Get Your Own Blog
Creating a blog is a fast way to publish content online. It is much like a website except a blog is run by a series of scripts that generally publish and organize the content by date and categories. In fact, may people think of blogs as online journals.
Blogs are typically easier to setup than websites because most blog platforms come with ready-to-use templates and there’s no software or FTP needed to publish your content to the Web.
I use WordPress for this blog. After using Blogger for a year and a half, I decided to switch because WordPress offers more functionality, flexibility and is constantly being updated with new features.
It’s very easy to setup a WordPress blog. You can just go to WordPress.com, sign up for a free account and you’re ready to start publishing your content.
In this case, your blog will be hosted on WordPress’ servers and the address will be something like yourblog.wordpress.com.
However, when you host your blog on WordPress.com’s servers, you cannot host AdSense ads on your blog because WordPress.com does not support javascript.
That’s why I highly recommend you host a WordPress blog on your own domain name and run a self hosted blog.
I use Hostgator as my Web host and all I had to do to install WordPress was go to my control panel and click a few links to initiate the install. It took all of 2 seconds.
Next, I chose from one of the many free WordPress design templates, customized a few things so my blog matches my main site and I was ready to launch.
WordPress also has sidebar widgets. These are areas of your blog that allow you to paste code into them to populate anything from AdSense ads, banners, or a variety of other code-driven features for your blog.
Sidebar widgets make adding features to your blog a breeze, and is particularly ideal for people who aren’t very technically inclined. (I definitely fall into that category. ;) )
My favorite WordPress feature is the amount of plug-ins available to you, free of charge. A plug-in is simply a series of files you upload to your server that gives your blog a new feature or function.
From traffic stats, adding pictures to blog comments, to generating search engine sitemaps, and protecting your blog from comment spam - WordPress has it all.
It’s also open source, so that means programmers are always creating new, fun plug-ins you can use to customize and individualize your blog.
Now that you see how easy creating a blog is, why not get started today!
Comments
Jamina,
If you use Wordpress (hosted on their servers) then you can’t host your blog on your own domain. You also aren’t allowed to use AdSense ads. If you use a host like HostGator then you can host the blog on your own site (yoursite.com) and have a much more professional-looking address than http://yourblog.wordpress.com
are you serious if your blog isn’t self hosted, you can use google adsense at all…really that sucks…and I have being going back and forth with switching from blogger to word press…I have a blog http://www.gioperation.com that google hosts for free and I like that…I might be giving up some of the nice plug ins but until my traffic builds it doesn’t make sense to spend money I don’t have until I make some…and I have always thought that google would rank their sites ahead of another because for Gods sake it is one of theirs…or am I dead wrong?
Ryan
Ryan,
No proof Google plays favorites with Blogger users. In fact my WordPress blog traffic has nearly tripled in the 3 months since I switched from Blogger. More proof that Google ranks sites well that have quality backlinks, frequent updates and useful content. But I also think having a sitemap and other content-driven plugins helps too.
I went for a free blogger blog for a long time and tried to get indexed by google.
Absolutley no luck there.
So I swithced over to free wordpress since I don’t plan on making money with my blog (if I didi I would host it at hostgator).
Anyways when I made the switch - guess how long it took me to get indexed by google?
1 day without any effort- all I did was place tags at the bottom of each post and voila I got traffic and indexed.
Oh and with wordpress you don’t have to set up a google analytics account since the stats are already built in.
Same here! I started getting traffic immediately with WordPress - the next day just like you. With Blogger the traffic trickled in but never really picked up.
ok I broke down and got a free account on word press…I am going to see how it goes…I really do trust you…I know money makes money, but that is something that I don’t have right now…LOL
Lisa, Lisa, Lisa
You have set me on-fire. I have learned so much just by following all your links, thank you so much! You have answered a lot of questions for me. I am in the same boat as Ryan up there…no budget to work with and am trying to find a way to create an income stream. First, I don’t yet have a topic to write about. So, when I figure this out…you’ll hear from me again! Wishing you much “more” success!!!
Hello Lisa,
Your Wordpress blog is gorgeous. What’s the name of the Wordpress template you used for building your site? Did you have to use Dreamweaver to edit it? Thanks!
Thanks!
I got it from http://cssace.com/free-wp-premium-theme-is-here/ but I used PhotoShop to change the header colors, etc.
Oh my, I have blogger and I struggle with daily traffic. I guess I need to make the switch. But, what do I do with my blogger account. Should I leave it as is and start over with a new blog all together. I’m new to this so bare with me.
Toya,
Read my post about switching. I redirected my blogger blog to my wordpress one in case someone had it bookmarked.
http://blog.2createawebsite.com/2007/12/26/i-ditched-blogger-hello-wordpress/
Some use the old blogger blog to drive traffic to the new blog. One method is to use short description posts as a prelude and link to the wordpress post.
Hi Lisa, today av just spend time on your websites, av also sent you several mails such as this, its all about Adsense stuff. this came just at the time I needed to make money using my site. Check on it and give me some comments on how to improve it.
Lisa,
may I know how could i subscribe anothers blog into the website am working for?and also how to host a self blog in that website.
Hello Lisa, can you tell me why you use Hostgator? Can’t you just use the services of Wordpress to get the blog up and running?