Wordpress is the definitive blogging platform today. Search engines love it and the customization options are amazing.
However many people who are creating a blog for marketing purposes make the mistake of going to wordpress.com and getting started there. What is wrong with that? Several things, IF your blog is for business. For starters wordpress.com is a hosted solution for your blog. You have very little control over how your blog looks. You cannot use plugins, they will host ads on your blog and make you pay extra to have those removed.
And if you do any commercial promotions through your wordpress.com blog they can hit the delete button on your blog and make it disappear forever. You won’t get it back. Something as simple as linking to a ClickBank product through your affiliate link will get your blog shut down on wordpress.com.
What you want to do is head over to http://www.wordpress.ORG. At wordpress.org you can download the wordpress blog software itself. It comes in a zip file, which you then upload to your own server. If it’s starting to sound complicated never fear, getting your own hosting and installing a blog is a breeze when you have directions to follow. You can get reliable inexpensive hosting at www.hostgator.com. We use Hostgator frequently and recommend their services to all our customers.
Once you install the Wordpress blogging software on your own server you can do anything you want within the law. Nobody can take your content away. You are free to blog about affiliate products and link to them through your affiliate link. In light of the new FCC regs make sure you mention that you are an affiliate for the products you are promoting and you’ll be in the clear.
If you just want a blog so you can talk about your surfing addiction wordpress.COM will work fine. They won’t have any problem with your blog. But even if you are simply making everyone else jealous with stories about all the surfer girls you’re meeting in Hawaii you’d be better off having your own blog hosted on your own server. If you want to use plugins to enhance you SEO your free to do that. It will be cheaper in the end and you won’t have to worry about staying in compliance with wordpress.com terms of use.
Think ahead, if you get enough visitors to your recreational blog why wouldn’t you want to monetize it? If I was an aspiring surfer who regularly read your blog it’s pretty likely I would buy products you recommend related to getting started in surfing.
The first time I installed a blog on my own server it wasn’t an obvious process. I needed help and followed a set of directions. You too can follow these same directions and get your own blog up today. Sign up as a Listbuilding Club member and get your free quickstart videos right away!
Looking forward to meeting you in the Listbuilding Club forums and seeing your new blog!!
Victor Grosser
Webmaster for Overcome Everything Inc.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
So, why did you get rid of the opt-in form on this blog then?
Awesome question
We just upgraded our theme to Thesis, which is a much cleaner, more SEO friendly theme for wordpress. Part of the transition means re-adding in all the cool gadgets and plugins we had running, which, given the fact that Thesis is a little more complicated than your average theme, is a bit of a process.
Fear not – we won’t be without an optin on this blog for long
-Josh Burns
Copywriter,
Overcome Everything Inc
@bonkus on twitter
Sam lost his blog in such a way with wordpress.com must be careful. We can first try your hand there and then came to realize business ideas in a different place! very interesting to describe the alternatives in his post thanks to subscribe to your RSS