This was the first time I realized the huge diversity in ProBlogger readers – most significantly in the difference between those who use free blogging services like Blogger or WordPress.com versus those who have a self-hosted blog built using WordPress software or TypePad.

There were quite a few discussions that started with people on free hosted blogs that wound up with them being frustrated because they didn’t have the ability to do some of the things that were suggested in the project. That’s reason Numero Uno as to why free hosted blogs suck: Lack of freedom.

This is a post I’ve been wanting to write for quite some time now, even before the forums, but I didn’t realize the need was so intense until now. Before I get started with this… let me first explain the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org:

WordPress.Com is a free blog hosting service. It’s built on the WordPress software, however your blog is hosted on their servers. You can point your domain name to it, but you’re not blogging on your domain, per se.

WordPress.Org is where you download the WordPress software, access support, tools, training, and other helpful things. Using the software means you have purchased hosting through another hosting company (such as GoDaddy, HostGator, etc.), have your domain name resolved to that hosting account, and have installed the WordPress software to your site using a MySQL database to store the information. (And no, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. It just means you’ve paid either a monthly or annual fee to the hosting company.)

Okay, so now that that’s cleared up, let’s move on to all the reasons why free hosted blogs suck.

1. As I said previously, lack of freedom. Lack of control. With a free hosted blog, you tend to lose flexibility with what you may want to put on your blog. This could be in terms of content, advertising positioning, even design. Sure, if you pay for upgraded service on your free host, something like $7 – $10 a month, you can customize SOME things – but um… why then wouldn’t you be paying a hosting company $4 a month to do the very same thing on your own domain, where you’re 100% in control instead of only 80%?
2. They’re simply NOT search engine friendly. Not even Blogger (which is owned by Google). Go to Google right now, and punch in your favorite keyword phrase. I’ll give you a hand: Here’s the results for the phrase “personal finance blog” (opens in new window). How many of those are on blogger, blogspot, or wordpress.com? ZERO. Not convinced? How about “diet blog”? Zero free hosted blogs again. Sure there are exceptions, but those exceptions have likely been online for 5 years or more, and it’s SO rare. I can almost say with 100% certainty that you can’t come up with a phrase that will have a free hosted blog in the top 5 I’ve been corrected on this in the comments of this post, however there are still many highly searched keyword phrases where this applies. I’ll admit that right now I haven’t the time to do the research, but the mention of this has piqued my interest, and I plan on doing some case studies soon.
3. Limited income opportunities, if any. Sure, not everyone who puts up a blog gives a hoot about whether or not they make any money from it, but those people are few and far between. At some point, pretty much everyone wants to at least make a few bucks a month off their blog. Guess what? Advertisers don’t WANT to pay free hosted blogs because of reasons like above #2. There’s no “juice”. There’s no way to get that search traffic in there. If you’re not willing to pay $4 a month to help you rise to the top, why should an advertiser have faith in you enough to pay you even $5 a month, which is well below average ad rates? People read ProBlogger to learn how to make money from their blogging, yet they’re not willing to put forth the small effort of eating one less fast food meal per month to give themselves the edge? To look like they take their “job” seriously? I understand if you can’t afford it right now, but you’re not going to make the money to pay for hosting off ads if you’re on a free blog, so save up and do it right.
4. Credibility. Okay, I know this is super un-PC of me to say, but imagine walking down the street and you see two stores.
   • Store A has clean, shiny windows that allow you to see into the store. The store owner is standing outside on the stoop in a well-tailored suit. He’s neatly groomed, and is offering a 50% off sale on his wares.
   • Store B has flaking paint on the exterior walls. The wood around the windows is cracked, dry, and damaged. The store owner is on the stoop in rags you just know came from the trash bin because they were free. He’s wearing greasy hair, is missing a front tooth, and is lunging at you as you pass trying to get you to come in and buy something for a rock-bottom price.

   Which store would you walk into? Be honest.

   Liken this to cars even. When you see an old beater driving down the street, puffing out smoke from the tailpipe and making obnoxious sounds, verus a nice, clean, affordable car… what are your impressions? That the driver of the first car is jobless? Unclean? Living in a trailer park? That the driver of the second car has a decent home and just got done eating a nice meal out with friends? Seriously… think about it!

So what I’m saying is this: You can’t possibly expect to be taken seriously if you’re using a free hosted blog. Period. You get no search traffic, no ad revenue, and no credibility. I don’t care if you have a main website for your business and have attached an external, free hosted blog either… that’s the worst! If you already have a website, with paid hosting, why on earth would you even consider NOT putting the blog software on your hosted site?

I’m fully aware that the economy’s put a serious pinch on everyone. But you have to stop thinking about this as “spending money” on a hosting plan, and start thinking about it as an investment. Blogging isn’t nearly as volatile as the housing market – in fact it’s growing stronger all the time. If you do it right, you should make back your annual $60 before you even spend it (if you need to pay month by month of course), or at the very least by the end of your first year. Honestly!

Now if you’re worried about the technology of it all, the act of migrating your free blog to a paid one, really, I can help. It’s what we do around here. But if you’ve read this and are still thinking that free is the way to go, really… have fun with that, I dare you!

Oh, one more source of proof: ProBlogger’s What Blog Platform Do You Use Most? Poll. Yah. Check out those results! Self-hosted WordPress wins, HANDS DOWN. Even though there are over 400 people still using Blogger.

Update!! Great Opportunity!

I was very proud to be a part of the 31 Days To Build A Better Blog Project run over at ProBlogger.net. I’m thrilled to announce the release of a workbook of the project, that includes updated, additional information not found in the original 31 Days! Darren Rowse has been called “The Godfather of Blogging” and is a dear friend and client. Please, if you have a blog and you’re looking for thorough, practical help on how to improve it, check out the ebook!

Beginning April 6th (the project’s been delayed a week for various reasons, as it was originally scheduled to start April 1st) Darren’s launching the third ever 31 Days To Build A Better Blog class. He did the same project in 2005, and again in 2007, so he decided to do it again now in 2009, with updated info and a new format.

The class will now be delivered via email, and the added feature this time around is the addition of a forum! I’ll be moderating in the forum, and helping to answer questions when I can.

Darren explains it best:

The idea behind this is simply to have a group of bloggers setting aside a month of their time to work at improving their blogs. While we all want to have better blogs sometimes it becomes one of those things that we’re going to do…. one day.

I personally find that I improve (in all areas of my life) when I’m more intentional and set aside a specific time to make the improvements. That’s what this project is about.

He’s absolutely right. And with the way the economy is now, we’re all working on ways to make more money from our blogs and our online businesses. This class is an essential one for EVERY blogger, new or seasoned… expert or novice. Just go sign up already!

In case you’re not aware, FeedBurner (a highly used RSS management tool) was acquired by Google (this happened back in May 2007). As in true Google style, they’ve finally gotten around to messing with it to the point of driving web designers/developers mad.

I admit, I rarely log into my FeedBurner account. But I’m pretty grateful I did, because THAT is how I was notified of the problems that were soon going to mount on my plate. See, there was standard code for creating subscription tools on your blog – and Google had to go and bork that all up, so now I have dozens of sites that need immediate attention (before February 28, 2009 in fact) or subscribers will be in the dark. (For some reason, I’m hearing those “switch to digital cable” commercials in my head now…)

In effect, the code has changed. Depending on your site (all sites I develop are in WordPress), and if and how you’re using any plugins to help drive your feed to feedburner (Feedsmith is most popular), and then depending on your site’s theme setup, you or your developer may have a TON of work to do.

If you’re using any of the popular Revolution Two themes (as I am… ugh), you can find help in the forum here: How To Update Feedburner Code To New Google-Feedburner Code

If you’re using any of Justin Tadlock’s great themes, and are a support forum member, you can view the fixes in the forum here: Feedburner RSS issues with Options Theme

Otherwise, you’re kind of on your own, and will have to use the new tools provided by the Googlenator to help you take care of business.

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For those of you who might not know, along with the work I do that comes in for Ginkgo Consulting, i also blog on two sites for b5media, my personal weight loss blog, a personal finance blog (because hey, it’s popular right now), and a few other blog projects I have going on. Yes, I’m a busy girl!

One of the biggest problems that I’m finding myself and other bloggers go through is how to develop a good routine with blogging. I’ve talked to some bloggers who just post whenever the mood strikes them. They get an idea, write it, hit publish, and move on. Other bloggers do loads of research and writing and re-writing before they’re happy enough to publish something – bringing their frequency down to even less than once a week.

It’s a pretty well known fact that posting frequency is one of the many crucial elements to your blog’s success. If you post too much, you might “flood” your readers and annoy them. If you don’t post enough, you risk losing their interest, which is super hard to get back once it’s gone.

I’ll point to the two “inspirational” posts now, but I’ve decided to do an experiment to see if I can, first of all, get myself on a good routine, and also see how it affects things like readership, traffic, and income.

Tips on Finding Your Blogging Rhythm by Darren Rowse at Problogger
How to Develop an Efficient Post Frequency by Skellie

So here’s my plan:

Ginkgo Consulting – 3 posts per week
Weight Loss Blog – 5 posts per week
b5 Blog #1 – 4 posts per week
b5 Blog #2 – 6 posts per week
Personal Finance Blog – 5 posts per week
(I’ll worry about the other projects once I get these nailed down, but only because they’re not really “live” yet anyway.)

So, that’s quite a bit, eh? 23 posts per week. It sounds a lot worse than it is, because by my own nature, I’m more of a get the thought, blog it, social media mark it, and be done with it type. Not that I don’t respond to comments on the posts (because I do), or that I just forget about the post once it’s done, but rather that I can sit down for two hours and crank out some decent quality stuff most of the time. Other times it takes a while, given research and so on, but I fancy myself a decent writer, so 23 posts per week doesn’t sound so scary to me.

Besides, if I can do that many, plus manage all the “regular” work through Ginkgo, and YOU, dear reader, have only one blog and/or a full time job… well, you can see where I’m going with this! You’ll have no excuses!

My goal is to mark out chunks of time to write for each site throughout the week. I love WordPress’s post-dating feature, so I can sit and write three posts and post date them for throughout the week, and be done with it until either something newsworthy comes up, or I reach my next chunk of time writing for that blog.

So, starting Monday October 27th, I’ll be posting weekly updates on “The Experiment” through the end of the year. We’ll see how things go, I’ll post traffic results and so on, and we’ll go from there!

Wish me luck, and let me know your thoughts in the comments…

• Do you have a regular blogging schedule?
• Are you a researcher/rethinker or do you just write, publish, and market as you go?

While I agree that the story seems fishy, I’m not keen on the “living in it’s parent’s basement” comment… What do you guys think?

Blogs are like online journals. You can write about whatever your heart desires – be it news, fashion, television, work (but be careful!), your interesting or funny life – and use it as a tool to meet people, develop your own writing skills, start a community, you name it. You can even make a little money from it!

Of course – that last bit is the only thing people really “hear”, but what gets me sometimes – what really brings me back to Earth – is when people say, “Okay, but how do I blog?”

I do a lot of sites for actors, comics, and reality show celebrities. Most of these people are computer savvy enough to check their email and play a few games, maybe write a word document, or use excel for spreadsheets. But rarely do they understand what blogging is all about.

But you see, that’s the beauty in my job. I get to teach them.

It’s pretty well-known that I’m a die-hard WordPress fan. I use nothing else to build sites anymore, regardless of whether there is to be a blog on the site or not. It just makes life so much easier all the way around. So usually my first step is simply teaching people how to log in to their admin section, and what tabs they need to click on to create, edit, and maintain the content on their sites.

I love it – I can hear the tension in their voices over the phone as I walk them through the login process. “Anticipation is where it’s at, you know. Everything after that is gravy.” (A quote from my favorite comic – Lewis Black) My client sits there anxiously clicking on their keys to log in, and I’m hearing this pressure build up in their voices as I bring them into their admin and get them to the “Write Post” page.

They begin to write a sample post. Title… content… category checkbox. As they’re doing this, I can hear the release of tension in their voices. “Oh my god this IS easy!” I hear. I tell them it’s like riding a bicycle. Once you give in and let go – it’s a blast, and you never forget it.

They click the “Publish” button and then “view site” at the top of the page – and WHAMMO! Now I hear the smile (yes, I can hear smiles on the phone) and inevitably the word that comes out of their mouths next is, “Wowwwww…” followed by something like “Too cool!” or “I did it!”

This folks, is the best part. The gratitude, the realization on their part that they can do this, the joy of them seeing their own words in virtual print. I LOVE MY JOB!

You can download the latest version of WordPress 2.1.2 here. Upgrade and installation instructions can also be found on the WordPress site.

The top three reasons?

1. Too many posts. (This is one of my personal pet peeves as well.) When you’re posting more than once or twice a day, you’re overloading your readers. I’ve unsubscribed from several sites’ feeds for this very reason. The whole point in using RSS feeds is so that you can get everything you want to get in one place, to cut time. When half my reader’s full of only one site – I get a little annoyed and wind up deleting them all without reading them. Eventually, I just unsub.
2. Infrequent posting. Wow, okay… so you either post too much or not enough and you’re going to lose readers. I tend to disagree with this one a little, only because if a user’s not posting, then my feed reader isn’t getting clogged by them, so why not keep on for a while? No, I’m not saying for six months or more… but there is real life beyond the computer screen (gasp!) and sometimes people just have things that grasp higher priority levels than others. It doesn’t mean they won’t come back, and it doesn’t mean they’re a “bad blogger”.

   My number two reason is a little different… I just can’t stand it when a “business blog” gets too personal, or a personal blog gets too whiny, boring, or repetitive. When a blog changes focus, be it positive or negative, it changes the whole reason I subscribed in the first place.

3. Partial excerpts feeds. Ah yes! The debate rolls on! But it’s quite clear that offering full feeds is likely to keep readers moreso than only partials, forcing the reader to click through to your site to get the whole story. (One person mentioned that they had to click through an ad to get to the story!) The bottom line is that people use feed readers to get through their news and stories all in one place. By forcing them to come to your site, you’re defeating the purpose of offering feeds at all.

   I totally agree with this one. Think about why you’re trying to get them to come to your site. Is it so that maybe they’ll click on your ads? Or is it because you want them to see what else you have to offer? Either way, with the advent of “feedvertising”, you can send ads for yourself or any other site you want with your feeds. Check out Text Link Ads, where you can use feedvertising to include your own ads, affiliate links, or allow others to buy links in your feeds.

So there you have it. If you’re doing any of these things – knock it off! Well, at least if you want to keep your feed readership (and possibly those people who have “bookmarked” your site).

Just so you know, the art of solo blogging for fame and profit relies mainly on ad revenue. But you need to know the art of solo blogging in and of itself, before you get to the fame and profit.

Do check out the other post for more blogging help once you’ve gotten to the point where you’re really ready to make blogging your business!

• Working At Home On The Internet – Joe’s got hundreds and hundreds of posts of fantastic information here! He’s a firm believer in “spreading the link love” and therefore also shares some equally great resources for bloggers who are seeking the joys of working from home. I discovered Joe and we’ve since become friends after a writing contest over at ProBlogger.
• Lorelle on WordPress – Regardless of whether or not your blog is WP based, Lorelle is an amazing contributer to the blogging community. She’s made many contributions to WP as a whole, and her writing is clear, understandable, and from the heart. She’s truly a “must read” for anyone who blogs!
• Six Figure Blogging – Six 1-hour audio recordings with extensive, annotated transcripts in PDF format featuring Andy Wibbels and Darren Rowse from ProBlogger (There he is again!) and the b5media Network. Main points of this course: How blogs make money (sometimes thousands of dollars!), suggestions on how to drive and convert blog traffic, and blogging as an occupation (as opposed to business blogging as a marketing tool), including details on blog networks and paid blogging.

I’ll add more to this in the future – if you know of any good “Starter’s Guide to Blogging for Dollars” type sites that should be included here, let us know in the comments!

“What the heck is blogging?”

“Should my business have a blog?”

“Why are blogs so popular?”

While I try to answer these based on fact and not so much on opinion (because my opinion sometimes sounds fanatical when it comes to the greatness of blogs), I also try to direct them to some sites that have helped me with my blogging adventures, especially once they decide to give it a shot. Here’s a list of some of my favorite (I’ve got them in my RSS reader so I don’t miss a beat) blog help sites. Please note, these are blogs that are ONLY about blogging, not about working at home as a blogger, or working at home in general. This list is meant mainly for businesses with existing web sites that might want to venture into blogging as an additional part of their current site. I’ll make another list soon for individuals, I promise!

These links will open in a new window, so you can come back to this list after bookmarking, because I know you’ll want to!

• ProBlogger – Darren Rowse is simply one of the best bloggers out there in my opinion. He not only teaches you the basics, but also keeps you posted on generating revenue through your blog via ads of all kinds. He has articles on getting and keeping a loyal readership (as he has thousands of his own), and really does a fantastic job of staying on top of the blogging industry. I can’t say enough good things about him, so just go check it out for yourself!
• Performancing – I really do love the tools available on this site. First and foremost is the blog editing tool for Firefox – you can write to any one of your numerous blogs right from your browser window, without having to go to the site, login, and click through to your “write post” page. Their metrics tools are pretty cool as well – it tracks as many sites at a time as you want, and lets you know how many hits you’re getting, exactly where they’re coming from, what people are searching for to find your site (and what page they land on), and even tracks your Google Ad clickthroughs. There’s also a really great forum and the creators are extremely receptive to feedback and support.
• CopyBlogger – Essentially one of the best blogs on how to write in a blog I’ve seen yet. Focuses on skill, technique, and ways to engage your readers simply by fine tuning the way you write your copy.
• Successful Blog – Liz Strauss takes successful blogging a little deeper by writing about not just writing, but thinking about the plan. “It’s more than a blog. It’s ideas.” is absolutely true of Liz’s site, and it makes a great place to expand your thinking once you feel you’ve got the basics down.
• Business Blog Top Sites – Check out what other business blogs are doing in terms of design, frequency of posts, topics, and more.
• Corporate Blogging Info – This site is no longer updated, but there are nearly two years of posts in the archive here that might be useful to aspiring corporate bloggers.

So there you have it. I could probably list a lot more, but this is good to get you started. Once you start clicking around, I’m sure you’ll find more too. Let me know in the comments if you think there are any that really should be listed here, and I might do a “Part II”.