Word Press vs. Blogger, my thoughts!

Technorati Tags: Blogger,Word Press,University of Puerto Rico,Seth Godin,Darren Rowse,Mike Glaspie,John Chow,Blogging,Social Media,SEO,Business Strategy,Marketing,COBOL,Fortran,payroll,entrepreneur

A respected friend, and esteemed entrepreneur ask me why I keep my blog on the Blogger platform and not on Word Press. I have to admit, that I have asked myself the same question, specially after reading so many derogatory articles by fellow bloggers and entrepreneurs.

The common wisdom is that serious entrepreneurs will not give you the time of day if you host your website or your blog on a free platform, because they think that you might not be serious or are small potatoes.

Here are my reasons for using Blogger and MSN Office Live:

1. Well, I am small potatoes when compared to Seth Godin, Darren Rowse, Mike Glaspie, John Chow, and the likes. I am still in the process of making my fist few millions of dollars, so, I cut expenses, while at the same time producing the best product I possibly can.

2. I have always liked to challenge the system. Back in 1977, my old Fortran teacher told us that you could not create a Payroll in Fortran. When asked by my Special Projects teacher at the University of Puerto Rico to program something different, I did just that, I created Payroll in Fortran. It gave me a headache, but, what the heck, I proved my teachers wrong and got an “A” for originality.

3. If at least one person has being able to do something, and succeeded, that means that someone else, with determination and smarts, can do exactly the same thing.

4. Of the five platforms that I tried, three free and two paid, I like Blogger better (call it personal preference). I would like to change a few things on my blog, but right now I am way too busy, so I enjoy the ease of use.

5. I am sharing my experience free of charge. I do not do private consulting (yet), and even though I keep a few ads on my site, I make my living from my other day jobs. So, if someone does not want to read my blog because I am on Blogger, it really does not affect my bottom line.

I have read many really awful blogs in English and Spanish. I’m talking about orthographical, and grammatical mistakes galore. Yes, I still make some of those. And, in some blogs, the writer’s train of thought and logic is hard to follow, but I have found some incredible nuggets of wisdom here and there. Whether it is on SEO, or Business Strategy, or Social Media, or Marketing, or Blogging, I read almost every blog I can find, and learn from all of them. In my opinion, those who refuse to read a blog because it is published on a free platform, are denying hemselves valuable information. So, I will continue to use blogger, and most likely will continue to use MSN Office Live to host my sites. Word Press has more plugins, but I still like Blogger.

Remember to let me know what you think, and what other topics you would like me to cover in our blog…

Six more things to do now:

1. Don’t forget to vote for this blog as the best blog in Marketing and business. Just click on the buttons on the right. You can also nominate your favorite blogs in their respective category.

2. Of course, make sure to share this advise with your friends via Digg, Stumble, Face Book, or your favorite social networks.

3. Do subscribe to our Newsletter.

4. And, remember to subscribe to our blog’s feed.

5. Add me as a friend at Sta.rtup.biz, on FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, follow me on Twitter, StumbleUpon my articles and profile…

6. Recommend this blog to your friends…

So you want to make money online?

I want to make money with my blog.

Blogs, electronic journals, e-zines, e-books, online versions of paper magazines, the options are endless. How can you find the blog that you would like to read? That seems like a stupid question to ask, the stereotypical answer would be: “Google it”. Yeah right. Try it, and when you have pulled every hair on your head, let me know. Search engine categorize blogs by keywords, and there are exponentially, as many ways to find your blog, as there are words in whichever language(s) you are currently using.

The next problem that you will find, is that people tend to start a blog entry, and suddenly, a friend comments on the blog, but instead of adding content, they start a non-related conversation about the immortality of crabs or some nonsensical topic like last night’s dance. Don’t take me wrong, that is totally ok. But it does not serve the purpose if you are limited in time and want an expedite way of research.

The problem is that blogers are human beings, they get bored, they get busy, they become frustrated, and that lends itself to inconsistency. Inconsistency breeds the mess that we find now on the Internet.

The thing is, that this is supposed to be a blog about making money, business opportunities, and social media. So why did I started this post in such a convoluted way? You guessed it, here is the answer: you can make money with a blog if you follow a few very basic rules. Many people have done it. It does not take a rocket scientist. I read about a teenage girl that started designing “wallpaper” for her MySpace account, and gave it away for free on her blog. Suddenly, her popularity skyrocketed (went viral) and at seventeen, someone offered her over $1,000,000.00 for her blog. Yes, that is over one million dollars. She declined, the upped the offer, and the rest is history. John Chow, started a ranting blog, and now he receive tens of thousands of hits (visitors) a week. He makes a killing on advertisements.

How does that benefit you? Simple, start a blog; the experience alone, even if you make no money of the back, is worthy. You will get used to the pace, posting, replying to comments, and placing ads on your blog. You can start a blog for free, get an Adsense account (from Google) and start making modest amounts of money. But if you really want to make money, you need traffic; you need to drive visitors to your blog. Your writing needs to be interesting; your blog should have good content, and need to be updated often to keep people visiting you often.

Tell me again why I should start a blog? Here it goes again: a blog is a diary that others read, get interested on, comment on your postings, and gives you the opportunity to reply to those postings, thus establishing a relationship.

Follow me now... You suddenly get many friends to follow your writings, some will agree with you and some will not, no surprise there, but if you are honest, treat everybody with dignity, they will come back. You have managed to establish a following. You are establishing yourself as an authority.

Keep up now, I’m going fast here… what is marketing? Marketing is the art or science of advertising a product or service so people will purchase it. The marketer should be credible and savvy enough to advertise a product so the viewers, readers, friends, etc. accept his or her word for it, and want to purchase such product or service. But how can you advertise if you have no credibility? And how can you create or develop credibility if people don’t know you? Enter the BLOG… Got it?

Got it. Get your name out there, for the right reasons. Be serious about it. Research your postings before publishing. Treat others with a modicum of respect. Advertise your blog to your Social Media friends; hopefully you will have more than ten. Have your friends recommend your postings to their friends. Have them Digg, or Stumbelupon, or bookmark your articles. Soon enough, not overnight though, your name will be on the search engines. And your blog will have a good following; making you an authority. Oh, remember the adsense and other advertising that you started doing on your blog? With some luck, you will be bringing some revenue as your visitors click on your advertisements.

So, lets summarize:

a. Create a blog.
b. Add fairly good quality articles or postings; make sure that you research the topic.
c. Place some advertisements on it.
d. Tell your friends and ask them to ask your friends to visit your blog, if it is good, some will continue visiting and reading it.

Tell me what you think… leave your comments below.