Recently I’ve had some questions about WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org.

WordPress, the software, is always free. However at WordPress.com you can get hosting for free too. (WordPress.org is like download central. You can download the software, themes, and plugins.) There are caveats to the free hosting though. For example, in the free version you won’t have a “regular” URL. You’ll have NameHere.WordPress.com. That’s not good for branding. You also can’t use custom themes, there are less themes to chose from and you can’t upload plugins. They’ll also sometimes put their ads on your blog.

You can pay fees at WordPress.com to not have ads and to have a regular domain name. But the thing that people love about WordPress. com is the free hosting. So once you start paying for features you might as well go somewhere else.

So why not start out with another host to begin with? That gives you immediate access to all the free themes and plugins available at WordPress.org.

If  that seems overwhelming then I’ve got three suggestions for you.

1. It’s really not that hard to install WordPress and if you start with the right website host.  I recommend BlueHost.  They’ve got some great features that make installing WordPress a breeze.  They’ve also got a fantastic technical support department.
2. The first is to buy the book I co-wrote on with WordPress.  The point of the book is to make it easy to set up a blog using the downloads from WordPress.org.
3. Contact me.  I’ll be glad to help you get everything set up.  I even will give you WordPress coaching over the telephone.

While it may seem scary to go the WordPress.org route, it’s a lot better in the end. And it’s not really that difficult. It’s like anything else, it only seems difficult until you know how to do it.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 18th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under WordPress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.