[Maikel]

If you ask me getting a domain and webhosting is the best invest you could make. I would always go for a self hosted site (I use WordPress) over a remotely hosted blog, here's why:

- The domain name: instead of yourdomain.wordpress.com it's yourdomain.com which looks way more professional
- Less risk, with hosting your website on a platform like WordPress you are at risk of getting terminated when your content against the ToS. This won't happen often but it has happened before to people.
- Plugins!!: Great feature that self hosted WordPress blogs have. There are literally thousands of them out there and they can do about anything to help your website, very very powerful.

Hope that helps,
Maikel Michiels

[colossalquicksand967]

If you foresee this being a professional venture then I always recommend taking the time and doing the right thing from the start. Get a domain name, hosting, your own email, blog etc. We have a couple of articles we have written to help you

http://www.computergeeks2go.com/101guide...ple-steps/

and

http://www.computergeeks2go.com/101guide...5-minutes/

if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact us or leave us a comment we will be glad to help you get up and running.