Blogging for Business vs Blogging for Fun
It has happened more than once, people get excited about blogging for business online.
They find out how easily they can get a blog up and running for free on wordpress.com and voila! Open for business!
Seems easy at first, and most certainly, I’ll be clear that for anyone starting out in blogging, the free version lets you test the waters and see if you are up to the task.
The free sites are good if you are just trying to determine whether you have the persistence to maintain a blog.
But if you are serious about blogging for business, you soon find out (and sometimes the hard way) that free is not the best solution.
If you are serious about blogging for business, and plan to be in it for the long haul, then think twice before you put a lot of work into a free hosted blog like WordPress.com or Blogspot.com.
For one thing, THEY own your blog, not you.
They have every right and will take down your blog without any notice whatsoever if they determine by any stretch of the imagination that yours is a ‘spam’ blog.
Roadblocks in Blogging for Business on Free Sites
While you may NOT actually have a spam blog, you could end up with what is perceived as ‘comment spam’.
You always start out with Akismet, the most common spam blocker, on WordPress.com. But they are very restrictive about additional plugins, which add functionality, customization and flexibility to your blog.
But even without malicious spammers getting through your Akismet plugin, you could still be flagged for comment spam if you have a large enough percentage of comments from people that have the same (unmasked) affiliate URLs on their blogs as yours.
The ‘spambots’ determine in this case that you are artificially pumping up the search rankings.
Not only that, it cannot contain any promotion of anything related to network marketing.
Not what you had in mind when you decided to start blogging for business!
Lessons Learned on Blogging for Business
I had my first blog removed overnight, no warning, no replies to my queries, just gone.
Worse, long after I had moved it, when someone would go to the link at http://vickiberry.wordpress.com, they were greeted with a message saying it had been removed for spam!
What a slap in the face, particularly since from the very start I have always made a point NOT to be spammy or even do any more than 10% promotion to 90% value!
That is what I understood value added blogging for business should be, using the 90/10 rule just as with email marketing, to provide value over promotion.
After 19 months, here is the reply from WordPress.com after my repeated pleas to at least give me my name/account back even telling them to DELETE the content. They did restore my name/integrity but here is what they told me :
You can now use the domain (note that it was previously suspended, as the
promotion of any MLM/network-marketing/similar programs
is not permitted on our service). If you do decide to publish
content on it, please stay within our Terms of Service.
So if this isn’t enough to deter you, consider that you might want to put a capture form on your sidebar, one that your auto-responder has provided. Think again.
Because this is interpreted as advertising, WordPress.com will not allow it.
And worse yet, recent hacker attacks late in 2009 even temporarily shut down WordPress.com blogs!
Shared hosting sites GoDaddy, BlueHost and DreamHost had their WordPress blogs were hacked as well.
When visitors landing on those pages they were greeted with warning messages from their security protection software.
However, private server WordPress blogs were not hit.
When something like this happens, not only could you be faced with losing your blog entirely, but you may have to escape such issues by moving your established blog (not a trivial task!).
This is why I use Bullet Proof Security, a plugin written to prevent such attacks on your blog, even when everyone else on a shared hosting site such as GoDaddy might be affected.
But on a free site, I am pretty sure you will not be allowed to use the Bullet Proof Security or many other necessary blogging for business plugins.
WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org in that it hosts your blog for you, for free (like Blogspot.com). WordPress.org on the other hand provides the open source WordPress code that you can upload to your server.
But if you have hosting services like GoDaddy or HostGator they already have the same WordPress interface there for you to use. WordPress.org also provides user forums, plugins and themes that you can use.
The same interface exists whether from wordpress.org (which has the installable version already running on many hosting sites) or wordpress.com.
Just save yourself some heartache, and if you are serious about blogging for your marketing plan, just go to Hostgator or GoDaddy or any number of sites that you can host your blog and be the only one in control!
It usually costs less than $10 a month and is well worth it.
If you are new to blogging, I have a getting started post with several videos on how to create your WordPress blog. Although the videos start with an example on WordPress.com you can apply the same to a paid hosting site (the WordPress dashboard is the same).
If you are serious about your business, then start out free if you must, but you will eventually want to move it to a paid hosting site for your best long term results in blogging for business!
Coach Freddie (28)
Oliver Tausend (28)
Amy Hagerup (24)
Gabriele Maidecchi (24)
Chris Fairchild (21)
Jennifer May (20)
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Ryan Yokome (17)
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Steve Nicholas (15)
Hi Vicki… I made that mistake with Blogspot… and now I’m using wordpress.org. I use Lunarpages hosting for $4.95 a month and they have WordPress in the C-Panel (back office). I would be happy to answer any questions.
Coach Freddie
.-= Coach Freddie´s last blog ..Where Do Dreams Come From? =-.
Hi Freddie!
Great deal on Lunarpages there! Thanks for the tip. I know most hosting companies charge 7 or 8 at least, and although I use 1and1.com at $3.99 per month they did not have wordpress in their back office so I had to install it myself. Not bad for someone with technical know-how but I would never recommend most people try taking that task on!
Thanks for stopping by and commenting!
Wishing You Tremendous Success,
Hey Vicki!
Great post! I totally agree with this! One of the most scary things is not knowing if your content is going to be there forever or not! Everyone should definitely host their own content!
Shaylee
Hi Shaylee!
Thanks! I know, if you are going to put your work into something, at least guarantee it will be there. If people are just sticking their toe in to see whether they are going to like it well enough to do it is one thing, but if they want it to stay, invest a little in its future!
Thanks for stopping by to comment!
Wishing You Brilliant Success!
Vicki,
Thanks for writing this post , i find the information that you have shared of great value to the people that i connect with and going to pass this on to my tribe. I look forward to reading more from you.
Chris
Thank you Chris!
I appreciate your comment and passing this along! I have run across frustrations myself and hear it from people a lot over time, often feeling bad that I wasn’t there to prevent them getting into a mess in the first place, and so this is my attempt at helping someone to avoid a headache or two!
Appreciate your stopping by once again, great to see you as always!
Wishing You Every Success!
Hi Vicki,
you’re providing even more reasons to set up a self-hosted blog and deep insight in that comment-spam stuff. So there’s no doubt about the right decision. Everybody running a blog or planning to do so should take your ideas into consideration. Keep up your great work.
Take care
Oliver
.-= Oliver Tausend´s last blog ..Financial Intelligence in MLM Network Marketing XII – How To Shop Without Money and Why =-.
Hi Oliver!
Thank you for stopping by!
Yes, the more I thought about all the different reasons to not use a free hosted site, and having known so many frustrated bloggers who were not warned enough to begin with, it was a post I had to write (although it’s been written about by others before!).
Wishing You a Wonderful Day!
Hi Vicki!
Thanks for inviting me back to your Blog…I really appreciate you promoting my material to your inner circles.
WOW, having a .com is like playing Russian roulette for sure, or returning home & finding that it was burglarized (I know this feeling having experienced it).
Yep, it’s a .org for me…ECO hosted by HostGator (they’ve gone GREEN).
Have a highly inspired day…your tribal friend Steven Suchar
.-= Steven Suchar´s last blog ..Are You Creating Emotionally Triggered Headlines? =-.
Thank you Steven!
You’re right, I love that analogy, it’s like being robbed when you lose your blog!
Always great to see you here again!
Wishing You a Brilliant Day!
Hi Vicki, I made that mistake also, a few years ago. I had a wordpress.com blog that was ranking really well and getting customers. Then, one day it was gone into cyberspace, disappeared forever with no way of getting the posts back or anything!
Hope you’re having a terrific weekend and having fun! Julieanne
Hi Julieanne!
Sounds like what happened to me! It is a painful thing to lose all that work. Not worth keeping a ‘free’ blog! I’m glad you are up and running again, in control!
Wishing You Every Success!
Navigating the internet and found this post. Very very good. I think more awareness on this issue is important…especially for those starting out. I have friends who fell into this hole. I’d like to add (if I missed it) that using Blogger can be disastrous as well. In my opinion, the only solution is WordPress.org.
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Hi Jim!
Thanks for stopping by to comment! I mentioned Blogspot.com and thought that it was the same a Blogger, from Google, but if not the message is the same, stay away from all free hosted blogs if you plan on blogging for long term and especially for business!
Wishing You Wonderful Success!
Vicki,
You are right on the money. I have some friends that wanted to create a small link hub for SEO purposes. They used Blogger accounts and long story short, after a few months and all the time and effort, Google took them away. You were very articulate in your post. I noted “Blogger” as that is what my circle of influence refer to it as.
Take care,
Jim
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Thanks for stopping to comment Jim!
I’m sorry your friends suffered a loss of their efforts, so many people do, so good to warn them with a post like this now and then! I’ve had people complain ‘why didn’t someone tell me!’ but I make every effort to when I can!
Wishing You Every Success!
The rest of the story:
If you have a wordpress blog that you host yourself, you could have what happened to me – after 3 years and hundreds of posts and thousands of comments and hundreds of videos embedded, as well as pictures – hackers wiped out my blog once. I backed it all up so it was easy to rebuild. They wiped it out again. Rebuilt it again. Wiped it out a third time. This time, my SQL server did not back up correctly. I lost EVERYTHING.
So, hosting a blog yourself isn’t exactly the way to go if you don’t want your stuff wiped out by hackers. If you’re the kind of blog you are talking about, I would suggest hosting your own drupal or using your own domain name with blogspot.
The free version of wordpress can be overcome in some ways by paying for an adfree blog, however you are still limited to their templates that are approved instead of building your own or buying one from someone.
Small price to pay to keep from getting hacked because their servers are kept up to date.
Just a thought…
Lynne Schlumpf
http://alaskainmydreams.com
.-= Lynne Schlumpf´s last blog ..Feeling Safe in Your RV =-.
Hi Lynn!
I am so sorry about what happened to you – yes WordPress is open source and therefore they are susceptible to hackers, however if your service like GoDaddy or HostGator where you have your blog has its servers up to date, and you keep regular backups (such that if one is faulty you can still go back to the last known good one), then you are better off than having WordPress.com or Blogger simply take it down. Where was your blog hosted?
Thanks for the added info!
Wishing You Every Success,
Sorry it took so long to reply. I was hosted at yahoo! several years ago when this happened.
I’m now hosted at fatcow and have a great service there. I have also since invested in a book that taught me lots about protecting my blog. I’m a computer engineer with about 23 years experience in the field, and this was the first time I ever lost any data.
I’ve learned a lot since then. I keep my own backups now, and I use some strong plug-ins and strategies to keep my blog safe. Works well.
Lynne
Sorry to hear that Lynne.
As Vicki stated, WordPress is open source and does have some security issues. The thing is…they all do! I was an internet engineer at Worldcom for over 20 years and we dealt with security issues every day. I’m always getting attacked on my home PC. The problem with “free” services on the internet like WordPress.com is that you are at their mercy. You might get shut down one day and never know why! You are still susceptible to security attacks using those other services.
At least by obtaining your own domain name and paying for hosting, you are eliminating a potential problem with a premature shutdown. I personally use Hostgator and from my own perspective, feel they do a good job.
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Thanks Jim!
It’s great to hear from someone so experienced as yourself with the world of IT, I’ve been a software engineer for years but more on the application level in a closed system so do not have to deal with such issues. And what a bummer you are having so many attacks on your home PC!
Thanks for adding some clarification and confirmation!
Wishing You Tremendous Success!
Vicki,
Software engineer huh. I thought I detected professional analysis in the wording of your posts. We have something else in common. I’m building a web site in regards to research I have done based on the power of positive thinking and the subconscious mind. It really is focused on energy. I’ll stop there as I am getting off target with what this thread is about. Take care!
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Hi Jim!
Yes I do believe I may have read and commented on that post on your blog, being that I’d recently written on the same topic myself – unless it was somene else’s but I thought it was you …. anyway, see I knew great minds think alike!
All the Best!
Hi Vicki! It was someone else. My site is live but I’ve got a whole lot of work to do with it yet.
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Ahh, sorry! I guess it was another great mind! Now if I could just remember where it was I would link it here for ya! If I come across it again I will do that.
Looking forward to seeing more or your posts too!
Have an Awesome Day,
Vicky,
What a wealth of information. I have a few free blogs
out there and while they are still there, I know at anytime
they may disappear. I have friends that have poured hours
of time into their free blogs only to have them disappear.
I now host my own blogs. We as serious entrepreneurs
put way too much love into our blogs to play that game.
Thank you for sharing this information…because many think
as many of us have, that a free blog will always be there
once we put up.
Alice McCarthy
Something else has just come to mind from something that happened recently that brought up some memories. Not completely on target with this post but might be useful to those reading this.
Many people are switching to WordPress for many good reasons. One thing you should watch out for though.
There are thousands of free widgets, themes, and plugins available. Just because they are free doesn’t mean they are stable. From personal experience, note that you should only use what is “free” and readily available if there is full technical support. You should find and only use things that have a history of working well and that are constantly being upgraded. If you don’t, I can tell you several stories of web sites literally “blowing up” to where a rebuild is necessary. This could happen days, months, or years “after” your web site has been built.
Hope this helps if you are just now starting your own web site.
.-= Jim Eberle´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Oops! Last comment was by me. Put in my name differently in case your wondering if that is a new person.
.-= Jim|best mlm business´s last blog ..Niche Marketing Tips for Your Best MLM Business =-.
Hi Vicki:
Really interesting article on Word Press. I recently hired someone and we are using that for my blogs. Never heard this before. I am passing it on to that person. Will seriously look into a different site. Who do you recommend, as of today? Things can change so quickly.
Thanks for your amazing content.
I asked you to be my friend earlier, but I did not see a place to add a message. What did I do wrong? I just sent it to you. Thanks a lot for your help.
Hi Sylvia!
Thanks for stopping by to comment, and just to be sure, it’s not WordPress as much as it is WordPress.com (the free hosting) that you want to avoid). If you have some place like HostGator.com or GoDaddy host your WordPress blog (which actually comes from WordPress.org) then you pay for that hosting and noone can take it away from you!
Hope that helps!
Wishing You Blogging Success!
Some great information and a great discussion on this topic on here through the post and the comments. I agree with many of the points but to take the other side, WordPress.com is a free service much like the other blogging services out there. For people just getting started and wanting to get their feet wet, there is nothing wrong with starting out with these services. I do agree that its better to move to a more solid platform later on down the road so its something you own are in more control of. I think blogging on one of these services to get the practice of blogging and trying out ideas is totally fine and better than not blogging at all.
Nice blog post Vicki.
Christopher Adams´s last [type] ..How to use Google Reader Video by My Dog & me
Hi Chrostopher!
You are so right, DO START with WordPress.com! As a matter of fact, my introduction on hot to create a wordpress blog starts you out exactly there, and you need to be sure that you are ready to follow through, stick with it, be consistent, and most importantly, enjoy it before you go on to your own hosted blog.
Thanks for your comment!
To Your Blogging Success!
Had a blogspot blog a long time ago, I didn’t really like the top bar blogspot blogs have and anyway I felt kind of limited, so I finally took time to check the latest release of WordPress a while back and I gotta say that it’s a technical beauty, a very polished and fine product. Plus there is a countless amount of plugins and theme which are kind of easy to modify as well if you know where to put your hands.
Hi Gabriele!
Thanks for stopping by, great to see you as always!
Yes WordPress is an amazing platform, and the plugins afforded by the open source are truly amazing, making for a sound and fully featured web site without having to be a programmer.
Wishing You Wonderful Success!
Thanks for the tip. I just got my feet wet in blogging and I’m using a free service from Typepad. I guess the same issues apply. More importantly I like to host my own blog for the sake of designing it the way I want it to be. Most free blogging platforms provide standard templates which offer convenience at the expense of originality. But I am not quite familiar with those web design stuff. Got to upgrade my IT skills, I guess…
Joo Kwang´s last [type] ..Dealing with PC worms
Hi Joe!
Well one of the great benefits of WordPress is that you don’t have to have web design skills to build the blog! I think your assumption is probably right about Typepad or any other free service, but at least they provide you a way to see if blogging is really going to be your passion!
Wishing You Tremendous Success!
Hi Vicki,
As always, great advice! I believe, like you, that if you’re serious about establishing a “business” presence on the web that a stand alone website that includes or links to your blog is the best way to go. I use Go Daddy for my website (www.globalwritingsolutionsonline.com) and have a link to my blog from the home page. I do tend to keep them fairly separate. The blog is not necessarily related to my business. It’s simply another writing outlet for me, which actually allows it to stay very non-commercial. I certainly refer to what I do (copy writing) in some posts but it’s really just a way to vent or comment on various thought provoking things that occur in my day to day life. I think that a blog should be positioned more like the old-fashioned opinion columns of a newspaper. Then, if there’s a logical place to link back to your business your readers can explore further if they so choose and you don’t run into problems.
Anne
Godaddy has great prices on .info domains but their private domain service is so damn expensive”*`
Whilst I agree about WordPress.com I beg to differ regarding Blogger. Google is improving the service and you are able to get your own URL’s pointing to the Blogger service. I have yet to have any of my blogs affected by Google ‘closing’ a site down.
I do agree with you that once you have got a lot of traffic you can then justify swapping across to a monthly paid service and have the blog content transferred to the new webservers.
Robert Latchford´s last [type] ..Top 10 Blog Lists
No big deal if you are using Blogger as a personal web site. If you are using Blogger to make money via the internet, it’s best to stay away from it. Google owns it so you are susceptible to their rules and regulations. They are worse than all of the others. For the small cost of purchasing a domain name and hosting it through Hostgator or whomever, it is well worth the peace of mind.
Jim Eberle´s last [type] ..How to Start a Home Based Business with an Authority Website
Good points, Vicki.
I’ve just had a concerned client show me this post – he’s relaunching his website and I’ve suggested WordPress as a possible CMS. I’ve now explained to him the difference between WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress, but it’s perhaps worth reiterating for the benefit of others:
Free blog on WordPress.com = not good for business, little brand control, all the issues Vicki raises above.
Website hosted on your own server, powered by WordPress software downloaded from WordPress.org = fine for many types of business, complete control over your brand.
Thanks Bill, You clarified it well! As I said in the post, WordPress.com hosts your blog for you for free and WordPress.org on the other hand provides the open source WordPress code that you can upload to your server. The latter provides you with total ownership, branding and control!
Thank you for stopping by, and for taking the time to comment and help clarify the confusion here!
Wishing you Tremendous Success,
Seems like one would be wise to create material in a word doc. saved to your own computer and then copy/paste into blog sites???
Hi Kathy,
Whether you type it in in another source would not matter, as it has nothing to do with how the text was submitted in your post to wordpress. Really it is that you do not own the site you put together on WordPress.com and eventually if you are serious about keeping a blog, you will want to host it elsewhere (still using WordPress for creating it is fine, via WordPress.org, often already provided by different hosting platforms.
Wishing You Fabulous Success!
Wow – great comments and help – I am looking changing my website, I already have a host but still ok to use wordpress by the sounds of it. I m not tech person so what is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org? Also did start a new blog where I purchased the domain name only two days ago, is it to late to change it to be hosted by another company rather than wordpress?
Thank you again – as this is such a great help to the ‘tech-challenged’ people like me!!
Shaynna
Hi Shayanna!
If you are already paying for hosting where you have the capability to create a wordpress blog (you can call your hosting company’s tech support to find out) then you are good to go. If you hosted it free at wordpress.com then your blog address would be soemthing like ‘yourblogname.wordpress.com’.
WordPress.org is just the place that provides the open source software that is used to author / edit / create blogs.
Hope this makes sense!
Vicki,
Love what you’ve been writing about lately. Keep up the amazing work!
If i can add my 2 cents, I’d just love to say, owning your own blog is EASY! Sure you have to learn some things, but it’s well worth it!
Best wishes!
Joe Shaw
Joe Shaw´s last [type] ..Create a Custom URL Facebook Page- A Simple “How To”
Hey Joe!
Thank You! And Great to see you here! And yes you are right, owning your own is easy, I was just telling someone today, and you can host your own (off of the wordpress.com site) for less than $10/mo! That’s your best piece of internet real estate, hosing your own site(s).
Thanks for dropping by and I appreciate the compliment!
Wishing You Continued Success,
Hi Vicky. Great post. Can’t wait to watch your link on setting up wordpress blog now. I use tumblr. Regret it from a functionality point of view but it’s unlikely to be pulled in that it’s purely an opinion led blog. I will add you tomorrow too my ‘good blogs’ section of my site.
keep up the good work
Thanks so much Connor! Just let me know if you have any questions, the WordPress dashboard makes it pretty easy! And like I said, it’s the same dashboard on the free wordpress.com as on your hosted wordpress, so the transition is easy if you start on wordpress.com and move to a self hosted blog later.
Wishing You Tremendous Success!
HI Vicki, Thanks for the warning as I’d not been aware of that at all. What’s your best tip for backing up the hundreds of pages of content on my blog to save it in case wp ‘steals’ my domain away from me, too? Can one rebuild from the saved wp backup files into another blog format?
Thanks in advance for your tips!
Hi Allison!
There are two options for backing up, one is to use the Tools->Export function to download a backup file, and another is to use a backup plugin which will do it periodically or manually however you set it. Check my post on plugins for that one, however like I said, I’m not sure what plugins are allowed on the wp.com site.
When you eventually move your blog you can still use WordPress (as a matter of fact you will WANT to), it’s just that it will be hosted on a site you pay for (like GoDaddy).
Hope this helps!
Wishing you Fabulous Success,
Never heard of that before…thanks for the tip.
Bullet proof security plugin, huh? Cool, I will look it up. I realize you wrote this post over a year ago but I like what you said. I had been advised by some colleagues of mine to not use a free wordpress site for my business. I have always kind of regretted using a paid site while people I know have just as good a site as me but they don’t pay a dime. Now you’ve given me some reassurance as to why I spend a monthly fee for my site. Thanks!
Scary stuff! I have heard this before. It’s too intimidating to think of investing anything in my blog right now since I don’t have a job.
Hopefully it will be real clear when it looks like it’s time to make the switch! thanks for the advice!
-Amalia