For part 2 of this How To Start A Nursing Blog Series, we will talk about choosing your blog platfom.
When choosing a blog platform, the industry standard is WordPress. There are two ways to go about with this platform: free or self-hosted.
WordPress: free version from www.wordpress.com
WordPress.com is a free version of this platform. There are a few pros and cons that you need to consider with this platform:
Pros
- Create an account for free
- Free template options available
- No worries about getting a domain name and your own hosting
Cons
- Weblink will be in the format of username.wordpress.com
- People will not take your seriously if your domain name is username.wordpress.com
- You will not have as much flexibility and freedom to monetize compared to self-hosting WordPress
- If the wordpress.com goes down, so will your site.
- You do not own your content in the free platform. WordPress does.
WordPress.org – Self-hosted WordPress (Highly Recommended)
If you want completely total independence on your site, I highly encourage you to have your own domain name and hosting. For this site, we use Bluehost for hosting, and we got our domain name from bluehost when we signed up for our hosting account.
Pros
- Freedom to do anything on your site
- Industry standard platform
- Highly customizable
- Hosted by your own hosting platform and domain name
Cons
- Learning curve needed if you are not very computer savvy
- Upfront cost needed when you pay for hosting and domain name (more so for those who are financially tight)
Points To Consider
When picking your platform whether it’s free or self-hosted, the best way to choose your blog platform is think of what will work for you. If you have the resources to get a self-hosted wordpress site, I highly suggest that you do. If you don’t, start with a free version of wordpress and later on, transfer all your files to your self-hosted site. Although there are other blog platforms available out there, WordPress is the industry standard. If you are starting out, equip yourself with the best tools that you can give yourself.
