I continue to use the free blogging software from WordPress.com on my blog Ms. Ileane Speaks. Several bloggers have warned me about the perils of free blog platforms. No control, no domain name, no plugins, and last but not least for Pete's sake no ADS!!
But I've always been somewhat rebellious and then there's that other thing I love about WordPress.com. It's F-R-E-E! 🙂
Automattic details the fundamental differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Yet, I've been able to unearth a quick list of perks in favor of using WordPress.com that I'd like to share with you.
11 Reasons I Love WordPress.com
- Reliability – I wish a had a dime for every time I heard a self-hosted blogger scream because their host went down
- Speed – Sure there's no plugins but too many plugins can slow down site load time
- Community – Tag Surfer and Blog Surfer provide access to 300,000 blogs and (no RSS reader required)
- Easy – Fewer bells and whistles to answer
- Comments – Track all of your comments on other WordPress.com blogs right from your dashboard
- Training – WordPress.tv serves up the most delightful short instructional videos (great music too)
- Support – the volunteers in the forums can answer most questions and support responds asap
- Guests – Sharing the spotlight with guest bloggers is no different from self-hosted blogs
- Stats – Right on your dashboards – no plugins required!
- Akismet – Probably THE most important plugin on the planet
- Fun – Yeah, that's right blogging is supposed to be fun
Here's a tip for self-hosted bloggers. Use a WordPress.com blog to create back-links for your primary site. Take a look at how Chuck Hines uses the Cybersmart WordPress.com blog to create a portal to the CybersmartWebMarketing site. If you want to eliminate “wordpress” from your URL you can map your domain back to your blog.
I know what you're thinking, “I don't have time for another blog”. My answer to that is – Please see #4 because you missed it the first time. Or what you can do the next time your site goes down (trust me eventually it WILL go down) is sign up for a WordPress.com blog. I'm here waiting to help if you have questions.
Share your thoughts on the subject, don't miss the comment section to the left of this post.
Image courtesy of stock.xchng user rajsun22
Strange how things happen.
I’m starting a series of how to create your own non-dependent blog. I hope you have a look at it. Meanwhile, whatever works for you is what works.
Hi Hal,
Thanks for letting me know about the series. I look forward to it. Cheers!
You make valid points, wordpress.com and blogspot blogs are hosted on clustered servers and have greater uptime, but both are also more at risk of being hacked/attacked and exploited as well. Also, if you are looking to earn money blogging many blog earning programs and advertisers will not purchase a sponsorship on a free hosted blog (this is listed in advertiser criteria)
Hey Justin, Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your input. Don’t forget to vote!
I agree with all of them, don’t faint.
I especially like number 5.
Now this one might floor you…..I COULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS POST!
Sorry chum, beat you to the punch! Smooches.
I’m starting to hear waaaay too much about how great WordPress is – methinks I might have to switch. Shhhh, don’t tell blogger. 😉
Hey Missy, or you could try what I do – keep Blogger and start a new blog on WordPress. Your Blogger is gorgeous by the way. Thanks for visiting here.
nice info…
thank’s for share..
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I currently use WordPress.Org because I have a Self hosted blog, but when you mentioned the Tag sufer then I had to go to my wordpress.com account because it is a Good way to discover new content and much easier than searching or using a feed reader
Hi Roezer,
It’s nice to have both options isn’t it? Thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.
I stayed away from WordPress.com because it seemed counterproductive to invest so much time on a blog that couldn’t pay me back, but you make some excellent points and I may have to rethink my stance – especially considering that the backlink and promotion potential would be a great way to drive traffic to my sites that are monetized. Thanks for the great tips!
Samantha, I’m glad this has you thinking. Let me know if you set up your WordPress.com blog so I can take a look. Thank you for visiting.
WordPress.com is a great place for bloggers in their beginnings. I never started out there as I have been using WordPress self-hosted (.org) on my own site and hosting for over 6 years. Before that, I had b2. And before that, I was a Geocities bum. (though, it is sad that Yahoo no longer provides their free service – those were fun times.)
WordPress.com is great for those who need it. For me, I cannot use it because it does not have the features I require and because I am a web developer too, I really need something I can swim around the code and play with.
I do usually recommend to new clients who want to learn before their site design is ready.
Nile, you bring up another excellent point. For a newcomer or someone with very little experience with using code a self-hosted blog might present too much of an initial learning curve. It’s a great idea to use WordPress.com to get someone in the groove of blogging. Thanks for visiting, I’ll stop by your place again soon.
In one way your right… but having your own domain also have some advantages… when you have your own domain…. if anything goes wrong, you can fix it by your self, and i don’t know how to tell this, but a standalone wordpress installation makes me think that im more stable, independent and more secure like thing… 😀
Hey Pubudu,
Thanks for your input. I appreciate the feedback. Your blog is excellent by the way.
Hi,
I stopped by to look at your site. There is alot of good stuff on it, Keep up the good works, And Thanks.
You have a really good wordpress series, I really like it, Thanks.
Thanks again,
Keith
Hello Ileane!
Now you know I am a self-hosted guy, but I do love the fact that the free sites make great outpost and provide backlinks to the home base.
I learned about the tag surfer, thanks to you. I was not aware of the feature. You have made a good case for using “The Bomb” LOL.
Speaking of outpost, mine needs an update which will be in place soon. I’ll also be getting with you on that guest post I promised.
Keep up the great work, you’re an inspiration to many. 🙂
Well Ileane, as you know, I already have a blog on blogger. Now is it possible that I create a new blog on wordpress.com and post my article on both blogs simultaneously? Or complete article in one blog and summary only in another blog. Would it be good to create a new blog for this purpose?
Suresh,
You can do it all! (like me, lol)
Now let me get serious. There are many ways that you can go about doing this. Here’s what I recommend. If you are going to have one blog on Blogger and you want to create a WordPress.com blog to drive traffic over there you must be careful not to create duplicate content so that the search engines don’t ignore you. If you look at the example that I gave from Cybersmartmarketing, you can see that the posts on the WordPress.com blog are short and sweet little revisions of a bigger more comprehensive post back on the home site (change the wording around and maybe include a key point that you don’t mention in the other posts). I learned about that from Chuck but I don’t actually use this method myself. Oh yeah and don’t forget to use anchor text when you link back to your main site.
The other option is the one that I use and that is to have more than one blog that have different goals or focus. On my Blogger http://msileanesblog.blogspot.com I have a primary focus of comparing WordPress.com with Blogger. But I’m also starting to post on topics that are specific to tips and tricks for Blogger users only (now that Google is making enhancements to the platform). This blog here at WordPress.com doesn’t mention Blogger too much but I do create back links from here to there and vice versa.
There’s also other ways to do this, that I probably haven’t thought of yet but when I do, I’m sure that I will write about it here.
Thanks for your comment and your support.
Yes i want to use WordPress , but i do not understand with wordpress 🙁
It looks like you have a directory site. In that case WordPress.com is not the way to go. If you are thinking of getting a blog to help promote your directory, than WordPress.com is perfect. You can view some of my tutorials here or sign up for Lynda.com ($25/month). They have a wonderful tutorials on WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress.
WordPress.com is a great place for bloggers in their beginnings.
Those are all great reasons to go with WordPress.com plus WP makes it easy to upgrade to a .org blog later on.
Very nice post…I have always wondered whether wordpress.org might be nice for me, but you convinced me otherwise 🙂
Hi Nish, Nice to see you again. Both platforms have their advantages, but this one is my favorite.
I personally feel that WordPress is the best blogging tool! Not only for blogging, it can be used just for everything. I use WordPress.Org and its awesome, just like WordPress.Com!!!!
Hi, thanks so much for visiting here. Are you still active with Blog Engage? I’m headed over to your blog now!!
There’s nothing wrong with free platforms if you can meet your goals with them. Google the term ‘make money online’ and you will get a blogspot site. That’s about as competitive as keywords get and that site has dominated the SERPS for a long time. I would imagine the site is making a little money too 😉 You have a very active blog and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Hi Brian, thanks for the feedback I really appreciate that coming from you. I have a Blogspot blog and they have made a ton of improvements recently and you’re right as long as you can meet your goals – free is good!
A friend recommended wordpress.com to me and at first I didn’t like it – didn’t like the look of the themes and couldn’t find a way to make contact with other bloggers here. Then I got fed up of a blog I had elsewhere and decided I had to give WP.com a try. The idea of self-hosting on WP.org had never occurred to me, my main reason for having a new blog was just to have a personal one as a way to make a fresh start after a health issue had changed stuff in my life. Anyway, now I’m nearing my first anniversary of blogging on WP.com and I’m happy to be here, I love it so much. BUT there are a few things I’d like to be able to do that I can’t on WP.com, such as have a paypal basket and be able to sell my artwork direct from it. And do you know – WP.org does not attract me at all, for this. If I had to change, I’d probably use Typepad instead one which, as far as I understand it, one can use paypal to sell and one can also use plugins (though I may be wrong on the latter, I’m not certain about it), and one still doesn’t have to self-host.
Self-hosting puts me off because there’s more of a learning curve and for various reasons, my concentration and attention span’s not wonderful anymore. I like to make my life as simple as possible so, for now, WP.com is where I’m staying.
As for the blog and tag surfers – I very rarely use them. Instead, I like to find new blogs and sites by surfing from one blog to another via people’s comments and blogrolls.
🙂
Val
Hi Val, I’ve never tried Typepad although I’m sure I will one day. You should look into creating a Blogger blog for selling your artwork, then at least you can create some back links to your WordPress.com blog. Thanks for your input.
Blogger and I are the worst of enemies, I’m afraid. I can’t bear the site!!
Val, I’m not sure how long ago you looked at Blogger but they have made some great changes recently. What other platforms have you tried?
I love your thorough list of WordPress.com advantages. It certainly works well for me, although I added a CSS upgrade so I could tinker with my blog design.
Sandra Lee, only a real WordPress.com fan understands where I’m coming from on this one:) Now that I have a self hosted blog I still think WordPress.com rules!!
These WordPress plugins drive me crazy….Argh!
I been blogging in a WordPress.com hosted blog, The Tech Guia, for about a year, as I assume you know. In this time I’ve had some considerable traffic, and with the stats provided by WordPress.com itself, now I can see what type of content and posts are more significant for those who visit my blog. Which of them had more return in visits, searches and comments. Now I’m considering changing my blog’s direction, not radically, just adapting to what is working best, and focus on it. Getting a self-hosted blog is fundamental in order to have more organic search, and freedom to do whatever I want, both in design and functionality, and content interaction.
Guilherme, I really enjoyed using WordPress.com and it is a great way to meet other bloggers. I remember when I found your blog and I have always been impressed with it. I want people to know that you can be a “serious” blogger on WordPress.com and achieve great success. Your blog is a perfect example. Thank you.
Thanks Ileane. Congratz to you, and good luck!
Sometimes, it is indeed better to invest time where there is no pay back in the monetary shape. WordPress.com blogs do pay back but in shape of backlinks and fun. You can have your main website on a self hosted wordpress.org installation and yet another on wordpress.com only to pt out stuff, which you wouldn’t normally on your main blog.
Well I do think that self hosted WordPress would give us more flexibility and use whatever necessary plugins that will help our blog in every way to achieve what we want.
having your own domain also have some advantages… when you have your own domain…. if anything goes wrong, you can fix it by your self, and i don’t know how to tell this, but a standalone wordpress installation makes me think that im more stable, independent and more secure
Great share, I love using wordpress 3 of my main site run wordpress, then i use some free blogs from blogger
I’ve experienced firsthand the awesomeness of WordPress.com. The only problem is that advertising is prohibited on the WordPress.com blogging platform, so I had to switch to self-hosted WordPress to build a business using my blog.
Kevin, I understand that they are allowing ads on WordPress.com now but they still don’t allow AdSense. Thanks for your comment.
well, here in this article all the advantages of using WordPress can show to the viewers. Helpful for those who don’t know the benefits of the WordPress.