What is the Best Way to Set Up a Free WordPress Blog?
So there you are…you have a hobby, a small business, an idea, a product, a network marketing company and you want to find a way to get your message out to the world in order to build your brand, sell your services, etc. With so many options to choose from for free blog software, local web designers, online gurus that will make you a fortune overnight, how can make a good decision on who to use, or who can you trust to help you setup a blog?
I went to a No Excuses Summit in Vegas in August of 2010, and I went there for the sole purpose of learning how to brand myself, sell online, and find out what the “pros” were doing to make income via the internet. I have to admit, I didn’t know the first thing about a blog!! I didn’t have my own site, limited knowledge on pay per click, or marketing online of any kind. What a paradigm shift that was!! What I learned is a ton of information out there, and you have to wade through the proverbial water to find out what is going to work for YOU in your business.
You first have to determine why you even want a site to begin with. Do you need a presence online? Informational website or blog for your customers? A shopping cart to where customers can order from your website? Interactive website for you and your clients? Make income on a blog from affiliate marketing or in my case a way to brand myself through social media, and build my network marketing business without spamming everyone in my social network. My first piece of advice is to avoid spamming for your products, and try to create “valuable” content to your readers to where eventually they will want to do business with you. I will discuss this in just a moment, but I first wanted to talk about the ways you can start your own online business.
Typically there are a few ways to set up your own blog or website:
- Hire a web designer/consultant- There are web designers all over your town, on the internet, at the local college, in your neighborhood, you name it…they’re everywhere! They will charge you anywhere from $200-5,000 to build a site, and may promise you the moon as they often do. There are some that are good, and reputable, but in my experience, it rarely plays out for the money spent that translates to income. I wish I had a dime for everytime (very sadly) I’ve seen businesses get literally robbed of their hard earned money to a web designer that created a website that did absolutely zero for their bottom line. Simply designing a blog or a website to be “pretty” is not enough these days. Anyone can do that! GET REFERENCES before you ever hire a web designer or pay someone to build your wordpress blog or website for you!
- The second way is to design your own website or to start your own blog by doing research online, learn how to manually install wordpress (good luck with that), make your own Custom Header ( I recommend xHeader for that), go out and find plugins, install them, start writing content, setting up your widgets, setting up adsense if you want it, layout your theme design properly, and I could go on and on. Listen closely…this WILL take you hours if you try to do this yourself!
- The Last way and in my very humble, yet time tested by the school of hard knocks opinion, is to use Free Blog Factory to handle the installation of a wordpress blog. When I say the word free blog or free setup, you might be thinking…yeah right! Let me explain why Free Blog Factory is truly a free way to set up a wordpress blog. You have the option to choose your current domain, get a new one, pick out your wordpress theme, choose what type of articles or industry you will be writing about, and Free Blog Factory handles the rest of your wordpress installation. It really is that simple and I will explain below all the value that Free Blog Factory offers and how they differ (hugely) from other free blog software companies.