Newbie question about blogging

I would suggest just starting with Wordpress and a simple free theme. You can use the plugin "Post Layout" for Wordpress to plug in your Adsense code.

I think it is Blogger.com.

I never used them but heard great things about them.

Blogger isn't a bad system per se, but I would not recommend using it for commercial purposes. The terms of service, and Google's interpretations of them, are notoriously iffy and inconsistent. You don't want to invest a lot of time building up a site only to have it pulled without recourse. It's happened to a lot of people.

Certainly no point in that when you can buy a domain for as little as $1.00 to $3.00 and host it entirely free of charge at a host like Byet Host, where you get to control it.

I make money through AdSense, Amazon, Clickbank and other networks. My sites are hosted mostly at HostGator, all my domains are registered at NameCheap (many of them are cheap .info's) and they almost all run on Wordpress. I can wholeheartedly recommend this "combination". But if you're not "up" with installing and maintaining self-hosted scripts and changing layouts via HTML/CSS, then you might look at a very highly recommended blogging alternative known as TypePad. With that you get much of the functionality of Wordpress with the convenience of a WYSIWYG theme/layout editor. It's not free but is very reasonably priced and includes web-hosting as part of the package.

I personally use Wordpress. With blogging the important thing is to make consistent updates 1-2 times a week with good quality content. Give your readers what they want & they’ll keep coming back for more!

Also with setting up your blog, I don't know how much you know about or like computers, but it can be fun or stressful learning how to set up a blog.

What I would do if I were you, is learn about setting up a wordpress blog on YouTube, and see if it's something that you're going to enjoy doing. Also, like bretski said, they should have some tutorial videos on the wordpress site, and sometimes on the hosting site as well about getting started.

Since you've never done it before, I would also suggest at least giving it a try. This way if you do decide to outsource it, you can be a bit more specific in your directions to your VA.
-Mike

get wordpress and then look for the thesis theme

use wordpress

and start from that

Ah, but you are wrong, InternetMarketingIQ, in the sense that many of us here recommend NameCheap precisely because we have so much positive experience with them. And, on the flip side, so much negative experience with other large companies that are notoriously shady in their practices - something that NameCheap aren't overwhelming known for.

Whether they publicise their "real physical address" or not isn't much of a concern, at least to me. They're well established online and have provided a consistently good service for so many people for a long time. And regardless of their still relatively small size, there are many good reasons for choosing them over certain other monolithic companies whose industry "positions" were secured through oppressive, distasteful and sometimes downright unethical business practices.

Sorry to hear about the issue you had with your Black Friday special offer, but something doesn't smell right here. I get the feeling you're not telling the whole story, or have assumed a lot of stuff about what did and didn't happen. What you're describing would be fraud, so if it's really as you say, and you paid via PayPal, file a dispute. Alternatively, if you used a credit card, perform a chargeback. Paid by debit card? Contact your bank.

Or maybe you just didn't fully read and comprehend the terms of the offer in question and now you want to point the finger for your own ignorance. Not sure what the score is in regards to a reversal/refund if you've had credit in your account there for quite some time, but then there's a lesson: always read the terms and don't credit your account more than you need to - NameCheap ain't a bank.

As for their hosting service, no-one "in the know" will recommend you hold your domains and have your hosting at the same company, anyway. What you see recommended here, more often than not, is only NameCheap's domain-registration service.

HostGator, overall, are one of the finest hosts around in that price range. And better than many more expensive hosts, too. They might have issues of overloading here and there on shared servers, but mistakes happen. Main thing is, at HostGator, they tend to get sorted out quickly. The fact is though, shared hosting isn't for everyone. Forgive me, but you're coming across right now as one of those people who wants to pay $5/month and expects a full server in exchange. I hope you're not one of these hasty decision-makers who makes a series of monumental mistakes and then seeks to abdicate himself of all responsibility to the detriment of all other parties.