Comments on: How to Start a Blog for Fun or Profit: Hosted vs. Self-Hosted

By: Sushant

Sushant — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:22:21 +0000

I feel self-hosted wordpress is a good option even for a beginner. Most of the hosting companies now offer one click blog hosting which makes it even easier.

By: jamus

jamus — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:17:47 +0000

“The difference was light and day.”

lol I don’t think that was what you wanted to say.
sorry I had to say something.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:22:54 +0000

Hi Kristy: You basically only need to know how to navigate a folder structure on a computer (My computer –> C:Drive –> Documents –> My Special Folder –> My Special File). If you can do that, you can set up a self-hosted blog on WordPress. (This will also be the next article in the series).

As for knowing html – you won’t need to know a lot to set up a blog, but it will help to learn how to recognize certain aspects of it. Most of what you will do with it will be very basic and you can often find an example on the web and copy/paste.

Design help usually isn’t included with a hosting package, but there are many forums and other free resources where you can find assistance. (for the record, I am very poor at design and I only know very basic html).

By: Kristy @ Master Your Card

Kristy @ Master Your Card — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:13:11 +0000

This is great information for those considering their own blog, and putting it into a series is extremely helpful. Just curious, but if you go with the self-hosted platform, do you have to have any kind of familiarity with HTML code, or can you get design help included with the domain and hosting services?

By: Stingy Student

Stingy Student — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:15:56 +0000

Great advice. This is very helpful for those of us who are blogging and considering one or the other. Continue the good writing!

By: Ryan

Ryan — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:46:10 +0000

Very true, Monevator. The initial investment is small in terms of cash outlay, and if you later switch to a self-hosted blog service, it will set you back a few months. I think free hosted blogs have great uses though – many people just want a small personal or family blog, or have no intention of growing a large site or earning money. Free can be good.

But for a business, it is usually best to go with a self-hosted blogging platform, or a hosted platform such as TypePad.

By: Monevator

Monevator — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 08:40:52 +0000

Deep analysis, nice work.

I can think of lots of successful bloggers who went from hosted to self-hosted, but I can’t think of one who went the other way, which sort of illustrates which option is better for serious bloggers I think?

Really, with the effort blogging takes a few dollars on a URL and hosting is going to be the least of your commitments.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:38:34 +0000

Ha, I’m not too tech savvy either! I didn’t have a clue when I started. But now I know some great people who can, and do, help me out frequently. They have helped me tremendously over the past two years.