Starting Your Own Blog - Part I

These days, when you own a business, you almost have to have a presence on the internet. It’s usually the first place people look when trying to find products and services, and marketing surveys constantly list blogs among the top 5 tools for generating sales leads. To those of us who are not programmers, or even all that tech savvy, the whole concept of setting up a website or blog can be overwhelming. Where do you start? What should you include? How do you do it? Website or blog?

I have learned a lot about blogging over the past few years, so I decided to start a series of posts to share that knowledge and help you all get your own business blogs up and running.

Website or Blog?
A blog is definitely the easiest way to go. And since you are able to set it up yourself, it’s easy for you to make updates and add content to it. Building a website requires hiring someone who knows website design and programming, and when you want to update your site, you have to ask that person for help. I dislike being dependant on somebody else (and at the mercy of their schedule) every time I want to change or add something, and also, the cost of that adds up pretty quickly. I did have two websites at one point (one for animal massage, one for photography) but it turned out to be such a hassle that I started blogs instead, and I am really happy with that decision.

Many people are under the impression that in order to have a blog, you have to post weekly, or even daily, but that’s not the case at all. Once your blog is up and running with all the content you want, you don’t have to do a thing to it (although posting something new every now and then doesn’t hurt). You probably want to market your site (more on that in coming posts), but there is no need to add more content if you don’t want to. It can be as static as a website.

WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
You can either blog for free at sites like WordPress.com or Blogspot or you can get hosted blogging, where you register your own domain name and pay a hosting company to host your site. I personally prefer WordPress over Blogspot, and I also like to own my domain name and have full control over my blog. But there are pros and cons to both approaches. Below are the main points for each option.

WordPress.com (the free version) Pros:

• It’s free
• It’s very easy to set up
• You get to pick from their pre-installed themes, stat counters and widgets
• Your posts are automatically backed up
• You don’t have to do any site maintenance (upgrades, etc.)
• You need hardly any technical knowledge

WordPress.com Cons:

• Your domain name will have .wordpress.com at the end (i.e. www.animalmassageguide.wordpress.com) unless you upgrade to a paid account and buy your own domain name
• You can’t upload your own theme
• You can’t modify the themes supplied by WordPress (unless you upgrade to a paid account)
• You can’t upload and use plugins
• You can’t put videos on your site (unless you upgrade and pay a fee)
• You are not allowed to put ads on your site
• WordPress.com sometimes put ads on your site
• You don’t own your domain name

WordPress.org (self hosted) Pros:

• You have your own unique domain name (www.animalmassageguide.com)
• You can upload and use any theme you want
• You can modify your theme to change the look of your site any way you want
• You have complete control of your site
• You can put ads on your site (and generate a bit of extra income)

WordPress.org Cons:

• You’ll have to buy your own domain name (usually around $10/year)
• It does require a bit more technical knowledge to get your site up & running
• You’re responsible for upgrades, backups, etc.
• You will have to have it hosted somewhere (which costs $5 and up per month)

If you have a hobby or family blog, WordPress.com is a great way to go. However, for a small business, I think it’s important to have full control of your blog and make it stand out from the rest. So even though it may sound like a lot of work, and there are a few expenses involved, I recommend the self hosted option.

In coming posts, I will write about how to set up a free blog, do a step by step guide to setting up a self-hosted blog, and shorter tutorials on how to publish pages and posts, install plugins, and other tips and tricks.

Related posts:

1. Starting Your Own Blog – Part II Today I’ll walk you through how to start your...
2. Starting Your Own Blog Part IV: Pages – What To Include, How To Publish One Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a fun...
3. Starting Your Own Blog Part VI: Plugins This is the last post in my series about...
4. Starting Your Own Blog Part V: Posts We’ve come to the 5th part in my series...
5. Starting Your Own Blog Part III – 8 Steps To Get Your Self-Hosted Blog Up And Running In this post, I will take you through 8...

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