Self-Hosted WordPress VS Free WordPress

Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com

Today I had to answer on an ever-ending debate "Self-Hosted WordPress VS Free WordPress" which is better for personal blogging. The actual question was Is it recommended to buy a domain for blogging over the free one on WordPress?

Here're all the opinions expressed on https://www.quora.com/

Ferdinand Brueggemann
Runs a Wordpress blog since 2004

It depends. If you new to blogging, start with the free version. Thus you can start blogging immediately and don’t have to care about anything else, except selecting a nice theme. 

On the long run I would move to a self hosted blog. This is the only way to control (and own) everything and to create a blog 100% to your liking by adding plugins and implementing design changes.

Ryan Biddulph
I can help you create content and connect with leaders to build a pro blog.

Hi Ben, 

Oh hell yeah :) 

But….make sure to buy your domain *and* hosting for these reasons:

• Own your online real estate
• brand yourself effectively
• build a professional looking blog
• tap into the amazing functionality of Wordpress
• avoid getting kicked off free blogging platforms, like a squatter is kicked out of a home after somebody buys the property

Adame Dahmani
11 years freelance { WordPress; Web design & development; Web marketing; }

Using a domain will cost you at least a personal plan ($2.99 a month at WordPress.com). The free one doesn’t allow using custom domains. 

One of the new component of SEO in 2017 is building personal brands, and having a domain is one step to achieve that. 

Get a domain name if you want to do things properly. If you want to blog for the sake of sharing, you can do that without using a domain :)

Manasa Jain
I do a little blogging too :)

If your intension is to just to convey information over the web, then you can stick to the free version, however there are lot of limitations when it comes to customising your website. 

If you are willing to make some money through online advertising then you should definitely get your own domain. Here is my answer for why: Manasa Jain's answer to What are the advantages of owning your own domain for blogging and earning money?

Adeel Sami
Blogger

You’re not build to call a rented place your home. So the same applies to the free domain. You need to build yourself around the premium domain, the domain you have control of. The domain you’re given the full access of. So, must buy the domain for blogging!

Exabee Sg
3 years of experience as internet marketing executive

Well, the answers is YES. 

Free wordpress has limited theme support which limit you to modify the CSS or other codes within the theme. Also, most of the free wordpress also does not allow users to upload any free, pad or custom plugins. 

So of you wish to have full control on your website and keep 100% of the revenue you make, it is better to opt for paid wordpress. There are much more low rate and affordable web hosting service available to host your wordpress.

Hope this helps:)

Brian McIntomney
Been buying and selling domains for awhile now

My recommendation would be to start off with a free blog. Post unique content regularly. Promote your blog on social media, sites like Twitter, Facebook and others. Keep an eye on the traffic (visits) that you blog receives. 

If your blog starts receiving a fair amount of visits (depends on topic, in some “niches” 25 visits per day is fantastic while in others, not so impressive), then I would get a domain name and hosting. 

Basically, a lot of blogs fail because of commitment. A successful blog doesn’t happen overnight.

Sohel Parvez
Online Marketing Consultant Specializing in Local SEO (It's Me Folk)

If you’re looking to build your own WordPress website, the most important difference between Self-Hosted WordPress and Free WordPress is the ability to customize almost anything. Self-Hosted WordPress lets you do it, Free WordPress does not. That’s it. 

Both Self-Hosted WordPress and Free WordPress are Great Options and It All Depends on Few Factors:

• The Nature of Your Website
• Your Technical Expertise.
• The Amount of Time You can Invest in it.
• Your Budget.

For instance, if you want to operate a simple blog and don’t need powerful functionality like eCommerse? In such cases, it’s best to go with free WordPress Version. You’ll have your site up and running within minutes, won’t have to worry about maintenance, and you’ll be able to share your content with the world – all without having to reach for your wallet.

But what if you’re thinking about operating an Membership or eCommerse Website then it’s best to go with Self-Hosted WordPress simply because free WordPress doesn’t offer these advanced functionality.

Alwin Reyes
Life Lover!

For me, have your own domain name is better, but not a must if you’re just starting out. I said it’s better mainly because of the control you have with your website in terms of customization of theme and plugins you’re allowed to use. 

In a paid version, you can select any theme you like (free or paid), as long as it is WordPress compatible. Plus, you can use any plugins you need. For a free version, you can’t do these things, which I think is very important in blogging.

Santo Singh
Web Developer & Content Writer

Recommend to buy one personal domain name if you want to be listed in google

Zara Balika

No not at all you can go for Freebies..

How To Write SEO Friendly Blog Post

I think that your post should focus on what matters to your audience, not search engines. That said, there is no harm in optimizing it for search engines to help it get discovered. In fact, SEO is a great way to get your blog discovered by relevant people without spending your budget.

In this post, I would like to give you some tips on writing blog posts that are both very readable as well as SEO-friendly.

Optimize your Post Title: 

Use Google Keywords Planner to learn what people are searching for online. If there are many people who are searching for the phrase that is included in your title, and the competition for that phrase is low - you have a better chance to rank higher and have many people click into your content.

Optimize your Post Description:

Post Descriptions play a major role in search engine ranking, and description act as sales copy for your blog post. The Description has to be a short text which indicates the main topic of the page. If the meta description contains the search term people use, the exact text will be shown by Google underneath your URL in the search results.

Research long tail keywords:

Find 1-2 long tail keywords and use them a few times inside your content, preferably in the title and the first 100-200 words. Don't force it! Only use the keywords if they naturally fit the test you're writing.

Use SEO Plugin:

Use an SEO plugin, like Yoast for Wordpress, to optimize your content.

The most popular blog SEO tool for WordPress is the WordPress SEO by Yoast. Yoast has a wide variety of SEO tools for blog articles and website pages. The image shows one of the Yoast tabs for a recent blog article. The plugin analyzes the blog article for 18 different SEO factors and rates it while providing a “street light” style ranking of Red – Yellow – Green based on the articles ranking on each SEO factor.

Create Engaging Content:

Make sure your content is engaging - the longer people will spend with your content and the lower your bounce rate will be, the higher search engines are likely to rank your page.

Use and Optimize images:

Your blog posts shouldn't only contain text, you should also have images that help explain your content. But search engines don't just look for images. Rather, they look for images with alt text.

You can figure out an image's alt text by placing your cursor over an image. A small box will pop up that describes your image and, therefore, helps search engines interpret the meaning of the image. As you can see below, the alt text is "related-search." Think of alt text as an interpreter for search engines. Search engines cannot interpret what an image means without the text to explain it.

You can also use Infographics, videos, and slides which might give your reader excellent visual supplements.

Post Length:

Post Length gives search engines ample text to crawl and plenty of keywords and context clues to help them understand what the article is about. For your written posts, 1,500 words should be the minimum.

Keyword Diversity:

Use different text every time you post a link to your content. Google doesn't like duplicates, so make sure that on every forum or article you include a link to your content from, you will use the different text.

Link internally when possible:

Internal links to your content help show search engines the validity or relevancy of your content. The same goes for linking internally to other pages on your website. For instance, if you've written about a topic that's mentioned in your blog post on another blog post, ebook, or web page, you should link to that page. That will not only help retain visitors on your web site, but also demonstrate the other relevant and authoritative pages to search engines.

Internal Linking

• helps readers find what they’re looking for 
• helps your audience get to know, like, and trust you 
• helps search engines crawl every page on your site 
• helps search engines create an accurate sitemap

To find more Internal Linking, you can read more about Internal links and It's importance in SEO?

Link to External Helpful Resources:

Linking out to authoritative, trustworthy websites like Wikipedia, known thought leaders in the field, or any domain ending in .edu or .gov creates a better user experience and shows search engines you truly want to help searchers. They’ll reward you with higher rankings and more traffic.

Use Categories and Tags:

One of the best things about blogs is how organized and interconnected they can be. Taking advantage of that with categories and tags helps both readers and search engines. A few rules of thumb to keep in mind:

• Use keywords for categories and tags where possible. This strengthens the keywords in each post and builds keyword-rich tag and category pages. 
• You should have no more than 12 to 24 categories total. 
• Each post should be in 3 categories or less. 
• Tags should not be the same as categories because it confuses search engines. 
• The sweet spot for tagging blog posts appears to be 5 to 10 tags per post, but you can have as many tags total as you want.

Post Regularly:

Adding actual and functional information to your website will give the search engine the idea that your website is alive. If it’s not an active website, the search engine will crawl it less often and it might become less appealing to the search engine to include the page in the search results.

What other blog writing tips have improved your SEO? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Read How to promote your blog posts?

How to Promote Your Blog Posts?

Being relatively new to the "blogosphere", I am no expert on the best methods of blog post promotion. Firstly, I do not believe that quantity is necessary strongly correlated to quality blog posts.

I think that promoting your blog post can almost take too much time away from the actual writing. So it is a personal choice on how much time you devote to writing and promotion your blog.

Nevertheless I have read plenty of articles and hope the below can help you promote your blog posts.

Ways to Promote your blog posts:

Create Great Content:

More than anything else, are you producing quality content? If you’re selling something, do you go beyond being a simple brochure with the same information that can be found on hundreds of other sites? 

Do you provide a reason for people to spend more than a few seconds reading your pages?

Get your content right, and you’ve created a solid foundation to bring traffic on your blog posts. If your posts are really good, most likely people will link to, read, comment, and share it.

Be Active in Social Media: 

The vast majority of experienced bloggers will say use Twitter, Facebook, Google+ etc to share your posts. However this takes time and effort to build up a significant or valuable following. It takes time to maintain your presence across these sites. Read More about, How to Manage Your Social Media Efforts.

Submit to Blog Directories: 

Add your blog to directory sites like Best of the Web Blog Search, EatonWeb Blog Directory, and OnToplist.com. Here is a list of 23 Blog Directories To Submit Your Blog To.

Use Feeds: 

Utilise RSS feeds. RSS readers remaining a popular method of readers keeping track of news from various sources. There are some great directory lists like this one from TopRank Blog that you can submit your blog or RSS feed to.

Participate in Forums/Communities: 

Participate in online communities relevant to your blog is an highly effective strategy. Forums/Communities that are close to your market/niche and have an active community can be a great way to build traffic to your blog.

Being an active and useful member of niche related forums is a fantastic way to find targeted traffic for your site.

Use Tools: 

Use tools to Publish posts automatically to social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. For example, whenever you post a blog on Wordpress, Everypost can spread the word through all your other social channels automatically! Read More about Content Creation and Marketing Tools.

SEO: 

Use your blog content to appear in search engine organic results, and avid Pay Per Click Service. This can be achieved by simply being smart about your existing content and new content. Writing a well structured and informative blog post can achieve higher search engine organic rank.

Use Analytics: 

Use analytics to work out where your most of the traffic is coming from and Know your conversion rates. You are trying to make the most of those visitors who actually visit and stay on your site for more than 2 seconds.

Use Mailing lists: 

Good old fashioned email is still massively powerful in pulling in traffic. Email marketing is a very effective method in getting your blog articles seen and clicked on. Sending a email to your list as soon as you publish a new post is the best way to get a fury of traffic to it.

Branding: 

Be sure to include your blog URL in all your messaging (email, social media, business cards).

Guest Blogging:

Guest blogging has long been an effective tactic for building a community, a way of growing visibility for both your website and your byline, a means of driving traffic, increasing the exchange of ideas and a method of building inbound links to your website.

Follow these steps to ensure your guest blogging efforts are well-received by the search engines and new audience:

1. Only Post on High Quality and Relevant Websites
2. Contribute Original, Quality Content
3. Link with Value in Mind
4. Build Engaging, Long-Term Relationships

Deliver The Right Mix of Content: 

On your blog, you need to deliver the right mix of content Regularly. Include Images, Infographics, Audio and Video in your blog posts. It helps engage your visitors to your post and encourage them to share your posts.

Bend the Rules: 

Leveraged paid advertising, mass marketing (spam) and/or guerilla marketing to build early traffic.

Offline Activity: 

Get out the building. Attend conferences, meet people face-to-face. Often people read a blog because they discovered them in the flesh.

Good Writing: 

Writing and sharing personal and real experiences is always popular.

Ignore Frequency: 

I don't believe posting regularly is important. Many of the good blogs I find are from discovering brilliant articles published years ago.

Knowing how to promote your blog posts is essential if you want to get more blog traffic and build your audience. In summary you need to spend an extensive amount of time across many methods to successfully promote your blog.

You can't simply publish and hope for the best and only sharing with your email list and social media profiles is NOT enough as they are limited in numbers.

You have to reach out to authorities in your niche, syndicate your content, share with others and put in some work to get links, shares and new readers.

When you spend more time promoting you get rewarded with a more engaged community who in turn tell others about your site causing a snowball effect.

Following steps above is a good start but if you're looking for more advanced methods that can bring more visitors to your blog.

Easy Social Promotion - Addmefast!

Today I’m going to introduce a website with you called Addmefast!

What is Addmefast?

Addmefast is free social exchange network which helps you grow your social presence. Currently thanks to Addmefast you can get more and more Facebook likes, Facebook subcriptions, Google circles, Google +1 , Twitter followers, YouTube views , YouTube channel subscription, YouTube Video likes , Pinterest followers, Soundcloud music listening, Digg followers, StumbleUpon followers and Website hits .

How to get started

If you have already registered and logged in, you can do the following steps:

You can add your pages/accounts/music videos/websites clicking on the green button '' Add Site/Page''. You have to choose a network type, input title (if necessary), then add the URL or username/ID and set CPC * (Cost (points) Per Click for your Site/Page - min=2 and max=10) and then click the save changes button. After this, the link you have added will appear in ''My sites'' section. If you want to pause campaign for one of your site/page - click on the pause button(CPC=0 automatically). If you want to start it again, you can click on the start button (CPC=5 automatically) and then change your CPC. You can delete the link that you have added whenever you want to take into consideration that the link that you have removed can't be added anymore by another user but you. You can add unlimited amount of links for any type of network.

How to get points

• You can get free points by liking/following/viewing/subscribing/listening to the others pages/accounts/videos/profiles/music.
• You can receive daily bonus points (100).
• You can choose their affiliate programs to earn more free points. You can share your referral link where you want, you can also use "Share on Twitter" and "Share on Facebook" buttons to do it quickly on Facebook and Twitter. If new user(s) (coming from your referral link) registers on Addmefast network and becomes an active user(s) you earn 200 points for each. Anytime you can check your referral status here.
• You can buy points via Paypal.

Services Offered By Addmefast:

 

Adding Your Sites / Pages to AddmeFast is easy and only takes seconds:

Earning Points is fast, easy and convenient, because you won't have to leave the addmefast member's site.

As you can see on the image above, you can earn up to 9 points for giving one Google +1 to another member's site. You can use these 9 points and get several +1's for your own site. The higher the number of points you are willing to give to another member for voting for your site, the faster the votes will come in.

In the beginning, I thought that it will take forever to get some votes. However, it only took about one hour to get 50 Google +1's and Facebook likes.

Of course, you can also buy points. This is a great option if you do not want to spend time visiting and voting for other member's sites.

All in all AddMeFast is a great service if you are looking for a cheap (Free) and FAST way to get tons of Facebook likes, Google+1, Twitter followers etc.

* The higher your Site's/Page's CPC, the more chance you have for it to be visible. You can add unlimited sites/pages, Add web page, or facebook, google plus, etc. pages. Increase your site/page media activity. Get more and more fans, followers and likes. All categories of site/page are allowed (cars, food, music, fanclub, artist, film) except adult content. All sites with the adult title, link or content will be disabled.

Additional information

Addmefast doesn't sell likes/subscriptions/followers/views/hits. 

Addmefast will never request for usernames or passwords of your social network accounts and will never post, tweet or update status from your accounts.

The information of your account will never be reachable for the third party unless you agree. Only In the case of selling any or all of our business to a third party your information may be shared.


For questions, further information, requests or comments please feel free to contactAddmefast supports stuff via support centre.

Join AddMeFast Now! (It Is FREE + You Will Get 100 Points Instantly!) - 

CLICK HERE

Blogging 99!

Blogging 99 is mostly about the blogging vocabulary. To understand blogs, you need to know the terms blog, platform, domain, and web host. Once you have mastered these key elements of blogging, you can enter any conversation about blogging with confidence. After you know what exactly a blog is, you will be on your way to passing the final exam of blogging 99.

Blog is short for weblog, which simply means a series of online posts presented in reverse chronological order. That's all! Most blogs are text, but there are also photo blogs and video blogs. The rest of blogging 99 has to do with the technical side of things.

If you are setting up a blog, you will need a platform, a web host, and a domain. A blogging platform is a computer software program that allows you to write posts and to update your blog. Your platform is also what you use to design the look of your blog, from color scheme to font size. The web host is sort of like the virtual file cabinet where your blog is stored. Your computer communicates with the host when you upload or edit a post.

The domain is the online address of your blog, and usually ends in ‘dot com'. Now that you know what a blog is, what a platform is, and what domains and hosts are, congratulate yourself! You have passed blogging 99.