Getting Started With a WordPress.com Blog

Getting Started | Monday 22 October 2007

So you’ve decided to create your blog on WordPress.com! In case you don’t know, Wordpress.com is a free, fully-hosted blogging platform that is built with the Worpress.org software. Because it’s a fully-hosted, you won’t need to find an hosting service, nor will need to set up the Wordpress software on your own. but be advised that the domain names of blogs hosted by Wordpress.com are “yourname.wordpress.com.”

As I mentioned in Choosing a WordPress.com or WordPress.org Blog, the advantages and diadvantages of using a blog on the Wordpress.com site are:

Advantages

1. It’s free, including the hosting!!
2. Absolutely no technical knowledge is needed - They take care of blog setup, backup, security and upgrades, etc.

Diadvantages

1. You’re limited by their Terms of Service, now and when any changes are made.
2. (At the time of this writing), WordPress.com won’t let you monetize your blog, that means no Adsense ads or other advertising services. They plan to allow you to in the future, but you’ll pay a premium to do this (so at that time it won’t be free).
3. You’re limited to the amount of themes you can choose for your site…it’s just the ones they make available to you.
4. Your blog url contains the *.wordpress.com suffix, not your own domain name. This can be seen as unprofessional, amateurish if this is part of your business site.

The WordPress.com choice is a great choice if you want to set up a blog quickly and you have no intention of monetizing your site. Also, if your blog is going to be a personal site where you add posts that you want to share with friends and family, the WordPress.com option is ideal. It’s also a great way to get started using the WordPress software and to become familiar with its features.

For step-by-step assistance in setting up a WordPress.com tutorial, please watch the following helpful tutorial…