This week’s article is the second in the Get Blogging Basics series I’m writing at Turning Minds, and I’ll be focusing on choosing a hosting platform for your blog, the second most important decision you’ll ever make with your blog.
Decide on a Writing Platform (part 1)
Now that you’ve chosen the name for your blog, you have to decide where it will “live.” That’s what hosting is, it’s where you’ll build your home, and where it can be VERY tricky to move off of once you build your home, er blog. There are 6 major platforms to choose from, and one platform that has 2 options with it.
I’m doing 3 this week, and I’ll do 3 next week, and then give my recommendation the following week. I’ll list them alphabetically.
Please note: This isn’t meant to be an exhaustive list, rather a listing of the major players as of this writing, as well as my personal experience with the platform.
Blogger – http://blogger.com
Pluses:
- Free platform
- Easy to flip templates to something new.
- If you can use a word processor, you can write articles with pictures.
- Allows you to map your domain name to the service.
- Connects with your Google profile.
- Likely good “Google Juice” for getting found on Google (though nothing official says this is true, I’ve seen some outrank others
- Can add others to write on your blog, if they sign up for Google’s services too.
Minuses:
- Limited design templates so most Blogger blogs looke the same.
- Not a huge community of developers to make your site look unique (which will likely cost you more money to develop your site).
- Limited widgets.
- Need to know some HTML to really make your site look awesome and to add widgets.
- If you’re not a Google user, you will need to become one to use Blogger.
- You’re at the whim of Google’s terms and services, so if they decide your content is objectionable, they could shut you down. And yes, people HAVE been shut down.
- Can be difficult to migrate without losing all the links to posts other sites link to.
Posterous – http://posterous.com
Pluses:
- Free platform
- Can e-mail in posts
- Easy integration with other social media platforms
- VERY easy to use
- Can migrate to other platforms
Minuses:
- Limited templates to choose from
- Limited design community to customize your look/feel
- Sites look very much like other sites
- Difficult to customize image placement
- New, so hard to say how they will change or if someone will buy them
SquareSpace – http://squarespace.com
Pluses:
- Strong community of developers who love the platform
- Drag and drop templates are very easy to use
- Paid service and great (and fast) response time from support staff
Minuses:
- Many sites looks the same as there are limited out-of-the-box designs
- Have to know HTML to code your sidebars with Twitter, Facebook, and the like
- Can be expensive if you have more than 1 website to host
- Limited plug-ins to extend your blog beyond the ones included
What are your questions or experiences with these services? I’ll answer them in the comments below, and then I’ll those questions and more about the next 3 services next week.