If you are on an online business like me, then you must have a personal blog. I will not get into details about the benefits of a personal blog, for the reason that this articles purpose is to help you choose the proper platform for your blog, for those of you who don’t have already one.
There are two types of platforms to choose from. The first is a hosted blog platform, with WordPress.com and Blogger.com being the most used ones.
Hosted blog platforms are free for the users, and you can develop an account following the simple information accurately in minutes. You will be online, usually with a domain name: username.wordpress.com.
So the benefits for WordPress.com are that is free to use and simple to make your blog.
The bad news for marketeers is that you have limitations.You are under control of WordPress, since you don’t have the hosting of your blog. You can’t vary anything, install your own plug-ins. And the worst fragment for marketeers is that WordPress.com does not permit you to put advertisements of any kind.
On the other hand, WordPress.org is a platform that you must develop your self. You must buy your own domain name (about $10-15 a year i.e. GoDaddy) and get your hosting account ( about $7-12 per month i.e. HostGator).
That provides you greatest flexibility and customization. You can advertise, change anything you want and install any plug-in you want.
So, at WordPress.org you have to pay for a domain name and hosting. That’s the one drawback. The other is that is a little bit more confuse to make your account. You need to have some technical skills, but you can with no trouble get them at WordPress help center.
So, which is the best solution for you?
That is something you must resolve according to your long-term goals of your blog. if you want a blog for your personal use, to distribute your thoughts with your friends and family, a free blog at WordPress.com will be fine.
But if you want to use your blog for business purposes, having to advertise your opportunities and products, then a paying for hosting blog like WordPress.org should be your choice,like most business owners and marketeers.
My final advise to you, if you are not definite which kind of platform should you use, is to start a free practising blog at WordPress.com first. That’s a great technique to start learning how to use WordPress. Start playing around with features and testing what you attain there. You can start a blog at any area you enjoy. For example, even if you are intoon line jobs, you can start your practice blog about a hobby you have, lets say gardening, basically to learn how to blog and about the WordPress software.
After a while, it will be easier for you to decide if you want to stay at WordPress.com or switch to WordPress.org.
