What do you mean by a "real" blog?
A real blog is a blog that is hosted at a hosting company and is powered by full featured, versatile blogging software like WordPress and uses a domain name that you own.
A Blogger, or Blogspot blog is not a real blog. Why not? You don't own it....Google does.
This top 10 list was inspired by seeing a lot of people creating really great blogs on Blogger or other free services and then being severely limited in earning potential by the fact that they didn't actually own all the content they were creating.
The top 10 reasons to get a real blog are:
10. Having a Blogger blog is like spending a lot of money on renovations on a house that you are renting, you don't get the long term financial benefits because you don't really own it.
9. You dramatically increase the customizations that you can do to your site. A WordPress site has hundreds of free themes available to change the look of your site.
8. Increased functionality. A WordPress site has hundreds of plug-ins available to extend what your site can do. Many of these are specifically designed to increase the profit potential of your site.
7. Limited earning potential. Blogger sites cannot run scripts that would allow you to do things like sell text link ads, for example.
6. You'll get a commenting system that is way better than on a free site. You can have users subscribe to your comments on individual posts or categories on your site. Not to mention trackbacks and pinging services. This improves the discussion on your site and results in more traffic.
5. The latest version of WordPress has a fantastic anti comment spam system. I personally had to abandon a Blogspot blog when it was ruined with people leaving un-welcomed comments.
4. With your own hosted site, you will be able to have a more professional email address, like: you@yourdomain.com.
3. A real blog is much more flexible. For example you can create folders to organize pages or other content that isn't directly for your blog. Also you can branch out beyond blogging...how about store.yourdomian.com if you start to sell affiliate products related to your site.
2. Better statistics. When you have your own hosted blog or website, you have access to much more detailed statistics than with a "free" site.
1. You can sell it. Websites are very valuable these days, but you can't sell a Blogger site because you don't own it. If you have a very successful site on your own domain name and you want to move on to something else, you can sell your site and the domain name and make good money, depending on how much traffic your site gets.
Jon J. Symons is a software developer and creator of a bunch of WordPress sites. He has created a series of online tutorials called "Get a Real Blog" that go step by step through the process from keyword research, to registering a domain, finding hosting, and installing and customizing WordPress. Set up an online home with http://www.RealBlogVideos.com.
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