My personal choice for free blogging software is www.wordpress.org. With WordPress.org:
- people linking to your blog help drive traffic to a domain that you own
- you need a domain name (about $10/year), your blog URL would be www.yourdomain.com
- you need a hosting account (about $50+/year)
- you can find a lot of free WordPress templates on the internet (or even buy a template for under a hundred dollars) to customize the look of your blog
- you can install free 3rd party plug-ins/applications to add functionality to your blog
- you handle your own blog installation on your server/hosting account
- you are responsible for upgrading to new versions of WordPress when they are released (WordPress made this very easy with the release of version 2.7)
- you are responsible for upgrading to new versions of any plug-ins/applications that you use (this is also very easy to do)
- you control where you have your blog hosted, you can easily move your blog to another company as long as you have a back-up of your blog
If you don’t want to pay for a hosting account, you can use www.wordpress.com. With WordPress.com:
- people linking to your blog are in essence driving traffic to WordPress.com instead of a domain that you own
- if you move your blog all of your incoming links (from other blogs, websites or blog directories) will no longer work
- you don’t need to buy a domain or pay for a hosting account
- your website URL would look like this www.yourname.wordpress.com
- you CANNOT use 3rd party design templates
- you CANNOT use 3rd party plug-ins/applications
- you do not need to install anything
- WordPress automatically handles version upgrades, spam control and back-ups for you
- your blog is hosted for free at WordPress.com which means they have the power to shut down your blog (if they think you are not abiding by their policies)
Both WordPress platforms are free and blog posts from both can be imported into Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc… Once your blog is set-up, the process of creating content on your blog is almost identical on either blogging platform.
I prefer using WordPress.org because I am able to personalize my blog with my chosen template and because of the flexibility of using 3rd party plug-ins. The plug-ins that I use add functionality, search engine optimization features, analytics, spam control, automatic back-up capability and more to my blog. I also really like the idea that I am branding my company and my blog by using my own domain name and that I am driving traffic to my domain instead of to a WordPress.com domain. And then of course there’s the fact that I have control over whether or not my blog gets shut down…not someone else!
If you use WordPress.com, your blog will not be as flexible or customized but it is an okay place to start and a much better option than Google’s Blogger/Blogspot (in my opinion)!
Happy Blogging,
Kimberly Yow
Marketing That’s Easy.com
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