starting my own blog page

kaizersoza

kaizersoza

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i am thinking of starting my own blog page and was wondering which blog site you all would recommend because i know nothing about this sort of thing, please help, cheers
kaizersoza
 
Blogger.com, it's from Google.
 
Wordpress is the best. Hands down (IMO). It's what I run Live 'Ukulele on and I think Uke Hunt uses it too.
 
Another vote for wordpress.com (the free version). Arguably has better forum support from the Wordpress blogging community.
 
Wordpress is not a site and hardly suited for people who 'know nothing about this sort of thing'.
Blogger is excellent for rookies and pros.
 
ukuhippo said:
Wordpress is not a site and hardly suited for people who 'know nothing about this sort of thing'.
Blogger is excellent for rookies and pros.
Click to expand...

Wordpress has a hosted option that is pretty WYSIWYG. I would opt for that over Blogger. I run a blog on each, and Wordpress has better spam protection and makes two-way dialog via comments far easier than Blogger does.

I think Blogger is a bit more liberal if you want to monetize the blog though - Wordpress's hosted blogs can't have things like Amazon Associate links. I know Blogger used to permit monetization but I'm not sure if this is still the case.
 
ukuhippo said:
Wordpress is not a site and hardly suited for people who 'know nothing about this sort of thing'. Blogger is excellent for rookies and pros.
Click to expand...

No comment about "pros", but I beg to differ on your opinion for rookies. I'm a blogging rookie and had no problems setting up my first blog. Is this not a site? http://wordpress.com/

I am not talking about the blogging platform that requires software from wordpress.org (note the .ORG). I think you have to pay to use that service. There are also paid versions for Blogger.
 
I user Blogger, but I've heard good things about both, I just prefer Blogger, though their support system leaves a lot to be desired!
 
Ukeeku.com is a hosted wordpress.com site. I love it since it gives you a ton of options and is pretty easy to get going. customizing can be a little weird, but if you just use it as is you should be good. I love all the themes.
Pretty soon there will be a way to monitize on it with adwords, or wordads (Not sure which way it is)
My vote is wordpress.com
 
I defer to the wordpress mavens, like Brad and Tim, if you want to blog big time. They do it well on a system they know and can tweak well. Their sites are outlandishly good.

If you want a simple blog, with Google-based system for lots of "hits" on Google searches, that is ready for just plug-n-play, blogspot/blogger is ideal. You can be up and running in--what time is it?--about 15 minutes. Totally free.

Example: www.coolkayaker1.blogspot.com
 
Last edited:
Short answer: Wordpress.

Slightly longer answer: I've used both and I prefer Wordpress 100 percent. Wordpress layouts I find always looks much more professional, where as blogger sites can look quike amateur no matter how you jazz them up (personal opinion). But Blogger is MUCH easier to get started on and if you are not very comupter savvy it's the easier of the two to figure out. It's Google, making it simple and easy! That said, I think it's worth taking the extra time/hassle to learn the ways of Wordpress.
 
I must say that Blogger pages look fantastic on my mobile, don't know about wordpress-sites. FWIW, there are several internet pages explaining how to convert your Blogger page to Wordpress and vice versa, and it's very easy to do. So switching later is possible.
 
And Tumblr is easier to use than any of these. You can use it as a blog or just a place to reblog stuff. At any rate, I used to use blogger, wordpress, typepad,and tumblr is better than all of these put together, in terms of ease of use.
 
kaizersoza said:
... i know nothing about this sort of thing, please help ....
Click to expand...
Whatever you chose, be sure to allow yourself time to set up your blog and learn the basics of the software. No matter which tool you go with, there will be a bit of a learning curve.

I find wordpress.com pretty easy. I have a private blog there for organizing ukulele stuff. When I come across something online that I want to keep track of, I stick a link in a post and then add the post to a category so I can quickly retrieve it later.
 
Plainsong said:
And Tumblr is easier to use than any of these. You can use it as a blog or just a place to reblog stuff. At any rate, I used to use blogger, wordpress, typepad,and tumblr is better than all of these put together, in terms of ease of use.
Click to expand...

I have used all three (Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr), and :agree:. Tumblr is by far the easiest.
 
Yeah if I was Ms. Serious-Time Blogger, maybe Wordpress would be the way to go, but Typepad has just gotten worse and worse over the years.. and for "I want to blog something but don't want to waste half the day formatting it" - Yeah tumblr all the way. :)
 
Interesting. Tumbler didn't even occur to me when I set up my first blog. I just took a quick look at it and it seems to me it's more like Twitter than "normal" blogs. Lots of photos, videos and re-posts of other people's blogs. I searched "ukulele" and didn't find anything interesting in the first few pages of hits. Here's what's on Wordpress: http://en.search.wordpress.com/?q=ukulele

The actual process of setting up an account or creating Tumbler posts does not look any easier than Wordpress.com. I assume Blogger is just as easy. So for someone who is completely new to blogging, I don't think any of these options really holds an advantage for pure ease-of-use.

Last point. You don't need to make a choice. Sign up for a free account on all 3 services. Pick a theme. Write a short test blog post with a photo or video link. See which one was easiest and looks the best, then either delete the other two accounts or just let them sit idle.
 
For a beginner, I don't know that there's a substantial difference in user experience between Wordpress and Blogger. I've used both for various personal and work projects and the actual blog posting experience seems pretty similar in either. Both are user-friendly if you're even just a little bit tech savvy.

Tumblr is more socially focused and much more visual in nature. It eschews "comments" as you find on many blogs for reblogs, likes, and "notes" back and forth, which appear on the commenter's page as well. I'm not really well integrated in the tumblr community & don't follow many there (UkeHunt is one I do). I like it as a quick place to toss up almost anything other than the written word: photos, video and audio is easy to upload (and you don't have to host it separately if you don't want to; it's just as easy to embed a YouTube video as it is to upload one of your own.)

Wordpress, Blogger and Typepad strike me as more "serious" than Tumblr and much better suited to mostly text posting, but if you plan on relying on audio/video with limited text Tumblr might be a good choice.
 
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