Choosing the Address · Beginner · an afternoon
How to start a blog on your domain — Choose the Address Before You Choose the Theme
You can change the theme on a Tuesday afternoon; changing where the blog lives means redirects, re-verification and a name you must keep renewing forever.
The short answer
Settle the address first: whether the blog lives at yourdomain.com/blog or at blog.yourdomain.com, whether the canonical hostname is the apex or www, and whether the name you are registering carries eligibility rules you have to meet. These decisions outlast every theme, plugin and hosting plan you will ever choose.
The subfolder is the usual right answer, because everything you publish accumulates to one hostname. A subdomain is a separate host as far as search engines are concerned, which is occasionally what you want and usually not.
Then install WordPress from the one-click installer, fix your categories, set post-name permalinks, and start. An afternoon, beginner level.
By the Hosting & Domains team · Reviewed 24 August 2026
Beginner
Level pitched at
5
Stages to work through
Free
Cost of support
Proven
Confirmed on our platform
This is the one hosting decision that is genuinely hard to undo. Files move, databases move, plans change in place — but an address that has been indexed, linked and printed on things is a commitment.
The registration itself is straightforward and cheap. What costs is registering the wrong thing, or registering it in somebody else's details, and finding out two years in.
Everything below assumes the name will be yours: the registrant record in your details, the auth code available on request, and the renewal in your own diary.
Subfolder or subdomain — a real decision
yourdomain.com/blog and blog.yourdomain.com look almost identical and behave quite differently. The subfolder is part of the same hostname as the rest of the site, so links, authority and returning readers all accumulate in one place. The subdomain is a separate host: it needs its own DNS record, it can be verified and analysed separately, and search engines treat it as a related but distinct property.
Choose the subdomain when the blog genuinely is a separate thing — a different audience, a different application, a different team. Choose the subfolder in every other case, which is most of them.
Apex or www, then never think about it again
Pick one hostname as canonical and redirect the other to it permanently. Both should resolve; only one should serve. The apex takes an A or AAAA record and cannot carry a CNAME, so some providers offer ALIAS or ANAME records to work around that; www is an ordinary CNAME and is easier to repoint when you change host.
Do this on day one. Doing it in year three means auditing every internal link, every canonical tag and every verification property you have created in the meantime.
The extension is not only a matter of taste
Some extensions carry eligibility rules. A ccTLD may require a local presence, a registered company, or a residency test, and the registry checks rather than trusting. Others are unrestricted but have their own transfer and renewal conventions.
Read the registry's rules before you build a brand on the name. A name you cannot renew because you no longer satisfy an eligibility condition is a worse problem than a name you never registered.
Make sure the name is actually yours
Whose details are on the registrant record? That is the question that decides ownership, and it is not answered by who pays the invoice. If the record names your web designer, your agency or your host, the name is theirs and you are a tenant.
Ask, in writing, for the registrant record to be corrected to you. Then check you can obtain the auth code on request, and that the renewal date is somewhere you will see it. The registry usually locks a name for roughly sixty days after a registration or a transfer, which is normal and not obstruction.
Structure before content. A small set of deliberate categories that mirror your actual themes, decided before the first post. The taxonomy you write today is the structure readers and crawlers will walk for years, and renaming a category later means another redirect.
Post-name permalinks, an SEO plugin, and an about page saying who writes and why. Those are the pieces of trust furniture that turn a visit into a subscription.
Own the audience channel too. Open the mailing list with the first post rather than the fiftieth. An audience channel you own compounds from the beginning or never compounds at all, and it is the one asset that survives a platform pivot, a search algorithm change and a rebrand.
Then settle on a rhythm you can keep. Weekly, held steady, beats daily-then-quarterly by a wide margin, and it is the blog still publishing in month eighteen that readers and search engines both reward.
The name and the hosting, ordered in the right sequence
The first year of the registration is included when you order annually, and the renewal is billed at the figure you registered at rather than at a rate discovered in year two. The registrant record is recorded in your own details, and the auth code is issued on request once the registry lock lifts — whether or not the hosting stays with us.
On the hosting side, Softaculous installs WordPress and 400+ other applications in one click, and WordPress Toolkit handles the updates. The blog is an afternoon; the address is the part worth thinking about.
- First year of the registration included on an annual order
- The registration recorded in your own details
- An auth code issued on request once the registry lock lifts
- Renewal billed at the figure you registered at
Why Hosting & Domains
Standard on every plan
The irreversible decision, taken first
Subfolder against subdomain, apex against www. Themes change on a Tuesday; the address is a commitment with redirects attached.
Eligibility rules flagged
Some extensions require a local presence or a registered company, and the registry checks. Better to know before the branding is printed.
Ownership checked, not assumed
Whose details are on the registrant record is the question that decides who owns the name, and paying the invoice does not answer it.
Structure before the first post
Categories and permalinks settled early, because renaming a taxonomy later is another set of redirects to maintain forever.
An audience channel you keep
The mailing list opens with post one. It is the only asset that survives a platform pivot, an algorithm change and a rebrand intact.
A pace that survives month eighteen
Consistency beats volume, and the guide is honest that the blog still publishing later is the one that gets rewarded.
Quick Start
Order placed to site online
- 1
Register the name in your own details
The registrant record decides ownership, not the invoice. Check the details are yours, that privacy is set as you want it, and that the renewal date is somewhere you will actually see it.
- 2
Decide subfolder or subdomain, and canonical hostname
A subfolder accumulates everything to one hostname; a subdomain is a separate host with its own record and its own verification. Then pick apex or www and redirect the other permanently.
- 3
Install WordPress from the one-click installer
Softaculous puts WordPress on the address you chose in minutes. Everything after this point is reversible, which is exactly why the address came first.
- 4
Fix the categories and the permalinks
A small set of deliberate categories mirroring your real themes, and post-name permalinks set before anything is published. Both are structures readers and crawlers will follow for years.
- 5
Open the mailing list with post one
A signup on the first post, an about page saying who writes and why, and a publishing rhythm you can sustain. The channel you own is the one that compounds.
Built In
Fitted to every plan
- First year of the registration included on an annual order
- The registration recorded in your own details
- An auth code issued on request once the registry lock lifts
- Renewal billed at the figure you registered at
- WordPress and 400+ other applications installed in one click
- WordPress Toolkit, with updates handled for you
- Nameservers, contacts, privacy and locks in one place
- Free SSL on every plan, reissued before the old one lapses
- No set-up charge and no joining fee, at any point
- A desk staffed every hour of every day
Frequently Asked
Questions we field again and again
Should the blog be a subfolder or a subdomain?
A subfolder in most cases. yourdomain.com/blog shares a hostname with the rest of the site, so links and returning readers accumulate in one place and there is nothing extra to verify or measure. blog.yourdomain.com is a separate host: it needs its own DNS record and search engines treat it as a related but distinct property. Choose the subdomain only when the blog genuinely is a separate thing with a separate audience.
How do I check the domain is actually registered to me?
Look at the registrant record rather than at who pays. If it names an agency, a designer or a host, the name is theirs. Ask in writing for the record to be corrected to you, then confirm two things: that you can obtain the auth code on request, and that you can see the renewal date yourself. A name held in somebody else's details is a name you are renting.
Do some extensions have rules about who may register them?
Yes. Several country-code extensions require a local presence, a registered company, or a residency test, and the registry verifies rather than takes your word for it. A few sector extensions have accreditation requirements. Check the registry's published policy before you build a brand on the name, because losing an extension at renewal for failing an eligibility test is a great deal more expensive than choosing differently at the start.
Would Medium or Substack not be easier?
Easier to start, and the reach is lent rather than owned. Your archive, your search equity and your subscriber list all survive every platform pivot when they sit on a name recorded in your own details. Syndicate wherever you like, but keep the canonical version on ground you hold and keep the renewal on auto.
Keep reading
How to Register a Domain Name
Search, check eligibility, and get the registrant record right the first time.
Domain Names
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Start on ground recorded in your name.
First year of the registration included on an annual order, renewal at the figure you registered at, and a desk that answers at any hour.
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