You CAN Make Money Online!

Everything you do has it’s pros and cons.

Crossing the road?  Pro – you’ll get to the other side.  Con – you’ll have to negotiate the traffic.  Blogging is no different, I’ll set out the pros and cons of choosing a free (WordPress.com) blog or creating a self-hosted (WordPress.org) blog (from my personal perspective).

WordPress.com – Your URL would read   “http://something.wordpress.com”

Pros

• It’s free to set up.
• It’s fast to get started.
• It’s easy to use.
• You don’t need a lot of technical knowledge.

Cons

• You are limited in the number of themes you can use to individualize your blog
• You are limited in the type of plugins you can use.
• You cannot place Google Adsense Ads to make any money.
• WordPress.com places it’s own Google Adsense Ads – so they make money from your blog (after all they are providing a free service to you).
• Your blog entries do not actually remain your property – they belong to WordPress.com
• You can be closed down in a second, and lose everything.

WordPress.org – Self-hosted blogs – Your URL would read “http://YourChoiceofDomainName.com

Pros

• You retain ownership of all the content you add.
• You have an almost unlimited choice of themes to style to appearance of your blog.
• You can use a huge array of plugins to “expand the functionality” of WordPress.
• You can include Google Adsense ads on your blog – and you get paid.
• You can place advertising on your blog and get paid.
• You are creating a entity which is you can sell in the future.

Cons

• You must register and purchase a domain name – easy to do – I use GoDaddy – Go Daddy $7.49 .com Sale!
• You must purchase web hosting with a company who can readily install the WordPress blogging platform in your hosting account – most can do this.  I use goDaddy – GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans
• You need more technical knowledge and you’ll have to learn some new terms.
• From time to time you will find frustrating problems and you’ll have to learn how to fix them.

Good news – if you already have a WordPress.com blog and want to change to a Self-hosted blog – you can import the posts.

Bad news – if you have established a good Google Page Rank  and Alexa rating on your WordPress.com blog these will not transfer to your self-hosted blog.

Strategy - keep up posting on your old blog – and include links to your new blog until you establish ratings on it.