So, you decided to blog about your business. Good for you. It’s a great way to reach your potential clients and let them get to know you, like you and trust you.

But, there’s more to blogging than just throwing up a page on some free site and making it big time!

Lets take a look at 2 commonly used blogging platforms.

Lets start with WordPress (my favorite).

There are actually two versions of WordPress. Both are free.

• 1 is WordPress.COM and it is an all in one option where WP hosts your content, files, and everything to do with your site. 

However, they don’t allow for additional features without a heavy price upgrade and you can’t sell through your site there. You pretty much don’t own your own blog and they can yank it down if they feel like you didn’t follow their rules.

• 2 is WordPress.ORG and you have to buy a hosting account before you can use this platform. Basically the way this one works is that you 1. Buy hosting, 2. Plug in the WordPress software (it’s easy). The only cost in this version is your hosting which can be bought for $5-$10 per month depending on the hosting company. 

So, what’s awesome about the .ORG version?

1. There are thousands of FREE themes to make your site look and perform the way you want. Many of the free themes offer some customization built in. 
2. There are thousands of paid themes too. With so many features and “looks” that it might be hard to choose.
3. There are thousands of FREE “plugins” which are extra little pieces of software that can be “plugged  in” to your site and which can offer additional functions. FREE!
4. It’s mostly intuitive to use and there are tons of free videos on public video sites that show you how to use each part of your blog. There are also paid courses that will take you from start to finish.
5. You can use Wordrpess.ORG to build any type of site that you want – in addition to or without a blog.

Tumblr

Tumblr seems to be a cross between a blogging platform and a social media site. This platform is also free and hosted within their company – so they control everything. But, it’s a pretty social community there where you have an option to “reblog” other posts.

Tumblr is more visually based than it is content based. This works great if you have lots of photos or design to show off. Some people think this is why it’s more like a social network than a blog platform. Traditionally, don’t we think of blogs as places to read? That’s actually changing – but that’s another post for another time.

You’ll find mostly shorter written posts at Tumblr which is fine if that’s the way you share your information.

The drawbacks seem to be that there are not ways to add more functions, so it can’t be used an all in one option like wordpress.org could be.

I like many of their themes and they are optimized for mobile viewing where many of the Wordprss.ORG themes aren’t yet.

So, those are just two options. There are many more out there. Before you choose or before you choose to move your blog, think hard about what your blogging is for. It’s probably a combination of purposes and it’s important to choose which blogging platform will serve those purposes best.