Why We Recommend WordPress For Network Marketers
One of the most essential aspects of network marketing is building your brand. Your brand is your voice. It’s your image. Its what comes into people’s minds when they see or hear your name. Your brand is what your audience will rally behind and follow.
Social media is a key component to branding yourself online. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are where people will discover you, but once they’ve found you, it’s important that they can get to know you. It’s vital that you have more to offer than your status updates.
That’s where having a blog comes in. A professional looking blog sends a clear message to your network of friends and prospects that you know what you are doing, and lets them learn as much as possible about you and what you do. A good blog turns those friends and prospects into customers and fans.
Deciding how to go about setting up your first blog is no easy task. Should you use a free option, like Blogger, or WordPress.com? Or is it worth the investment to set up a self-hosted blog? The answer is yes, it is definitely worth it, and when it comes to self-hosted blogging platforms, WordPress is hands down the best option we’ve found.
What’s The Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
WordPress.com is a free blogging platform which allows you to create an account and start a blog on their servers, completely free. While this is great for the casual blogger, there are several drawbacks to consider if you want your blog to be taken seriously. First off, your free blog is going to have an undesireable address, since free wordpress blogs look like this: yourblogname.wordpress.com.
Doesn’t exactly present the most professional image. You really want NEED to have your own domain name attached to your blog. To do this on a free blog, you’ll need to purchase the domain name, and an upgrade to map it to you blog – which is no longer “free.” Additionally, you’ll be limited in terms of styling and functionality. We’ll discuss that more in a moment.
WordPress.org is completely different animal. You can download the WordPress platform and install it on your own server or hosting account. This means you have your own independent blog, with your own domain name. You also have access to all of the files associated with your blog, and whatever theme you choose to style it with (oh, and you also have access to literally thousands of more themes than you would with a free blog). This means you (or someone you know/hire) can customize literally every detail of your site, from the color of the background to the size of the font.
You also have access to plugins, which are extensions of WordPress that can be installed on your blog to add virtually any function you can imagine. There are thousands of plugins out there that can do anything from displaying your Twitter updates, to tracking visitors to your site or you can even create an entire product catalog and shopping cart system. Plugins are the real prize of a self hosted WordPress blog, because they enable you to make your site into pretty much anything you can imagine.
How Much?
Okay, so if a WordPress.com blog is free, how much does it cost to use it on my own site?
Surprise! It’s also free. WordPress is a free to use, open source platform (meaning the code that runs it is available to anyone – allowing for the creation of all the themes and plugins that are available) so it costs nothing to download and use. You will need to purchase a domain name (usually under $10/year) and a hosting account (generally around $80/year) and you’re good to go.
Basically, for about $90 a year you can have a fully functional, professional blog building your brand and turning your audience into customers.
Where Do I Start?
- You need a domain name, and a hosting account. We recommend using one of these registrars:
- Install WordPress. Both of the sites below have easy installation options that do the hard parts for you, or you can always download WordPress from WordPress.org and install it yourself with the provided instructions.
- Start writing! Once WordPress is installed, you can start creating content. Granted, there are other things to consider – like themes, plugins, optimization, etc. Those will come with time.
If you find you need help or guidance with any part of your blogging adventure, we can help. We run another blog dedicated to helping network marketers set up and optimize their own WordPress blog, which is full of articles and tutorial videos to get you up and running, from installation to search engine optimization. Feel free to stop by over at WelcomeToWordPress.com if you have any questions or need any advice!
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