Best Blog Sites

The biggest thing that drives me nuts with Blogger is I can't put up pages, just posts. (unless I'm missing something?) That means that the blog has to be the first thing people see and you can't have an "About" page, for example. It's unlikely to fit your needs.

Wordpress.com is not particularly useful for many IM purposes because of the restrictions in the terms of use. However, depending on your plans, it's a good place to start. You can always move to .org later.

Wordpress.org self-hosted is the one you'll find the most help for with themes, widgets, and know-how. It's also the most flexible. There's a lot you can do with it with little knowledge because of all those available pieces, but to get the most out of it you need to be programming savvy or hire someone who is. This is also the option that gives you the most growth opportunities for your domain in the future.

Depending on your intended purpose you can go with Wordpress Direct or Blogs.mu if you want something between wp.com and wp.org. There's an additional cost for those programs and each has their own limitations.

My preference for authority sites centered around a blog is Squarespace. I can do a lot of professional looking customization myself with almost no programming knowledge and they keep adding functionality. The downside is that instead of paying less than $14/month for one hosting account with multiple blogs I'm paying $14/month per blog.

The closest example to what you're talking about that I have is my central home page at About - Beth Robinson Everything there you could have done in Wordpress instead, of course.

I think they both have their advantages. When I researched this a few years ago, the general consensus seemed to be that Blogger is easier to learn, so if you are new to blogging, that may be the easiest way to start. Eventually, though, you'll probably get frustrated with Blogger and wish you had a few more options or more functionality. Wordpress definitely offers more options, including static content pages. I agree that it's probably worth it to play with both to see what you're more comfortable with, but Wordpress will probably do more of what you want down the road.

Thanks, Jason.

Some of the other people who answered have also mentioned .com and .org differences. If they are referring to "your own hosting" then they mean the .org. Both are from the same people, just meant for different things.

wp.com is a web-based service like blogger. You get a free blog at yourname.wordpress.com and can add a domain name if you like. You can use one of their preset templates and can only activate certain widgets. You can use it as a business home page but you cannot use it with any banner advertising or to link to Clickbank or various other commercial uses. It's easy to use.

wp.org is a free program. You need to get a hosting account (like at Hostgator) and a domain name before you can even start. You will need to download wp.org then upload it to your hosting account. You will need to find and upload the widgets you want (there are places that help with this.) You will need to find and upload the theme you want.

After you have it all set up then the interface looks almost identical to that of wp.com except you get to choose what you put on it and can write about or sell anything that complies with the terms of the ad networks and hosting companies (usually no sex or guns or illegality). It can also be integrated into a non-WP website if you install WP on blog.domain.com instead of www.domain.com (or something similar).

I did do that a couple times, attracted by the lower cost, (all deleted by now) and I decided that it wasn't how I wanted to spend my time. No matter how "easy" that others say it is, I didn't find it intuitive. I could have learned eventually or chose to pay someone, but I didn't want to.

One of the big advantages of something like wp.org on your own hosting or Squarespace is that since you are paying for the site you OWN it. You're a lot less likely to lose all your hardwork.

There's a lot of people promoting blogger, and it is easy and you can download cool looking templates. But unless someone can answer my question about pages I still don't think you can get a "website that happens to have a blog" look with it.

I agree most with those who say to go ahead and get an account on the two free services. Look at the interface. Write a post or two. Get a feel for the process and then make the decision about what type of platform and method you want to put most of your time and traffic into. Squarespace is also web-based and has a 7-day free trial if you want to check into that as well.