Let’s get right to the point 🙂 The best blogging site would have to be WordPress. I’m not talking about WordPress.com but rather hosting a WordPress blog on your own domain.
There is a big difference between the two.
If you were to set up a free blog on WordPress.com you can’t add any plugins (which is where the biggest benefit of WordPress lies) and you’re also limited in what you can publish. A worst case scenario is that WordPress has the authority to shut your blog down if it doesn’t like the content – ouch!
Installing WordPress on your own domain is totally different. A WordPress blog installed on your own domain gives you the flexibility to do whatever you want, including:
- Using any WordPress theme
- Customizing your theme
- Adding any plugin
- Publishing any content you like
Most internet marketers and website owners love WordPress because:
- It’s fully scalable – add as many pages and posts as you like
- Content management – your pages and posts are automatically linked and you can structure it any way you like
- Functionality – there are tons of free (and paid) plugins that allow you to do almost anything you want with your site, such as SEO optimization, Google Analytics, Facebook social plugins, social bookmarking, list building, and much, much more
- It’s free
Other great blogging sites are:
Blogger
Blogger is owned by Google and is a very robust blogging platform. It’s free and used by thousands.
Blogger is excellent for those that are just starting out because of its ‘drag and drop’ user interface. There’s heaps of features that you can add to your blog with just a few clicks of a button. Blogger is also very customizable; there are a lot of themes to choose from and you can alter them if you know a bit of html and php. There’s also a lot of gadgets you can add to your blog such as video sharing, list building, photo sharing, polls, Google Adsense and Amazon advertising, etc.
Posterous
Posterous is not as well known but definitely one of the best blogging sites.
What makes Posterous so unique and powerful is its content syndication. You can configure Posterous to automatically publish your new Posterous post to a heap of your other blogging accounts, including Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Xanga, WordPress.com and many more.
Publishing to Posterous is super easy; simply email your post to post@posterous.com and that’s it!
My recommendation is this; if you’re serious about blogging, you have to use the best blogging site; WordPress. There’s just no other option.
If you haven’t do so already it’s easy. Simply register your own domain (only $10 per year!), host it on Hostgator, and install WordPress on your domain (within Cpanel > Fantastico Deluxe). It will take a while to get used to it but using WordPress is not very hard and it will get you the best results.
If you’re totally new to internet marketing and feel a bit intimidated about getting a WordPress site set up, that’s okay! Simply sign up for a free Blogger account and get used to blogging. When you’re ready, set up your WordPress blog.
Hands down to wordpress. By far the most useful blogging platform. It can be also use to create ecommerce and static sites.
Another option if you want to use wordpress.org on the cheap is to use a free hosting site such as awardspace.com. You can set up a subdomain like myblog.awardspace.com, install WordPress and start blogging!
Great article. I’ve already forwarded it to one of my friends who is trying to blog about personal training and fitness.
Thank you John!
Dario.
I agree with what you’ve said regarding WordPress. I really wish that I would have started my blogging journey by buying my own domain name and purchasing webhosting. Instead I hosted my first blog on Blogger. After finally feeling as though I’d gotten the hang of blogging, I wake up one day to find out that my blog had been deleted.
I do think that working with a free web host allowed me to gain great experience. However, if someone is looking to make money online I would also recommend just buying your own domain name and purchasing webhosting from the start. Many people are indeed intimidated with the technical aspects, but there is no need to be. There are tons of resources all over the web and as you stated there are webhosts such as Hostgator that basically do the entire set up for you. If I can do it anyone can, because I am in no way tech savvy.
Hi Sabrina,
Thanks for sharing your experience. Yes, I totally agree it’s best to get your own domain and host WordPress on it. There’s just so much more flexibility and control and you also are creating an asset you can sell in the future.