Forum Moderators: mack
Basically, all you need is some free or cheap "shared hosting", which means you get X amount of disk space, bandwidth, CPU cycles and programs on a webserver that is connected 24/7 to the Internet.
Since you want an aggregation and blog site, I assume you will use some pre-written software for each. You will need to see the software requirements of each so you know which potential webhosts are compatible with your needs.
When you have decided where your site will be hosted, you will need to find out the 'nameservers' used by the host. These nameservers are used to direct web traffic to your website. You should be able to find a hosts webservers in their F.A.Q. or by e-mailing their support team.
When all that is sorted, access your GoDaddy account and change the nameservers for the domain to point to the ones you wish to.
After a short period of propagation, you should see that your domain now points to your webspace.
There's two main types of hosting: Windows (usually with IIS) and Linux (usually with Apache). There's lot of help for both, but Apache is by far the most popular of the two. It's also very configurable - something you will need as you get more into this.
Is there a walk thru site that could help me make the transition?
The service you bought the domains with will have what you need. How could you miss all the value-add, "wait, don't miss out!" and long pages of upsells? :-)
There are a variety of grow-your-own web site tools with that service. I don't use those, but use other areas (domain names, dedicated hosting, etc.) Call the number at the upper right of the page. They will answer in English, and will be **more** than happy to sell you the services, sometimes at a discount for phone-in support/orders.
I've never looked at it but one of the frequent upsells is "web Site Tonight."
Say all you want about G.D., but at least when you call them, someone answers, which is more than you can say for most "budget" hosting services.
Wordpress also has widgets that allow you to cut and paste stuff into various areas of pages on your site. so for advertising, you could set up a google adsense account, then cut and paste the code that google adsense gives you, into a widget in your worpdress blog. That'll give you google adsense on your blog.
So to summarize, go find a hosting company that does automatic wordpress hosting and installation. Use the wordpress control panel to start posting to your blog and setting things up. Then cut and paste your google adsense code into a wordpress widget.
That is not optimal strategy by any stretch. However I think you'll find it's the fastest and easiest route to going from 0 to functional, with the lowest learning curve. You can worry about fine tuning once you're up and running.
