WordPress.com, or self hosted WordPress blog – what should I choose?

Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 at 9:49 am

I am continuing the series of answers to questions that were asked in my pre-Christmas post. You can ask your questions to be added to the series by commenting on this or any other post.

Today’s question:

Hi, Iâ€™m new to blogging. I want to set up my own blog through WordPress. It seems that having them host it (i.e. WordPress.com) is simpler, with less troubleshooting. However, I also would like to use plugins (i.e. WordPress.org) but beyond that, I have no technological aspirations as of now. My biggest obstacle is that the tech stuff scares me if I hosted it myself. Any advice? Thanks.

It is easy to set up a blog at WordPress.com as you create an account and pick your theme. There are some downsides to it though.

You do not control the blog as it belongs to WordPress.com and they have some restrictions on using their service for affiliate marketing. You cannot add any plugins only those that they have and finally you don’t own the blog.

If I create a blog on my own domain and build up the traffic I have a saleable asset. Does not happen when someone else owns the domain.

Creating a blog using WordPress has become much easier with the latest versions of WordPress and there are tutorials like my WordPress Made Easy that will walk you through exactly how to do it in a step by step fashion.

There are services like Alex Syseof’s Expert WordPress that allow you to automate the installation and save a lot of time.

Now that being said there are some skills that you should cultivate to install and maintain a WordPress blog on your own domain like FTP but these are skills that you really need to learn and understand as an online marketer whether or not you use them to install a blog or not.

Finally you can always outsource the installation. You can go to any of the outsource sites or use my team to install your blog for you.

With the ease of adding plugins and themes through the dashboard on the latest versions of WordPress the pluses outweigh the minuses for your money making sites to own the domain.

Now that does not mean that you cannot use both to create a network around you money making blog along with other sites like Hub Pages and Squidoo. But that is a post for another time.

As always your questions and comments are appreciated and solicited.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.

After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.