A week ago, I started a blog on WordPress.com called Blog In Gray which, incidentally, is a photo blo
g of some of my black & white photos. This was done to test the difference between hosting my own site (as I’ve done since March with Amateur Photoblogger) and using the free hosting at the blog community of WordPress.com. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Let’s start with the beginner’s choice first.
- Using WordPress.com is great for beginners and persons who are not technically savvy as it has been pre-set to work “out of the box”.
- This is an online community so registering at wordpress.com allows you to use one identity and you may join other sites (as many as you wish) and post as a guest user. You don’t even need a site, you can join wordpress.com just to post on other blogs and the owner of a blog can even give you admin status to help maintain it.
- There is another benefit of being a part of WordPress online community. At the top of the page there is a bar with an arrow pointing right. Clicking on this arrow takes you to a random wordpress.com blog so when your page shows up in another user’s blog, you will get a hit.
- There are many themes preset so you won’t have to search and upload as is the case with self-hosted sites.
- Usage is FREE, so no hosting fee.
- There is no set-up time, the only time it takes is to choose a sub-domain (”yoursite.wordpress.com). As soon as you’re done, it takes you to the dashboard so you can start posting.
- Google sitemap is now pre-installed in Wordpress.com sites, so google can crawl as soon as you start adding content.
- New sites can be set up in no time at all so as soon as you have an idea for a blog, you can start it right away.
