Here’s a point of confusion I often notice when people begin their search for a blogging platform:<\/p>\n
There are two different flavors of WordPress.<\/p>\n
WordPress.com<\/a> is a hosted platform. You go there and sign up for account, pick a pre-designed theme, and start blogging.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s free, it’s very easy.\u00a0 Software updates and security are handled for you.\u00a0 However, You don’t have an option of custom designing your own theme, your choice of plugins andwidgets is limited. You cannot FTP into your blog.<\/p>\n \u00a0It’s not a bad idea to go ahead and set up a blog on WordPress.com<\/a>, even if you don’t intend it as your\u00a0primary business blog.\u00a0 Make it a “cat blog”.<\/a> It will give you a chance to test drive the post editor interface, practice adding images or videos with the “Add Media” tool, and get a feel for the concept of changing themes.\u00a0<\/p>\n WordPress.org<\/a> is a web site from which you can download the WordPress software. You then install the WordPress software on your own host. Same concept as installing a new program on your own computer, except that you are installing\u00a0a new program\u00a0on a remote “host” computer.\u00a0\u00a0 You can install any plugins or themes\u00a0you like, and customize them to your heart’s content.\u00a0 You can\u00a0run affiliate advertising, and edit the database. You can write your own PHP code and use it in the blog’s design.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although the WordPress.org<\/a> software is free, you will need a hosting account somewhere.\u00a0That’s not <\/em>free.\u00a0\u00a0Average hosting fees run about $10 per month.\u00a0 \u00a0My WordPress blogs are hosted\u00a0on GoDaddy<\/a>. BHB with much higher bandwidth requirements, is not.\u00a0 Where is BHB hosted now, Greg?\u00a0<\/p>\n I have heard good comments about BlueHost<\/a>.\u00a0 Maybe some other\u00a0contributors will jump in with info on their choice of hosts.<\/p>\n You can\u00a0register your own custom domain name and use it with either flavor of WordPress, so don’t let anyone mistakenly tell you that you can’t map a domain name to a WordPress.com<\/a> site.\u00a0 You can.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here is a how-to\u00a0 I wrote several months ago on mapping a custom domain name to a WordPress.com blog.<\/a><\/p>\n And as a FYI, you can register and use a custom domain name with TypePad<\/a> and Blogger<\/a>, Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Here’s a point of confusion I often notice when people begin their search for a blogging platform: There are two different flavors of WordPress. WordPress.com is a hosted platform. You go there and sign up for account, pick a pre-designed theme, and start blogging.\u00a0\u00a0 It’s free, it’s very easy.\u00a0 Software updates and security are handled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,175],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-blogging","7":"category-project-blooodhound","9":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":516,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/516\/using-weblogs-as-the-platform-for-custom-real-estate-listing-web-sites\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":0},"title":"Using weblogs for custom real estate listing web sites . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 6, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"More than a month ago, I said that I was going to do the custom web pages for any new listings as WordPress weblogs. Lucky me, since then we've sold down our inventory of listings, but we haven't added any new ones. That changes Thursday, and there are at least\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1301,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1301\/customizing-your-weblog-with-css-and-php-navigating-from-post-to-post\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":1},"title":"Customizing your weblog with CSS and PHP: Navigating from post to post","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"If you click on an individual post in BloodhoundBlog, you'll see something like this above the headline: The code for doing this is built into some themes, but not in the theme we're using. The PHP code for making it happen is actually pretty simple, you just have to plug\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2471,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2471\/announcing-the-odysseus-medal-long-list-of-nominees-widget\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":2},"title":"Announcing the Odysseus Medal Long List of nominees widget","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 5, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm usually not awake when I post at this hour, but I am today. I built a new widget last night that will link to each new Odysseus Medal nominee as it comes in. This is something I've been planning to do for a while, but I took care of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog Carnivals"","block_context":{"text":"Blog Carnivals","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blog-carnivals\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2260,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2260\/unchained-melodies-extraordinary-machine\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":3},"title":"Unchained melodies: Extraordinary machine","author":"Greg Swann","date":"November 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Teri Lussier asked me if there would be a theme song for BloodhoundBlog Unchained. She later repented of the question, but she was more right than she knew. Of course there will be a theme song for the conference. We are champions of iconic ideas, words and images and sounds\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4081,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/4081\/bloodhoundblog-sports-new-iphone-theme-all-the-dog-half-the-drool\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":4},"title":"BloodhoundBlog sports new iPhone theme: All the dog, half the drool","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 24, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I installed an iPhone-only theme this morning. If you land on BloodhoundBlog from any browser except Safari for the iPhone, you'll see our normal theme. If you come in from the iPhone, you'll get a theme optimized for the iPhone's (or iTouch's) screen size. This is the way BHB looked\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3122,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3122\/truliatrackingphp-keeping-track-of-the-truliacom-nofollow-controversy-with-a-widget-for-the-rest-of-us\/","url_meta":{"origin":3286,"position":5},"title":"TruliaTracking.php: Keeping track of the Trulia.com nofollow controversy with a widget for the rest of us","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Using Eric Bramlett's green ribbon and a little bit of PHP, I have built a small widget to keep track of the accumulating body of weblog posts on Trulia.com policy of adding the \"nofollow\" tag to links back to its listing partners. Shown below is an image of the widget;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}