If your blog is hosted on blogger.com and your blog address looks like this, yourblog.blogspot.com, you need to get a custom (personal) domain name. It’s the right thing to do if you intend to build a brand around your blog. Most probloggers don’t recommend free blog hosting but I do for starters with little or no budget. My other blog (with over 4000 subscribers) is hosted on blogger (thinking of moving to wordpress soon). If you are building a blog for your business or can afford a few bucks for hosting, wordpress is probably the best choice for you.
For starters, a domain name is a web address that links to all the files (posts and pages) on your blog or website. By default, blogger/blogspot blogs comes with a domain format like yourblog.blogspot.com. Your custom domain name will look like www.yourblog.com, which is a lot more attractive. A domain name cost from $10 to $15, depending on the domain registrar. Most popular registrars accept payment via credit cards or debit or PayPal. More so, if you want to buy directly from blogger.com, which makes the set up easiest, you also need a credit card. If you have any of the above means of online payment, you can easily pay for a domain and have it on your blog in a day or two. What if you don’t have a credit/ debit card or PayPal and want to get a custom domain for your blog? On this post I want to recommend a service I use when I had limited options for online payment. This hosting service will help you register a personal domain name, with payment options in Liberty Reserve, AlertPay, Local ATM Naira and Ghana-Cedi.
How this will work on your Blog
You need to register a domain name from a reliable domain registrar, and then configure your domain to work on your blog. Once this is done right (it’s no big deal actually) all blogspot links on your blog will automatically redirect to your new address. Your visitors will no long see the long blogspot address but your new address. It’s automated and works like charm.
How to register
I use Web4Africa for my domain registration and their customer service, as far as I can tell, is prompt and effective. Web4Africa is a webhosting and domain registration service, and offer domain registration with several payment options at $12/year. I used their domain hosting service to configure www.afterschoolafrica.com to over-ride old blisscareer.blogspot.com without leaving any older post behind.
Web4Africa accepts payment for their services from Liberty Reserve, AlertPay and Bank Payments in Naira (for Bloggers in Nigeria) and Cedi (for bloggers in Ghana). Click Here to register your domain on Web4Africa.
Once your domain is set up (usually the same day after payment is confirmed), go to Submit Ticket| Technical Support to email the technical team to configure your domain to work on your blogspot blog. Here is what they would need:
DNS settings
CNAME for www.yourdomain.com
nameserver: ghs.google.com
A NAME Records for naked domain
yourdomain.com
the following IP addresses:
216.239.32.21
216.239.34.21
216.239.36.21
216.239.38.21
You will receive a follow up email once your domain is configured. Go to your blogger dashboard Setting|Publishing| Custom Domain|Switch to advanced settings. Enter your domain name in the box, the word Verification and then save. In the next page, check the box Redirect yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com, verify and then save. All your blog entries will now open with your custom domain.
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This is such good post for absolutely newbie bloggers. thanks for sharing dude.
Please how do I make my blogger blog more SEO friendly tweaking the template?
Yes! It’s basically for newbies. Thank man.
GREAT REVIEW! I pretty much agree with pretty much all you said in your post, especially at the middle of your article. Thank you, your post is very valuable as always. Plase check my free ipad 2 blog, hope you will find interesting information about free ipad 2 there! Keep up the good work! You’ve got +1 more reader of your great blog:) Isabella S.
Thanks for the comment Isabella. It’s nice to have you around.
Please I am having desame problem help
08168986994
This post appears to recieve a large ammount of visitors. How do you get traffic to it? It offers a nice individual spin on things. I guess having something useful or substantial to talk about is the most important factor.
Hi Ikenna, this is interesting but you forgot to mention http://www.securesignup.net where you can be able to use LR to buy domain and also host it there free….check them out!
Thanks forthis…
Hi Ola,
I haven’t used the service you mentioned. This is more of a review on a service I’ve used that works.
Thanks again for commenting. I hope to see you more often.
What a good post. I just want to subscribe your newsletters. Thanks a lot.
Hey. Very cool website!! Guy .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I’ll bookmark your web site and take the feeds also…I’m satisfied to find a lot of helpful info here within the article. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks alot, does blogger.com provide technical support as web4africa does, & how much is the domain name for blogger.com
Also, does domain name bring revenue to the owner?
Dont web4africa allow clients to set up by own(like godaddy)
DNS settings
CNAME
nameserver
A NAME Records for naked domain etc?
if yes, then how ? please make a post about it.thanks.
Yes, you can configure your domain details on web4africa. I may write a post about it in future. For a straight forward step just go to “My domain“, click the note icon beside the domain you want to change and configure from the window that opens.
Hello dude
Excellent post with excellent information. Its very helpful for me and for others too. I really like your post. I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post. Keep sharing.
Thanks for these tips. I just switched now. Thanks for sharing!
can it work for. .com. ng
How long does a nameserver change take to have effect? Thanks
I am planing to purchase domain from google blogspot and I red about just after successful purchase of domain, my earlier pages would get re-directed automatically to the new site. For example, if earlier site link was ‘example.blogspot.com/page1’ then after purchase of domain with name ‘example’, my new site link would be ‘example.com/page1’. And blogspot users would continue as they were doing before, like creating pages, posts would work as it was before. Is this correct?
I think this post will be a fine read for my blog readers too, could you please allow me to post a link to my blog. I am sure my guests will find that very useful.
My Real one Ikenna!
I really appreciate your effort, I always find valuable things whenever I dwell on your site. I have been your fan for a long time. Pls, can you check out my site to see if I can buy a custom domain at this stage?
This is my humble 2-month-old blog site
https://nurforus.blogspot.com
I hope to see you someday.
With love,