Article in Content Creation

Blogging really started out with journal and diary sites, where people would share their day-to-day activities, however then they started sharing news and discussing their opinions on different news articles. The experts took this as a sign that people would start reading their articles if they wrote them in some sort of daily format. The blog was born, and by putting ads on their sites and using other methods the blogs actually bring in money!

The real draw to writing a blog is the fact that anyone can do it. The writer doesn’t have to be someone with a journalism degree. It can be the housewife next door, or the old guy down the street that always yells at the kids for littering on his lawn.

Wordpress is an awesome service that provides free blogging software, and if you don’t have a site of your own you can host it on their own site, adding your blog name to their URL, giving you your own individual address on their site.

However Wordpress does have rules and regulations that you have to follow or risk your blog being suspended or even forever deleted. This is one reason why many bloggers have turned to hosting their blogs on their own.

By hosting your blog yourself not only can you blog about subjects that the Wordpress site won’t allow you, but you can also place ads wherever you want, sell ad spots, or pretty much do anything your heart desires!

But is it worth it? Well, that depends on what your blog is about, and if you can benefit from having your blog independent of their system.

Wordpress actually encourages readers to check out different blogs on their site, even listing blogs by random to spark up additional interest. You’ll also have less of a problem that the server your blog is stored on will crash and you’ll lose your entire database of entries overnight! It’s happened to me, learn from my mistakes. However Wordpress doesn’t supply you backups either, so if they decide to close your account, you can never take your work with you.

Another problem users complain of is Wordpress uses .css templates, which if you want to look totally unique and make your own, is going to require you to know how to write .css or you’ll have to hire someone that does and that means money out of your pocket.

So what’s so great about blogging software? Well, for one it’s easy to set up, and even better, easy to use. Development teams, and even other users release modification modules that you can easily install (even if you know nothing about programming) and that will increase the functions of your blogging site.

Of course there are hundreds of other blog hosting services to choose from. The arguments of using a hosted one and hosting it yourself are about the same. Of course, some of the smaller ones might go ‘belly up’ and you’ll be stuck in the same position as having a server crash with no backups. There’s nothing like writing your heart out every day for two years, just to have it all wiped into non-existence because of someone else’s error.

by: Katharina Katt