Wordpress.com Versus Wordpress.org

There is a lot of talk out in real estate blog land about setting up wordpress blogs.  Many of the sage advice givers recommend that real estate agents set up a blog on Wordpress.com because it is simple, it is free and it is maintained and hosted by someone else.

Those are precisely the reasons that you should never use wordpress.com for a business blog.  There really is no such thing as a free lunch.  Wordpress.com is the free, hosted version of the wordpress multi user software.  Because it is free, the terms of service are quite restrictive.

You might do the simplest, most natural things on your blog and wake up one morning to find the dreaded notice “THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DELETED OR ARCHIVED FOR VIOLATING THE TERMS OF SERVICE”  Advertising on a wordpress.com blog can get your blog deleted.  Linking to your real estate sales site might get it deleted.  Posting listings from your office or for your clients might get your wordpress.com blog deleted.

When that happens, whatever amount of work you have put into that blog simply vanishes, never to return.

All the pages are gone, all the posts are gone, all the links are gone, all the trust and authority you have built up is gone.

Wordpress.com Versus Wordpress.org

Wordpress.com Versus Wordpress.org

There is a lot of talk out in real estate blog land about setting up wordpress blogs. Many of the sage advice givers recommend that real estate agents set up a blog on Wordpress.com because it is simple, it is free and it is maintained and hosted by someone else.

Those are precisely the reasons that you should never use wordpress.com for a business blog of any kind. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. Wordpress.com is the free, hosted version of the wordpress multi user software. Because it is free, the terms of service are quite restrictive.

You might do the simplest, most natural things on your blog and wake up one morning to find the dreaded notice “THIS BLOG HAS BEEN DELETED OR ARCHIVED FOR VIOLATING THE TERMS OF SERVICE” Advertising on a wordpress.com blog can get your blog deleted. Linking to your real estate sales site might get it deleted. Posting listings from your office or for your clients might get your wordpress.com blog deleted.

When that happens, whatever amount of work you have put into that blog simply vanishes, never to return.

All the pages are gone, all the posts are gone, all the links are gone, all the trust and authority you have built up is gone. It is simply not worth the risk.

If you want to set up a wordpress blog, go to wordpress.org and download the software and set it up on your server, configure it, upload a theme you like and modify that to meet your look and feel requirements, load all the plugins, back up the entire system and then get started blogging.

If your web hosting company is set up for wordpress hosting then it might be much simpler. The download and install might be enabled with a few clicks of the mouse, typing the name of your blog and you are up and running in minutes.

An even simpler, process for busy people with a budget is to hire a blog marketing company to set it up for you.  If that is not in your budget then you will want to attend the next Arizona Real Estate Bloggers Network meeting and learn all about doing it yourself.

Thank you,

Bill Austin

Wordpress.com versus Wordpress.org: What’s the difference?

During my session at Meetup #3, I discussed the differences between a blog at Wordpress.com and a Wordpress.org blog.  Here I’ll share some of those differences again, for those that missed the session.

To get started, I’ll define the two categories.  A Wordpress.com blog is one that appears at Wordpress.com.  The blog you create will have a name similar to stevebelt.wordpress.com.  Blogs created at Wordpress.com are free to start, though you can upgrade them for a fee, and new bloggers evaluating whether blogging is for them should absolutely consider starting at Wordpress.com.  In contrast, a Wordpress.org blog is a blog in which the Wordpress software has been downloaded from Wordpress.org and then subsequently installed on either your own server (which I do), or via hosting provider like GoDaddy, HostGator, DreamHost, etc.  Some hosting providers will even install Wordpress for you, so you can skip that step and get right to blogging.

The first consideration I like to make, is that I am blogging for business.  The blog is a part of my business.  To that end, I want as much control and ownership over my business as I can possibly get.  Today, Wordpress.com is as close to free as you can get, and has a fairly liberal policy with regard to what type of blog you can have there.  But that’s today.  Wordpress.com could change their rules at any time, for any reason.  If they did, how would that impact your business?  While I doubt Wordpress.com will change its rules any time soon (if ever), it’s not something I’m prepared to bank on, even if the chances are slim.

All of the rest of the differences are functional, rather than philosophical. The first functional difference between a Wordpress.com blog and a hosted Wordpress blog has to do with your theme choices.  Wordpress.com has ~100 themes you can choose from.  That sounds like a lot, I know.  But there are a lot of blogs, and no matter which theme you choose, you are going to be one of 1000’s that share the same look and feel.  Heck, I use Chris Pearson’s Cutline 3 on the Phoenix Area Real Estate Blog.  That has to be one of the top 10 most popular themes in existence (it’s used right here at AZREBN too), but one day, if I decide to switch, I’ll be free to do so, and not be limited to 99 other choices.

Speaking of themes, Wordpress.com will allow you to pay $15/year to customize the CSS of a theme.  But that’s the extent of the customization you can do.  You cannot change the layout or functionality of the theme, as you don’t have access to the PHP files.

As shown here in my admin panel, hosted Wordpress bloggers can make any change to the theme they want to.  I’ve made a reasonable number of changes to Cutline 3.  The sidebars are narrower, the whole theme is wider, the header is shorter, and I have a signature area with my shiny bald head in it.  Changes like this take some expertise in CSS and PHP, and many of them would not be possible on Wordpress.com.

The other big thing that differentiates a Wordpress.com blog from a hosted Wordpress blog is that you are free to install any number of plugins to power your blog.  Plugin needs some definition, I suppose before this makes any sense.  A plugin is an additional piece of functionality that you can “plug in” to Wordpress to do something extra for you.  An important plugin for you to consider would be one that backs up your blog.  I use a plugin aptly called Wordpress Database Backup.  Every day this plugin extracts everything from the database that holds all of the posts and configuration for my blog, zips it up, and emails it to me.  I have restored from this database, and it does work.  If you ever bungle up your blog, you’d be very, very happy to have used this plugin to recover it.

Other important plugins to consider are All in One SEO Pack, Wordpress.com stats, Twitter Tools, Subscribe to Comments, Similar Posts, wp-cache, Share This, MyAvatars, Gravatar, Google XML Sitemaps, Google Analytics for Wordpress, Get Recent Comments, Feed Footer, FeedBurner FeedSmith, and DoFoolow.  The names of some of those plugins help you understand what they do.  A thorough post on Plugins seems like a good idea for a later topic.

The final differentiator is price.  You can successfully blog at Wordpress.com for free.  A hosted Wordpress blog is going to cost you at least $7/year for a domain name, plus a hosting account which often costs ~$20/month.  Add to that, the hosting account will cause you to learn some minimal hosting skills, like how to FTP files, how to upgrade Wordpress with subsequent versions, how to install and change a theme, and how to install and change plugins.

Oh, and speaking of XML Sitemaps (we were talking about sitemaps, weren’t we?), there was a recent change at Wordpress.com to include as standard functionality a sitemap.xml for your Wordpress.com blog.  That’s a good thing.  If you want Google to really like your blog, you will want to register your blog with Google via Webmaster Tools and then submit a sitemap.  In the past, you didn’t have a way to create a sitemap, and now you do.

And speaking of Google, here’s an interesting factoid.  I created the Scottsdale Real Estate Blog during my session.  The first post went up right at the end of my session at 10:30am.  Google alerted me that this post was indexed at 12:50pm.  It took just 2:20 for Google to decide to index a brand new post, from a brand new blog.  For grins, I Google’d the title of that post around 3pm on Friday.  The post came up #10 in the search index.  Today it comes up #1.  Honestly that probably has more to do with the number of comments, and the link from my other blog to it.  And sure, not many people are searching on “Welcome to the Scottsdale Real Estate Blog”, but the point isn’t so much the rank on a very obscure set of terms, but rather the speed with which the post was indexed at all.

Win A Premium Wordpress Theme - June 30th Deadline

AZREBN has been talking up Wordpress Blogs at our last few workshops and so I thought I would share a great opportunity for all our AZREBN members to take advantage of a contest being hosted by ChiQ Montes.

ChiQ Montes is a full time Wordpress Theme Designer, currently living in the Phillipines and just launched www.WPThemeDesigner.com

ChiQ is hosting a contest and invites all bloggers to take a shot at winning a premium licensed theme as a prize! What a deal!

The difference with Premium Themes and Free Wordpress themes is that you will have a unique look and most premium themes cost money and offer customization!

There are 30 Premium Wordpress Designs up for grabs and you can take a look here.

The contest rules are simple, complete the following guidelines and win yourself a WP Premium Theme by ChiQ and sponsors and be sure to stand out in the crowd!

Contest Rules:

Requirement on the Blog Post:

1. Write about this Contest on your blog! You can either inform others or share why you want to join.. anything goes.

2. Link Back to wpthemedesigner.com!

3. A copy and paste of the contest prizes [prize list with no images | prize list with images].

If you want to increase your chances of winning and gain additional points:

1 additional entry - Digg/Stumble
1 additional entry - Twitter Post about the contest
1 additional entry - Be on the list of my Top 10 Commentators Box (sidebar)

And most important in winning is to Subscribe to the RSS Feed via Email to ChiQ’s site.

Contest Prizes:

30 Premium WordPress Themes Contest Prizes by WordPress Theme Designer

1 Single-use License of John Cow Milk It Theme by John Cow

Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

2 Single-use Licenses of Elegants Blubs WordPress Theme by Blog Perfume
Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

2 Single-use Licenses for The Revolution by Brian Gardner
Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

Premium Themes by Magnus Jepson
- 1 Single-use License of Polaroid Press
- 1 single-use License of Grunge Press
- 1 Single-use License of Portfolio Press

Price and Theme Info

1 Single-user License of Money Blogger Theme by BlogOhBlog
Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme info

2 Single-use Licenses of the Elite Theme by ElitebyDesign
Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

Premium Themes by MotionTheme
- 1 Single-use License of Pirate Theme - Demo | Purchase
- 1 Single-use License of News Friendly Theme - Demo | Purchase
- 1 Single-use License of Easy Portfolio Theme - Demo | Purchase

1 Single-use License of TV Elements Premium Theme by WPelements

Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

Premium Themes by PowerTheme

- 1 Single-use License of MagPress Theme - Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info
- 1 Single-use License of VideoDen Theme - Demo | Purchase | Price and Theme Info

Winners Choice Theme from Blogalized
Products | Order

Premium Themes by GraphPaperPress
1 Single-use License of F8 Portfolio Theme - Price and Theme info
1 Single-use License of F8 Remixed - Price and Theme info
1 Single-use License of Monochrome - Price and Theme info

Bonus: Themes by Premiumnewstheme

- 3 Single-use Licenses of Fresh News
- 3 Single-use Licenses of LiveWire
- 3 Single-use Licenses of Gazette

One final thing to get noticed:

Be sure to go comment on www.WPThemeDesigner.com here so that you can let them know you entered and where you posted it!

Remember - Contest Ends on June 30, 2008

Good luck and have fun! Here is my entry… now off to spread the word on AR

Happy Blogging AZREBN members!