I want to make a good blog and wanted few things before going for one. My Requirements and limitations 1) I can't manage scripts and coding but can do small tweaking. 2) I do not have my own server so want a free hosting service. Keeping this is mind I got few suggestion from this forum and other forums. I also had a talk with few of my friends almost everyone adviced me for blogspot as I do no have my own server. But today I read another thread in hedir and I quote Do you think creating a blog with blogspot.com is not a good idea for long term. Thanks for all the help, I am learning many things from these threads.
This blog is a great example :> http://betterdigitalphotography.blogspot.com/ - it even has PR5. One advice I can give you is never create "Black Hat" blogs. I've done this in the past and in one fell swoop, Blogger deleted my black hat blogs AND my white hat ones, even though they were created under different account names. I guess Blogger did an IP address check on all those blogs. Another piece of advice is to edit your user profile on digitalpoint so that your latest blog post appears next to your profile - this is a great way to get the search engines to take notice of your blog. You could also work towards getting other, related and indexed blogs to add your blog to their blogroll. Be friendly and leave meaningful comments on other blogs - all these work towards increasing traffic to your blog. Good luck with your blog.
Nice info dlcmh. Blogspot is good and there are many good blogs there. But still I recommend go for your own hosting.
Yeah I think so too. As long you have a good content and skills, Blogspot is fine or even perfect. This guy makes around 1000 bucks a day from his blog http://labnol.blogspot.com
Personally I'd recommend you run your blogs on your own server.Blogger is not stable and you don't have full control.
if you are serious about blogging having your own domain and a good platform like wordpress are a must
You can actually use Blogger and host your own blog, publishing via ftp. I personally moved away from Blogger a while back, and us Wordpress for everything I do - blogs and websites. (see signature links)
me too...blogger's ftp is a pain in my ass...it always fail..and if blogger's down your site will be down too..
I know this isn't what you really want to hear but for the long haul it would really be better to have your own server... If you could find a low cost web/domain host with Fantastico all you'd have to do is fill in a few blanks and push a button to install Wordpress (which is the best blog program IMO)... then you would never have to answer to anyone but yourself... it is such a nice feeling to actually own your space so to speak... When you use free hosting services you are always at the mercy of others... I pay $6.95/mo at Bluehost (affiliate link on my website if you want to check them out! *grin*) and I really like them so far... but I think you can get hosting at even a lower cost than that if you look around a bit... just make sure your host has Fantastico and you'll be all set...
Blog's value === Blogger's value. If blogger is an expert and know how to express himself then it will be of great value. IMO bloggers are Market mavens who will like to help people by sharing their experiences. Also there is one sided relationship made with the blogger (if not two sided). Blogger.com is good for phase I of blogging (learning and writing) but phase II (promoting participation, integrating and marketing) needs more tools and I blogspot can't beat wordpress there as there is a community of developers available for wordpress plugins.
All of you are missing a very important point: Since when does any of us have their own server? 99% of us use shared hosting. Just go into this forum's webhosting section and choose a webhost that has php and fantastico. YOu can then install blog software very easily using fantastico. It isn't very expensive at all.
I knew just as soon as I recommended Bluehost something would happen to make me not like them! Bluehost has disabled their "catchall" email forwarding and I am very unhappy there now... so I take back my previous recommendation and I am removing the affiliate link from my site too... I'm not going to be affiliated with a company that I am not happy with just to get a little pocket change... there are too many other ways to try to make a buck instead of promoting something that I feel is sub-standard... "Just go into this forum's webhosting section and choose a webhost that has php and fantastico." I hate to ask an ignorant question but which forum is the webhosting forum? I looked up and down the list several times but didn't see it...
The best hosting service I ever got was from asmallorange with almost everything at a cheaper rate. Apart from hosting for free blog hosts you can go for wordpress.com, blogsome.com, hedir.com and many more sites that run wordpress as platform. Ask following questions to the host 1) Why are you providing me a blog free? What will you get from it? 2) How will you help me with marketing? 3) What flexibility I have in editing my blog? Once you have these questions answered you can shift to wordpress based free hosting. Also I have answered your post at http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=1856008&postcount=12 Thanks, Aji