WordPress Book - WordPress SEO and Blog Marketing

WordPress Book

by Teli Adlam

Written on Monday, July 17th, 2006 under Aside
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4 Responses to “WordPress Book”

1. Rainer wrote:

   I’m new to blogging but when you’re doing all the learning curves yourself, it can get confusing. So please excuse these ’simple’ questions.

   After reading through your site, it finally clicked what all the ‘installation’ talk was all about — WordPress as a standalone piece of software can be installed on your own server. Sometimes it’s so matter-of-fact for the people working within it that that little fact is never really clearly spelled out. Anyway, thanks for clearing that up.

   Particular to my situation, I have 2 WP accounts. One blog is set up as a subdomain on my website and is then redirected to WordPress when clicked. I have another domain (not related) which again is forwarded (and masked) to my WP account. It is a blog site for now.

   I guess my question is still — why would you want to have WordPress on your own server when WordPress.com can host it for free? Do other hosts supply more bells & whistles that can used for WordPress? Like…? I have not had anyone really clearly spell out the advantages to me.

   Thanks for your help.

   # November 6th, 2007

2. Teli Adlam wrote:

   Hi Rainer,
   Yep, you’re correct that WordPress and WordPress.com are two different things.

   WordPress is the stand alone software that you can download and install on your own website.

   WordPress.com is the hosted blog service provided by Automattic.

   As for why someone would want to have WordPress instead of WordPress.com, it boils down to flexibility and control. With your own installation of WordPress, you have more control on what you can do with it — install your own themes, plugins, modify the source code for flexibility, turn it into a content management system, as well as a number of other things.

   If you just need a simple blog and not much control, then WP.com is fine. However, for business blogging purposes, I’d definitely recommend having your own installation of WordPress.

   I hope that helps and if you have any other questions, you’re welcome to ask.

   ~ Teli

   # November 6th, 2007

3. Rainer wrote:

   Thanks for your reply, Teli. Things are slowly making sense.

   I know that WordPress recommends certain hosts. Are there any that you recommend?

   # November 6th, 2007

4. Teli Adlam wrote:

   Well, I’ve certainly been through my share of web hosts, but I personally use both HostGator (HG) and Media Temple (MT) for the majority of my blogs.

   Since I’ve been with HG (’bout 2 years), I’ve only had a couple problems, but their customer service was speedy and had me fixed up within an hour both times. In fact, a majority of my websites/blogs are hosted with them, with MT coming in a close second.

   MT, although their customer service is good, has given me more problems for one particular group of sites (er…this one, which hosts 2 other sites). So, I’m thinking that it can be hit or miss. Haven’t had any problems for the past 6 months or so, though.

   I should also mention that these hosting accounts are all shared, not dedicated; I may need to move this site to a semi-dedicated server eventually if the traffic continues to grow.

   Depending on what your needs are, for a basic blog hosting service, I’d definitely go with HG which is very affordable and offers telephone support. MT also offers phone support, but their prices are higher and they don’t have cPanel.

   Other hosts I’ve used are HostM (still hosts my personal blog going on 3 years*) and Dreamhost (canceled). I’m not that fond of Dreamhost and HostM is good, except you must pay for an entire year up front.

   Hope that helps,
   ~ Teli

   *Update: HostM no longer hosts my personal blog and I can no longer recommend them after what can only be described as the silliest turn of events ever.

   # November 6th, 2007

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