by ~ Jennifer Chait
Wow, late weekend post, huh? Sorry about that. I had the flu and my son had a birthday - it’s been a busy week.
In any case, a reader, Antoinette, asked a question on a previous post here, “I noticed that you mentioned starting a personal blog that could eventually make money. What I would really like to know is if there is any information that details how to do that. It would be helpful to know the best way to set up a blog, maybe some of your personal thoughts on who to use, etc. There is a lot of info online, and it’s a bit confusing.”
First off this is a really long question for a single post – a good question – but long. Freelance Writing Jobs is a good place to ask stuff like this though because of the community. I have one opinion, but you (readers) have tons. That said, there’s no easy way to answer this question other than to break it down. We can start with the obvious – blogging platforms.
Here are some blogging platforms:
Obviously there’s a platform for everyone. This isn’t even all of them. My personal favorite is WordPress.org. I like that it’s professional looking and fairly easy to customize. I like that comments and postdating options are plentiful; unlike Blogger. I like that it’s simple right out of the box; some platforms such as Movable Type have a larger learning curve. I also like WordPress options for categories. You can create categories in Blogger but it’s a major pain, and Movable Type can be just as funky about categories, and fresh out the blogroll can’t be seperated into sections.
With WordPress.org you’ll need to have a host. If you’re looking for free you have to go with WordPress.com but you’re going to be limited option wise, and you technically won’t own your blog under its own domain – although later you can change that.
In any case, if I were starting a new blog, which ironically I am, I’d choose WordPress.org. As for hosts; I like Bluehost.
Ok, your turn. How would you answer Antoinette’s question? Leave a comment about which platform you’d choose and why. Next week we can look at another part of the starting your own blog puzzle.
Among other places, you can visit Jennifer Chait at Offbeat Homes, Slices of Green, 7 Babes A Blogging, and Tree Hugging Family.
Please help keep us going.
February 18th, 2008 at 1:52 am
I am currently on Wordpress, and I must say it made my introduction to blogging extremely easy. I’d absolutely recommend it for a first timer.
I just began writing a new blog for a client who’s on a Blogger platform, and it’s a pain. I couldn’t figure out the deal with uploading pictures, unlike Wordpress which was a snap right from the start. There’s a lot of stuff in Wordpress that I haven’t experimented with yet, but it doesn’t intimidate me, if that makes sense.
Even the navigation menu is so clear and precise - you just know what everything’s for, and what it’s supposed to do!
Plus, Wordpress constantly upgrades to newer versions with better features, and there’s an incredible community of Wordpress users who are constantly tweaking it to improve upon it.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:09 am
If the goal is to eventually make money with the blog, I’d recommend downloading from WordPress.org and using your own domain name. I buy my domains from GoDaddy because I know where to get discount codes (averagebetty.com), but without the discount codes, I’ve heard good things about NameCheap. I use HostGator for hosting, and I very much like them for the unlimited domains feature. However, you can probably do better if you’re only hosting one site.
If you want to make money, but not register a domain and pay for hosting, I’d recommend Blogger. It’s great for a first time blogger because they have a button you can use to automatically set up AdSense on the sidebar. WordPress.com doesn’t allow advertising of any sort, so unless you plan to build up traffic on a free site and then change domains, I wouldn’t start there.
I’d also start a blog in a community blog platform for the purpose of networking. A community blog often attracts a lot of traffic, and others in the community like to check out new members. You can write a post about “I wrote this post over at my other blog”, or write a totally unique post, and put your other blog in the signature.
One more thing about wordpress.org that I love- you’re not stuck with the themes WordPress provides. You a quick search on google for “free wordpress themes” will bring up loads of sites, all of which have hundreds of themes free to download. It’s a bit of a pain while you’re learning to set up new themes and plugins, but it’s worth it in the long run. Plus, you can start out with the basics WordPress provides, and then slowly build up your own preferences as you build traffic.
February 18th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I started with Blogger, but felt it was too limiting. Two months ago, I set up hosting at Dreamhost and started my own site and blog using Movable Type 4.
If you are willing to accept the system defaults and one of the included styles, you can be up and running very quickly. I wanted something more customized and battled through the maze of template code to get something close to what I wanted.
You can always start with something basic and after taking time to learn a few things, customize the look of the site later.
Movable Type has been great - any problems I have had are related to Dreamhost, and there have not been many.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:21 am
I started with blogger, but moved to Wordpress. There are so many more options out there to customize Wordpress, and it’s so easy to use. I also use BlueHost to host my blogs.
February 18th, 2008 at 5:22 am
I’m going to give a plug to Typepad. I started with Blogger, and Typepad is a dream. It’s almost all WYSIWYG, not HTML, which I prefer.
It’s pricey, but very user-friendly. I have my own domain, and I just have it mapped to my typepad account.
That said, Wordpress is a great option. I’ve used that as well. But I heart Typepad.
February 18th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I like Wordpress the best, but if you just want a really simple, free, idiot-proof blog, my vote is for Blogger, since you can reaaaaaally easily edit formating of your posts and sidebar, and even really easily add Adwords to make a bit of money.
And for a personal blog (ie, a daily journal of your life), I like Xanga the best, though its been years since I’ve updated my Xanga blog - things may have changed.
February 18th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I will have to give typepad a try. I should move my blog over to a real platform, and I have a regular gig on a typepad blog that I’d like to stay close to, especially if it expands. I’m glad to see it got one vote here, so thanks!
February 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Thanks to Antoinette for asking a super question and thanks to Jennifer for taking on the task of answering.
I’ve started on Blogger, but think my next time around will be with WordPress, but I will keep reading the comments here to learn all I can before I make a decision.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:07 am
I have my blogs on Blogger and I’ve been really happy with it. I can customize a lot of things and it’s been very easy to add categories and photos. They’ve updated the programs since I started 3 years ago.
Do you think that professionally one needs to have experience on Wordpress or some other platform? Is Blogger looked down on?
February 18th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hmmm, looks like WP is ahead - although, I’d like to point out that the most popular platform may not be an individual’s best platform. I’ve heard good arguments for most platforms at one time or another.
Thanks to everyone who chimed in so far. Especially the non-WP users; it’s good to hear other opinions. Even though I really adore WP.
February 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I use Blogger. With WordPress adding the HTML code that Amazon Associates uses, no matter what I did WordPress wouldn’t accept it. So I contacted them for help and they sent me instructions which still didn’t work. So I asked again and they said if it hadn’t worked by that point, there must be a problem with the HTML code.
So I tried it in Blogger and it worked fine, so I’ve never looked back.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
I have experience with blogger, wordpress and typepad. Yes, I agree that blogger seems the most limited or hardest to configure, but it has the greatest potential by far. This is because it is the most popular. Just cut and past code on your way to a decent blog. The net is a great source of info for all your blogger needs. I suggest you try
http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com to get you started.
Good luck!
February 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Thank you all so much! I can’t tell you what all the feedback means to me. I’m really excited about getting started!
February 18th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I love both Blogger (for quick, no-brainer posting) and WordPress (for a more slick blog), but have had terrible experiences with Moveable Type. Maybe it was because I was using it for a client’s blog, and the client’s instructions were minimal at best, so I got frustrated with it pretty quickly. There’s my 2 cents!
February 18th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
I am a rather casual blogger who, frankly, can’t be arsed to buy a domain name, and I wasn’t overly impressed with WordPress’s free options, so I use blogger, and it’s worked fine for me so far. I also have a livejournal, which I use as a more personal, my-daily-life journal, and I like that a lot for the social-networking aspects — I’ve made a lot of great friends on livejournal! There definitely are some semi-professional blogs on LJ, but it’s really more of a chatty site.
February 18th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I’ve used LiveJournal, Blogger, WP dot org and dot com, Movable Type, Typepad among others. I’ve also used Joomla CMS as a type of blog, but it’s overkill.
I ended up taking a very basic theme for Wordpress and stripping it down completely. Then I embedded that inside a Joomla page via a “wrapper”, and viola! I have WP working nicely inside of Joomla!
Aside from making a smooth interface between WP and Joomla, it also works very well as a stand alone (or embedded) SEO only blog!
February 19th, 2008 at 8:36 am
I have 5 blogs on Blogger - I love Blogger.
I have found it very easy to work with and it was very user - friendly right from the start. :o)
February 19th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
A standalone install of Wordpress (wordpress.org) is the way to go as it is simply the best supported and developed blog application available. I run multiple wordpress sites - both personally and professionally - and the options are endless, it is very solid and reliable, and you take full control over your blog.
Most good web hosts these days offer simple, one-click installs of Wordpress (in addition to many other applications), so installing for the non technical should never be an issue.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’ve used a variety of platforms: Blogger WordPress, TypePad, Movable Type, Joomla, and even the old-skool platforms such as LiveJournal and Xanga, which, IMO, are more for the personal type blogs. My vote goes to WordPress for its easy-to-use interface. It took me only about 5 minutes to figure out everything I have to know to be able to use it. Even learning how to tweak the backend was easy. A month after using it, I was already able to create 4 blogs with customized templates all on my own.
February 21st, 2008 at 1:41 am
As a blogger myself I’ve used blogger, Typepad, Moveable Type and Wordpress.org. As a relative novice, I totally loved Typepad but have now become a WP convert because of it’s flexibility and customisability which I found simpler than messing around with advanced templates in Typepad.
As someone who runs a company setting up blogs for coaches & consultants, we usually also steer people towards Wordpress with Typepad in second place…but only if they use Bluehost (as you suggested) for the WP hosting (or other recommended-by-WP service) otherwise the WP install can be a total nightmare and we’ve had to bail many a client out in this area!
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:41 am
I cut my teeth on Typepad, and still use it, but I know I’m also underutilizing it - especially given the price tag.
I recently started running another blog with Wordpress, and have been loving it. It is very easy to use and customize, and since you gain the flexibility of choosing a host, you have more control over cost.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I personally found that b2evolution v2 was the most advanced for pro bloggers (integrated stats, SEO, analytics, multiple blogs, workflow…)