So, I started this series a little bit ago, and then I became a bit blogging-reclusive. Sorry, gang. I was having some not-so-fun times, and then I went on vacation, and then … I dunno, I just haven’t felt like writing. I’m making myself get back in the swing of things.
In the last post of this series (also the first post of this series), I talked about my general plans for both this blog and the series. One of the first steps to building a blog, or re-designing a blog, is to decide what platform you want to use, and whether or not you want to host it yourself or let another site host it for you. If you’re new to the wonderful world of web hosting and blogging, let me break down those terms for you a bit. The platform for your blog is the software/website that you use to create the blog–basically, it’s the place where you log in, write your posts, approve comments, et cetera. Different platforms have different features that appeal–or don’t appeal, in some cases–to users. Blogging platforms are sometimes called content management systems because they allow you to manage your content (posts, pages, and whatnot) without having to code it directly into the pages yourself. You open up a “new post”, type in your content, click publish, and presto, it shows up on your page, no coding required.
Hosting is all about where your website is stored in cyberspace, and from where users can access your site. You can have WordPress host your blog at WordPress.com for free, for example; Blogger, Google’s blogging service, will also host your blog free, and I’m sure there are other blogging services that will do the same. The alternative is to self-host, which means that you pay a third party to host your site at a web address that you have purchased (like InsatiableBooksluts.com). Monthly fees for hosting can be as low as $3 or $4 a month, or be over $20, depending on what kind of hosting you need. I pay about $9 per month, and that works well for this site.
I decided to make the move to being self-hosted because I wanted more control over my blog. When using WordPress free, you get very little control over your blog; you have to pay for upgrades to give you some control, but to get full control, you have to self-host. (Blogger, I know, gives you a bit more control over your blog, but still not as much as you get with self-hosting.) I also wanted to be able to have full control over my content. As far as I know, you own your content using a free blog host as far as copyrighting, but they also are able to take down posts and even whole blogs if they choose. It’s their site and they ultimately control your blog. I’ve never really heard of this being an issue, but it’s still something I wanted to have control over.
Another advantage to self-hosting is that I have a lot more storage space (not that I probably would have gotten anywhere near the allotted 3 GB storage with just text and images), and I can use that space any way I want. I could also branch out my website if I wanted, including adding pages that aren’t run through WordPress, because I have that space. Hosted at a free blog service, every page I created would have to go through that platform. I have more freedom with my own space to create the site that I want (although, not necessarily the skill . . . heh). I also really love being able to add custom plugins that developers offer; my blog’s functionality has increased significantly.
I gave up a lot of things when I switched over, though. One of the big things I gave up was the WordPress community. Those “likes”, the WordPress.com blog subscribers, the ability to be Freshly Pressed–all of that poofed when I became self-hosted. If I had been self-hosted from the beginning, I’d probably only have about five readers because I never would have been Freshly Pressed. Getting readers if you start out self-hosting requires you to hustle twice as hard because you’re on your own. Another thing I gave up was the quality of hosting and tech support that I would get from WordPress. If something breaks on my blog, I am on my own to fix it; if my blog gets overloaded with too many views (heh, because that is likely… in my dreams), my hosting company may or may not be able to handle it. I know for a fact that WordPress.com hosting can handle over two hundred thousand views in a single weekend without any issues; I have no idea if that would interrupt service to this blog. I doubt I’ll have to worry about it–ever–but it is a difference between using WordPress’s hosting and buying my own.
When you’re looking for hosting, you need to make sure that your host plays nicely with WordPress or whatever blogging platform you choose. (They all should, in theory, but some don’t–especially if you go with a less expensive package.) I didn’t like GoDaddy’s hosting for WordPress at all; I found it slow to load. I use HostGator now, and I’m pretty happy with it. I’ve heard Liquid Web is awesome, but it’s a little more than I want to pay for hosting for this site. Ask around and see who your friends use, and if they’re happy with them. Tip: I would definitely look for a host that will install WordPress for you. Otherwise, it’s kind of a pain. Most bigger hosting companies should offer this.
Whether or not you self-host really just depends on how much control you demand over your online space and whether or not you want to pay to get that control. I figure I pay about $130 per year renewing my domain and paying for hosting. I’m comfortable with that. If you don’t plan to do a lot of blog customization, and you’re okay with having restrictions on what you can control, you may want to opt to have WordPress or Blogger, or your platform of choice, host your blog. If you want a custom URL, you can always upgrade to one without moving all the way over to self-hosting; it might run you $20 or so a year, but that’s much less expensive than paying for decent hosting.
As far as which platform to use, if you’re going to self-host, I highly recommend WordPress. It’s powerful, open-source, and free. I find it intuitive and easy to use. If you’re not going to self-host, I recommend checking out different services and talking to other bloggers to see what they think of the services they use. Weigh the ease of use versus the features offered. I use WordPress for my free blogs because I like the platform; even though I know I could get more customization at Blogger, I find it unwieldy enough that I don’t like to use it. Choose the one that fits you best.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with blogging. Do you have a platform you prefer? Have you changed over from free hosting to self-hosting–or vice-versa? Or changed platforms? Tell me about your blogging experiences in the comments!
When I moved over to a self-hosted site last May, I went with BlueHost. I’ve had a smooth experience with them, with the site going down only once, for a couple of hours. They were prompt in responding to my concerns when things weren’t working.
Part of my decision to go with self-hosted, but stick with the WordPress platform (which I had already been using via WordPress.com), was that I wanted to be able to customize the site and add certain widgets etc. that WordPress.com doesn’t allow. Since moving over, it’s been a blast.
I was sorry to lose all those blog followers, and it doesn’t seem to be as easy for people to sign up to follow when it’s self-hosted. However, I think the ease with which you can just click “follow this blog” on WordPress.com may lead or can lead to accumulating a bunch of followers who aren’t super interested in your site — at least, I didn’t find all of the folks following my old site migrate over to the new one, despite some reminders. So either they weren’t that interested or my blog was painfully boring :P
It took me a few months of steady blogging to build up my site traffic on the self-hosted version to what it had been as part of WordPress.com.
I find it amusing that you found Blogger to be “unwieldy” because I find it MUCH more simple than WordPress. I’ve tried experimenting with WordPress before, and there were just WAY too many options for me. I’m like, “I just want to write and have it post!”
I’m currently planning to start a second blog though and for this one I think I will go with WP, partly because I’ve been told for years that WP is “better” (although without a ton of explanation as to why), and there does seem to be more community than there is on Blogger (especially now that they’re trying to push Google+ so hard, so it’s like there’s Blogger for your actual blogging, but if you want to connect with people, you have to use G+, which just bothers me on principle), and I’m actually taking the time and getting to know WP little bit by little bit, instead of just going in and being like, “I WANT TO START A BLOG NOW, WHAT THE CRAP IS ALL THIS STUFF?!”
Two things I’ve found I don’t like about WP, though, having used Blogger for several years (and several blogs). The first is the customization that you mention. I’m not willing to spend money for anything blog-related, at least not right now, so that definitely limits my options. No more, “here’s a template to start, now pick any combination of colors and fonts, and go ahead and adjust your layout however you want.” Now it’s, “here’s your blog… I guess you can change the header if you want.”
The second issue (and maybe someone here can help me, although probably not because this is a crazy long comment and everyone stopped reading a while ago, why am I still typing?) is that on Blogger there’s an option to not count my own page views, and I can find no such option on WordPress. Which is an issue because I look at my own blog ALL THE TIME! And I’m constantly making little tweaks and then refreshing, and so even though my blog is currently marked as private and I’m the only one who can see it, I’ve got like a bazillion hits just from figuring out which template and widgets I want. And it looks like WP counts your hits, but then also counts your visitors, so I guess I could just look at the visitor number to get a better idea… but I still REALLY wish I could turn off the stats that come from me and just count everything else.
Gah! Sorry for taking over your comments but I’ve been tinkering around with WP for a few weeks now and am both excited and frustrated at the prospect of switching platforms.
There is a preview option whenever you’re tweaking things around, and I’m pretty sure they don’t count in stats. For a long time, I didn’t even think actually viewing my blog while logged in counted my views, but I might be wrong on that. :)
If your blog is private or locked, it counts your own views. If it is public, your views don’t count.
Thanks for the info, sj. This makes me very happy.
No problem. I wondered the same thing because I have a private blog where I test out new things before I implement them and was concerned that I had actual page views.
I tried Blogger when I first got the idea to write a blog. I didn’t like it much, like you said, it’s a bit unwieldy to use and it frustrated me. Plus, I didn’t feel the kind of community I do on WordPress. I love the way my blog looks now with WordPress, no doubt about it, although I’m nowhere near the amount of viewers or visitors to consider self-hosting. I’m pretty happy with it as is. I think any blog I decided to start would be on WordPress, whether .org or .com. The community is awesome and the platform is fantastic.
I’m still using WordPress, though I did finally join the ranks of those who have their own domain names (I’m danialexis.net now!). Though I’m in the process of changing a lot of things about the blog, so I may go to self-hosting.
I use WordPress.com. I started with Blogger, and it was a lonely place to be. I couldn’t figure out any way to search blogs at all, so I never found any co-bloggers. I’m becoming disenchanted with WordPress, though. The community that was so easy to build in the beginning feels cut off with each change that they make. Some of the changes are perfectly ridiculous, and I’m finding it harder than ever to use my own blog.
I’ll self-host one day. When I’m ready to publish or have published. Authors need blogs, so I’m keeping mine as a pet.
I use Blogger. I started on Blogger and I never switched over. I feel like so many bloggers who use Blogger have made the switch over to WordPress recently. I was considering it since there are so many praises about WP, but I didn’t. I tried using WordPress but I couldn’t get used to it. Also, like Heather said, I find Blogger to be a lonely place. Twitter makes up for it so I’ll stick it out with Blogger.
I recently decided to start blogging and tried both WordPress and Blogger. I had a hard time making a decision, because both have different things that I like and don’t like. One thing is that WP doesn’t support my Goodreads widgets, and another is the limited design control. I was still leaning towards them, however, until they decided for me by shutting my blog down. I was using links generated by Amazon Associates because they were so easy to create and might one day earn me a few cents if someone buys something, and WP doesn’t allow you to profit from your blog. It was my own fault for not reading the Terms of Use ahead of time, and I understand the shady ethics of using a free blog to earn money, but it would have been nice if they had emailed me and given me the opportunity to remove the offensive links prior to shutting down the blog. At that point, I couldn’t go into it to make changes and try to fix it. It just seemed easier to stick with Blogger than to go through the hassle of trying to get WP to reinstate me. And so far, I’m happy with them. Maybe I’ll switch to self-hosting one day if it goes well, but since I am technologically inept I’m OK with Blogger for now.
I had Blogger for a few months. Hated it. So hard to use. So unwieldly. Moved to WordPress, and other than a few little bugs here and there, I’m very happy with it.
I’ve thought about self-hosting, but haven’t for the very reason you’ve mentioned – I’d hate to lose the community. (The help, though – well, the help can bite me. Any problem I’ve ever had over there, they’ve not helped me with at all. Their forums are TERRIBLE. If I want WordPress help, I ask you or sj or Andreas. You’re my gurus.)
I don’t have my own blog at blogger, but I do contribute to one over there, and Meg had a blog there that she deleted shortly before I asked her to come work with me.
She hated blogger. I hated blogger. It works for us.
Yeah, there are things I don’t like about WordPress (especially now with the recent changes to the reader and stats pages), but they don’t really make a difference with HOW I blog.
Maybe it’s just what I’m used to now? I don’t know. I just know that I don’t care for blogger and I’m starting to not be a fan of WordPress (I loved the community before, but they’re kind of working hard to destroy that)…so really, I don’t know what my current options are. I don’t think I have enough of a following to self-host, so…
You don’t like the new reader stats? How come? (Just out of curiosity.)
The wide, bright blue bar combined with the ultra white page gives me a headache. I don’t like that the functionality of the previous navbar has been removed.
Other than that, I don’t have a problem with the stats page, but the reader has major issues (these are two separate problems).
I like WordPress.com and the stuff that comes with it, so I’m sticking with that for now. I like the idea of having control over other things, but I’m not sure I’d like the work at this point. I have been thinking about self-hosting, but that probably won’t happen for another couple years.
The main thing to watch out for when self-hosting is that the host can keep WordPress itself up-to-date. Being self-hosted, I’ve had issues with being hacked in the past, and while you can’t necessarily avoid that by using the most recent WordPress, at least that doesn’t expose you to the obvious hacks that have been around for ages. Nothing more annoying than having to recover from some sort of security problem.
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