What is the Best Blogging Software to Use For Your Blog?
When it comes to choosing the best blogging software, there is so much choice available that it’s difficult to know where to start. Before you can pick the best option for you, you’ll need to decide whether you want to use a free blogging platform or not. Check below to find out more.
Free blogging software – not hosted by you
A lot of people start their blogging career this way. There’s no cost of the hosting and there’s not cost for the domain name as you’ll be piggybacking on one of the big blog hosts. Which means you won’t have any choice over your domain name. Instead it will be something like YourBlogName.blogspot.com or Squidoo.com/your-title, which isn’t as snappy as having your own domain name but in the end it’s your choice.
The biggest advantages of using free blogging software are:
Cost – by definition, it’s free. You may even be given a revenue share on the adverts that appear on your blog or be able to control them completely.
Quick to set up – there’s no hosting to organize, no software to upload, it’s pretty much sign up and start blogging.
No technical skills needed – the text editors are usually like a cut down version of Word, so if you can type in to a box on a compuer screen, you’re able to start blogging. To keep support down to the bare minimum, everything is intuitive and easy to use.
Regularly spidered domains, which increases your chance of getting indexed quickly in the search engines.
The biggest disadvantages of using free blogging software are:
You’re not in control. If your free host decides you’ve done something that breaks their rules or takes exception to your blog they can suspend you in the blink of an eye. This is serious if you’re aiming to earn money from your blog,
You don’t own the domain name. You’re just hitching a ride and if the owner asks you to leave, that’s what you have to do.
Less flexibility. If something isn’t provided by the domain owner, that’s usually it. Sometimes you can pay extra for certain features – the free Wordpress hosted blog service offers things like nicer themes as optional extras.
Free blogging software – hosted by you
Without a doubt, the most popular blogging software is WordPress, which is free. You can host your blog on their domain as in the options above or you can get a lot more control by using your own hosting.
For this, you’ll need a web host and a domain name. Buy these from two separate places as that gives you more control and flexibility.
Then, with most hosts, it’s just a matter of clicking a couple of buttons to install WordPress. Future upgrades are taken care of from the blog control panel.
Once you’re done that, you can blog away to your heart’s content, safe in the knowledge that unless you break any major rules (hosting copyrighted files for others to download, that kind of thing) then your blog is safe and completely under your control.
If you are likely to depend on your blog for any income at all, this is without doubt the best route to follow.
The biggest advantages of hosting your own blog are:
Control. You can decide exactly what goes on in your blog and can add in new themes and extra plug ins to completely customize your blog.
No policy change worries. Free web hosting sites can and do change their policies. Hosting your own blog puts you in complete control so you don’t care whether Squidoo, Blogger, WordPress or whoever don’t like your content any more.
It’s yours – if you want to sell your blog and the domain associated with it, you can. Just like you can any other domain. This puts more value on your efforts.
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