Are you thinking of launching and managing your own blog? That’s a great idea! Unfortunately, it won’t be as easy and intuitive as changing a diaper. A successful, visible blog requires a lot of commitment, some techie skills, and much creative ideas for original content.
Of course the first step is to decide the scope and kind of blog you want, and that’s what I’m here today to help you do. Because there are so many options out there for hosting, publishing, and designing your new blog, we’re going to keep this intro sweet and simple, and by the end, you’ll know exactly what platform you should be using for your mommy blog.
First, there are many different kinds of blog platforms out there, so let’s narrow them down to find one that suites your purpose, needs, and skillset. The two major platforms we’re going to focus on today is WordPress and Google Blogger (while there are many more free blog accounts available like Typepad and Livejournal, these two really are the most powerful and customizable).
WordPress – an open-source (in other words, a completely customizable and alterable) blogging platform that allows the blogger to build entire websites around a blog. WordPress blogs can be enhanced by plugins and other out-of-the-box code tools that make it easy to enrich all facets of your blog.
Blogger – offered by Google, a closed-source (in other words, not as customizable or alterable) blogging platform that is intended to be just a publishing platform. In other words, there’s no way to make a full website out of it – it’s just a blog that features your blog posts.
Blogger is easier to set up and requires virtually no coding or techie skills to maintain. That’s the nice part for many mommy bloggers! The downside is that you’re limited in what you can do with your new blog. Google closely controls what kinds of “gadgets”, or in other words, additions and enhancements to your blog that allow you to do different things.
Blogger does offer thousands of blog design “templates” to choose from, and many very useful gadgets you can add to your blog include the ability to display and share photos, social page widgets, and even advertising to help you monetize your blog.
WordPress, on the other hand, is the most powerful blog platforms on the Internet today, and by some estimates, as many as 75 percent of all blogs in existence, big and small, are powered by it. WordPress is often referred to as a CMS, or content management system, which essentially allows a web developer to access, modify, and control an entire website. With a WordPress blog, you can build out webpages, add any number of hundreds of thousands of available plugins, and access the “source code”, or in other words the “language” the website is written in, so the entire look and feel of the site and blog can be completely 100 percent altered and customized.
There are two ways to use WordPress. For amateur bloggers who want a blog that’s more customizable and powerful than what Blogger offers, go to WordPress.com, sign up for a free account, and blog away! Using WordPress.com, run by the company behind WordPress, you will still be somewhat limited in how much you can customize your blog. For bloggers who want to take it a step further and leverage WordPress as the entirely customizable, most powerful and flexible blog platform on the planet, you can purchase through a company like Godaddy.com a domain name, a hosting plan, and then install WordPress as an open-source application. But that’s a somewhat technical, though not terribly difficult, process.
So, what kind of blog do you need? Here’s my guide for beginner bloggers:
I need something as simple as possible! Blogger.com
I just want a personal blog that my close family and friends will read. Blogger.com
I want some more flexibility in what I can and can’t do with my blog. WordPress.com
I want to have a few pages that are easy to edit and manage on my blog, like an “About Me” and “Contact” page. WordPress.com
I want my own domain name, for example, mychosendomainname.com for my blog. WordPress.com or Blogger.com
I’m interested in learning a little bit more about how to develop websites using simple web languages like HTML to customize my site and blog. WordPress.com
I love the animation on blogs and sites I see. WordPress Application from Godaddy
I need a full-blown company or personal website that will be found in search engines, that I can sell products from, as well as manage my blog and web content from. WordPress Application from Godaddy
I hope this helps you get started in choosing what blog platform best suits your needs and skill level as a blogger. Question, comments, concerns? Post them below and I’ll be happy to address them!
Tom Copeland is a freelance WordPress developer, published writer, and owner of Bullworthy.com http://www.bullworthy.com, a web development services firm for small businesses. Tom developed and maintains a number of niche blogs that include the Writer’s Franchise http://writersfranchise.com, and SAHMentrepreneur http://www.sahmentrepreneur.com. You can follow Tom on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bullworthycom/163465493766 and on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/financialbull.