In the 1971 epic film “Diamonds are Forever” James Bond is faced with a slight dilemma – his villain comes in two versions.
Bond must kill one of them to avoid a global oil crisis and millions of dollars in diamonds lost forever. Cleverly, Bond kicks the cat to determine the rightful owner. The only problem? Bloefeld’s other version is just as powerful.
You might feel like James Bond starting a blog – preparing your niche empire to make lots of money – then you see there are two versions of WordPress.
WHY WOULD THEY DO THIS TO US?
It just means more reading and more research, and most of us get bogged down right away.
To clear things up, and because “Whats the Difference Between WordPress.org and WordPress.com” is one of the biggest questions I get in my inbox each week – I made a you video.
I want you to answer the question this time though.
I’ll highlight 3 other bloggers who use WordPress in highly attractive ways, show off their blogs, and talk straight WordPress. Then…your turn.
And speaking of missing details: I’m not perfect; my videos are “works in progress” at best and I’m definitely going to miss some points. All you WordPress secrets agents out there better tell me what I missed, or this is going to be one lonely case study! (Thanks in advance)
What are the Core Differences?
Let’s get the basics out of the way first – business before pleasure.
WordPress.com – a blogging website
WordPress.com is a free blog-host site; you login and find your blog where it’s safely stored on WordPress’ servers. It’s a lot like having a Facebook profile, but a blog.
WordPress.com hooks you up with:
- Community
The homepage at WordPress.com always features lots of niche blogs that are just so good at being good! I remember it was my (hopeless) goal back when I began to get featured here. - A Blog
Yes, WordPress gives you a ridiculously fun blog. Don’t you agree? - The World’s Finest Post Editor
Possibly the most useful yet under appreciated little facet of WordPress is the post editor, and we often forget how many hours upon days and months the developers put in to make this thing actually work (and how mad are you when it doesn’t?) - Your Arsenal Includes…
Blog posts, images, video, links, colors, and what else?
WordPress.com holds an increasing 60 million blogs, and 100,000+ new post go live each day (!) Can you even wrap your mind around how much blogging that is? If you’re new to all this – hope that gets you fired up!
Time to Refute the Other Fluff
WordPress.com is not a limitation – it’s a blessing. It changes lives, it expands networks, it creates businesses and gives people a reason to wake up (and rush right to the comp). And as we’ll see in my video – WordPress.com blogs can totally dominate with the two things any blog anywhere needs to live a good life. Wondering what they are? Guess you’ll have to watch the video to find out.
WordPress.org – a blogging software
WordPress.org on the other hand is a software. You host the software somewhere like HostGator, who also gives you a domain name. By now you should know I’ve got a video on all that – it’s the method I use here, trust literally with my life (which is blogging), and something I spend hours and hours on each week happily helping newcomers.
WordPress.org hooks you up with:
- Community
A currently snowballing mass of bloggers, developers and small to large business owners that love telling people they power nearly 20% of the whole web. - A Blog and a Website
Yep, after you setup WordPress.org your site comes in blog format with the new Twenty-Thirteen Theme. You can change this as you wish. It’s the themes that make your little shop a blog or website, ya know, like the NYTimes? - The World’s Finest Post Editor (on Steroids!)
If you’ve ever dabbled in WordPress.org, you may have felt the power at your fingertips. You can brainstorm and create viral posts while harnessing the power of your plugins from one centralized screen. It quickly becomes home; I currently write anything from code to short stories inside post editor. - Your Arsenal Includes…
Blog posts, images, video, links, colors, coding, advertising, plugins, themes, premium themes (read about the theme I’m running here), and what else?
You get the complete blogging experience that your favorite blogs probably run. Plus, it’s used by Katy Perry, and Snoopy Dogg so it’s cool 😉
Time to Refute the Other Fluff
Personally, I’m not much for the term “self-hosting” – it sounds right off the bat like more work. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that term alone scares most folks away because it sounds like you’re going to have to buy a freaking server and climb through wires and mainframes in your living room each time you want to write a blog post! The reality is quite the opposite; getting your domain and hosting out of the way is little more work and a small hit to the wallet but it’s all upfront costs. You don’t have to maintain anything, learn code, or deal with any sort of hassle.
So, Should We Compare?
Like I said, we’re doing this a bit differently! Also – at your requests I’m making (hopefully a LOT) more videos – so I’d really like your criticism on this one! Please be brutal! I know the laptop got a bit biffed in my Adobe After Effects rendering (just take it as a nice prompt to subscribe!)
Over to The Community
Hopefully you watched the video above and saw the simple attractions at Lorraine, Ashley, and Glen’s blogs. They are bloggers to watch – to say the least – and it’s no wonder they all get their share of comments each time they open their mouths.
Now, I’m keen to know a few things from you!
- Are you considering WordPress?
- Which version do you run?
- Lastly, brag a bit and tell us what theme makes your WordPress blog amazing.
I actually can’t wait to hear all the WordPress gripes and complaints you guys have – let them loose right here. As I mentioned here every comment posted means this post ranks a bit better, which in turn means more views on your comment.
So, being wise helps you be more wise? Very meta 🙂
Hi are using WordPress for your blog platform?
I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and create my own. Do you need any html coding expertise to make your own blog?
Any help would be really appreciated!
No coding required! Here’s how to create a WP.org review site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnI8kQJz7qM
Hi Greg,
Anyway, I started this blogging journey from the good old days at hubpages and xomba. After the collapse of those empire ( at least from my own perspective), I thought of starting all over again.
Being a serious minded fellow, I never thought of going the easy way with a free account, i simply bought a domain name, got hosted on a good but expensive host ( synthesis).
I think it all boils down to seriousness and purpose of starting a blog. My honest opinion is to always go the paid version.
Hi Dare (James?),
Wow – you’ve been through a lot then. Neat story. If my site was tanking in SEO, I’d hire a serious guy like you.
Awesome advice for the readers here, thanks!
Nice post, Greg! To be honest, i have never been torn about the decision org or com – i really dislike the idea of having something dot wordpress dot com, or something dot blogspot dot com or whatever else… i want my own domain! LOL
I am using a free theme though – the responsive theme (i was nicely surprised to see that Lorraine switched over to that theme, too a few weeks ago ;-)) – but then again, i did buy a theme because i didn’t like the limitations of the free theme; however, i have had that premium theme for 3 months now and i have not even started setting it all up because there is SO much documentation to read – i am not yet able to set it up properly; so i just keep on using my free theme 😀
so what i am saying – despite the money side of things that Lorraine mentioned and the limitation angel that Ashley mentioned, i think running a free blog (wordpress domain, i mean) could be a good start for non-techie new bloggers as setting up your own domain with all the perks can be overwhelming and get you to quit blogging for the wrong reasons before you even really started 😀
I just wanted to let you know that I switched my theme on Ashley’s advice, so he deserves some credit for that, as it was Ash who mentioned that a large portion of his traffic comes from mobile phone users. He quickly pointed out that I could be missing out on some traffic due to my “unresponsive” theme. He also sent me a link to a site that can show you how your current theme shows up on phones.
Once I figured out which free theme (on my free blog!) showed up properly to mobile users, I switched it. Playing around with themes is something I have done quite a bit during the last several months, along with the background image and colours.
Sometimes I got bored with what was there, and wanted to spice it up. However, people come to expect to see a certain “look” when they land on your site/blog and so I’m trying not to change too much anymore.
Sigh.
The only thing is to experiment and see what works best.
If you ask me, it’s all trial and error!
BTW, here is the link that tests the themes. Thank Ashley Faulkes, aka Mad Lemmings, for this one!
http://mattkersley.com/responsive/
cool, you go girl – and always listen to Ash! LOL
thanks for sharing the url, too. There is a plugin on one of the computers at home which does the compatibility tests and shows me how each site looks like on different resolution screens (have no idea how that plugin is called though, will check if you want me to) – but this link comes in handy if i want to check real quick something specifically for mobile traffic – so thanks! it’s weird though that their own website doesn’t work well in chrome on a fairly common display size… :-/
Thanks for that link. I can see about 1/3 of Dear Blogger in there…hmm
Do you both find over 50% of traffic comes via mobile?
Diana – agreed that a domain name can be confusing and scary. On my first site I thought a domain name and blog title were the same thing! How do we make this more understandable?
Ashley…the master of responsive and fast websites…
oh, no way – mobile traffic has never been big for me. On my English site – it’s just about 10%. and for my non-English site (which is way older than the English one) – it is even smaller like 8% or so).
Occasionally i have clients who rely on mobile traffic but to be honest, not too many sites i have worked on have heavy mobile traffic.
I think you should consider switching themes, Greg. Ashley gets a LARGE portion of views via mobile. Can you track your readership this way? I cannot on my free blog, but you should be able to somehow. Yours is a premium theme, though, isn’t it? Hmm. A change might do us good 😉 with all that’s coming in the new year, don’t you think?
BTW – Tweety Bird has a request…
I’m going to unleash my new kitten on Tweety bird 🙂
Ok seriously, love the forward thinking. I’ll consult my guy at Theme-Junkie.
Wowsers – 1106 views and 817 unique visits via mobile. Glad you pointed this out, Lorraine!
Thanks for featuring me in your video. Unlike Ashley, I have no money to spend, and think that using a free blog is fine if you are blogging for fun, as a hobby, or as an experiment. It is a good way to go if you are trying to “whet your appetite” and see what blogging is all about.
The moving of the blog from one host to another is a techie thing that some bloggers will need help with, but there is tons of help available, and even though you may run into a few snags, it generally happens quite smoothly. I’ve actually interviewed one blogger who moved his blog from a free wordpress.com site (like mine) to a .com site. This video can be seen on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUzfp0sX0aE
Having a .com or a .org or a .net or a DOT WHATEVER site does, indeed, make you look more professional as a blogger. This is good for bloggers who want to make money by blogging or by having a website. For me, my personal goal is to write and sell books. Maybe once I have written a few and made some money, I will be able to spend some of it on a website of my own.
I love blogging, I love writing, and I love interacting with others. Blogging, for me, right now, on a free platform makes sense.
This will likely change in the future, but for now, I’m enjoying the FREE aspect!
Lorraine,
Despite all the talk on benefits of domain/hosting, your blog shows how you can build a successful and profitable blog on the free WordPress!
One massive hoorah for that.
Are they still featuring niche blogs on the WordPress.com homepage? You should look into that 🙂
I think so, but I’m not sure; the feed shows posts from all of the blogs I follow, so I guess the answer is likely “yes” . . . right?
Hahaha – that’s me laughing as I watch the video on the blog that got #1 in Top Posts (chili pepper eating)
Yeah, wow, a lot has changed since I logged in 2 years ago.
Hey Greg
Nice comparison here. I think a video like this is one of the best ways to show the major differences.
In the beginning I was also torn on what to do because without being known in the blogging community you really are not sure if you should spend any money.
However, I changed pretty quickly when I realised how little I could do on a wordpress.com domain. I like to control my site.
So I think for all the newbies out there, it is really a decision of can I afford it, then am I aiming to look professional, or is this just a hobby.
If you are aiming for pro, go the paid route from the beginning, else you will have to migrate you site later and potentially have issues with all your links, Google earned juice and so on.
have a great week my friend
ashley
Well, could not have said it any better myself 🙂