STEP 2: Purchase a web hosting plan
One of the most important things you need to get started on WordPress.org is a web host. That’s because WordPress.org blogs are self-hosted, meaning you provide a place to store all your blog files. Confused about what this means?
Here’s our fave analogy:
If your domain name is your street address on the web, think of your web hosting as your actual house. It’s the place in which you store (or… host!) your files. Another good way to think of it is like it’s office space you are renting for your website. You need a place to work and display all of your gorgeous content, and your host gives you that space! We discussed this analogy more in our blog post “The Difference Between Domains and Hosting,” if you want to learn more.
That’s it really—if you want to blog with the WordPress.org platform, you need a hosting plan, which simply means you need a place to store all your files.
IMPORTANT: Just because you bought your domain name at Hosting Company A does not mean you have web hosting with the same company. While many companies do bundle the two and offer discounted packages, some offer them as separate services as well. If you would like to purchase a bundled domain and hosting plan, be sure you are buying this option when you check out. A good rule of thumb is that if you don’t have the option to install WordPress, you probably haven’t purchased a hosting plan.
How do you choose which web host and plan is right for you?
You're in luck! We've written about that here.