Its well known that using a blog can generate free traffic, but how do you choose which type of blog is right for you? There are many factors that you need to be aware of before you decide which service you want to use.
The two most popular types of blog on the internet are Word Press and Blogger but they differ in many ways and have their own advantages and disadvantages which greatly effective how they can be used so read on to find out which one is best suited to you.
Word Press
If you want to put a blog on your own website for free Word Press is definitely the best option for you. All you have to do is download the files from their website and follow the simple instructions to install it into your hosting account.
Its just a case of dragging the necessary files into the folder of your choice where you want the blog to appear and creating a MySQL database in your website control panel. The whole installation process is very easy and can be completed in a matter of minutes.
The main advantage of Word Press is that it provides flexibility and it allows you to be far more creative because its an open source script meaning it can be freely distributed and manipulated by anyone. So if you want the script to do a specific task you can either find an existing plugin or hire a programmer to create one for you.
There are hundreds of free plugins that will help to maximise the amount of traffic your blog generates such as the social bookmarking plugin which will allow you to easily add the entry links for each post to the most popular social bookmarking websites and the subscribe me plugin which will allow visitors to subscribe to your blog via RSS feeds using their favourite blog reader.
As well as the plugins there are literally thousands of free templates to choose from and you can easily find one with colours that match rest of your website. This will enable you to instantly create your own professional looking blog.
Blogger
If you don't have a website or don't know how to install a blog you will have to use Blogger which is a free service provided for anyone who opens an account on their website. The first thing you will need to do is find an available name for your blog which can be difficult as many have already been taken by other users.
Once you have created your account you will need to choose the template you want to use. There is only a limited selection but its best not to use the default template as the majority of other members will be using it so in order to stand out from the crowd you will need to use a less popular one.
Although its quick and easy to set up it doesn't offer enough flexibility and it limits how creative you can be. Its also very slow at loading and is not good at track backs which is important because you need to know who is linking to your articles.
The main disadvantage of Blogger is that you don't have full control of your blog and if they think your content looks like search engine spam they can block and delete it without any warning at all. If you have spent months setting up your blog and writing content the last thing you want is for it to be suddenly deleted.
So if you want to start your own blog and generate free traffic over a long period of time without any problems you should definitely use Word Press on your own website. Its far safer and more reliable than Blogger and will give you the flexibility and creativity you need.
This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Simon_Akers
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