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Hey everyone,
Figured this is the smartest most well-rounded place I could ask for advice.
Basically, I've wanted to start a website/blog focused on PC gaming for years now. As a consumer, I feel that none of the websites/blogs available fulfill my needs for something focused on PC gaming as a whole. As an undergraduate English major, I feel that my writing skills are adequate.
I figured to get the ball rolling, I'd start off as with a smaller, solo-run blog. I'd write stuff like tweak-guides, strategy guides, opinion pieces, so on and so forth. Basically just get myself out there/started as a writer and see where it goes from there.
Okay, I guess all that back story was useless. Basically, I have no idea what web-host/blog, etc would be best for my needs. I have a URL in mind and would be willing to pay the money to nab it. I have decent web design skills but don't want to have to actually design a whole website; I would prefer to have something that offers nice templates.
Any help/advice would be really appreciated.
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Why not use a free blog tool like blogger? Then you can just buy a domain name and route it to your blog if you're dead-set on having some specific url.
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You could use a free blogging website such as blogger, tumblr, or livejournal, all of which has themes and is flexible enough probably to suit your needs.
Alternatively, if you could get your own hosting, you could learn wordpress, which allows gives you slightly more freedom and is still relatively easy to learn.
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Ok, first question, how much money are you willing to pay for hosting? A domain name will cost you $10, and theres some hosting sites out there that will cost about $5 a month.
Second, Wordpress is the best option, many free templates and very easy to use blogging tool. Another thing, you can also purchase some really cool designed wordpress templates that suite gaming blog type.
If you have any questions just send me a PM.  I have a lot of experience with blogs and websites.
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Thanks for the advice everyone
Money isn't really a huge issue, since I'm living the type of opulent lifestyle student loans allows. To a certain extent, I WANT to pay some money. If its a free service it'll be too easy for me to get lazy and not work at it.
Wordpress sounds good and I'll probably go with that. Basically, I wanted whatever is a step up from all the free stuff, and that sounds like it 
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Maybe get a hosting + domain + premium wordpress blog skin and the graphic part is solved.
The rest is on your writing skills.
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If you want you can just get a free .co.cc domain, get some cheap hosting somewhere, then you can install Wordpress.
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Hosting: Hostgator (Referral Link), most reliable and best customer support I have ever worked with. Really cheap, and they are "green". Used by most of the internet marketing industry in the western world.
URL: NameCheap (Referral Link), basically, professionals are split fairly even between Namecheap and GoDaddy. I personally use NameCheap because they have awesome support and the most simple and pleasant interface I have ever used.
Platform: Wordpress self-hosted.
There are millions of free themes out there. But if you want to go the extra mile, there are usually just two options: http://www.briangardner.com/themes and http://www.woothemes.com
I personally use for most my magazine/news style websites Gotham News from woothemes.com.
Quick background on myself, I started out in the affiliate marketing world, slinging shit at noob housewifes. I discovered that it was much more fun making websites, developing them and selling them a couple months later, thus I made my way into website flipping. Because of the big meltdown of 2009 (acai, flogs anyone?) I decided to get out of the internet business for good. I just do one small job nowadays because it is a company with a very white vest and I got proper contracts which have been honored so far. Plus my boss is among the most awesome people I met online.
Edit: You can also pay me $100 + expenses and I set it all up for you
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As a kind of trial run, I just got my domain and all that through WordPress. They made it so easy and ripped me off just enough that it wasn't too bad to be worth it. I definitely still appreciate any advice anyone has for doing things more cheaply/intelligently in the future.
Right now I'm just playing around and trying to make something attractive Thanks so much everyone.
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EPT
