This has got to be one of the most asked questions I get. It does sound kind of confusing being that the two platforms have the same name and only a different extension.
I recommend that all agents and small business owners have their own website built on the Wordpress.org software. That is what people mean when they tell you you need a Wordpress site.
Wordpress.com is a blogging/site platform.
You do NOT own your own website on the Wordpress.com platform. It is kind of like ActiveRain in that bloggers all have their "own" blog on the platform. While Wordpress.com has a very strong domain authority, that alone, is not enough to warrant the time to build out a blog on the platform.
The biggest danger to having a Wordpress.com blog is that your account can get banned and pretty easily I might add. I know a lot of people who lose their accounts on that platform.
You can not embed widgets unless they are on the list of approved widgets to place on your blog. Wordpress.com is free. It is updated all the time. You don't have to worry about spam and hackers. But you do have to worry about their word police and anti-business kumbaya bloggers who love to trolling around to tattle tale on those they don't beleive are keeping within the strict unspoken guidelines.
So as a business person, you are taking a huge chance blogging on Wordpress.com. That is not to say your site will be targeted. I know agents who have kept their Wordpress.com blogs for years with no problems and others who are targeted and shut down.
Again, it goes back to ownership. You don't really own your Wordpress.com blog site. While it is free to have a blog on Wordpress.com you don't get your own domain name for free. There are costs with all the add-ons to Wordpress.com and in the end, that can get sort of expensive. You are also looking at about $299 a year for a business plan which is really the only safe way to avoid the anti-business trolls.
Wordpress.org is the platform people are talking about when they say you need to get your own Wordpress site.
Wordpress.org is the largest blogging/ software on the planet.
Wordpress.org is also free but your website is not going to be totally free because you have to pay for hosting somewhere. I have a list of hosting companies and ones that I recommend. Ask me in the comments below.
When you start your own website on Wordpress.org you first need to get a host for your website.
Wordpress.com hosts your blog on their platform while Wordpress.org does not.
So you get your own domain name and then you choose a hosting company.
Then you upload Wordpress.org to your domain name. I have tutorials on how to do this. Just ask in the comments below.
This gives you OWNERSHIP of your own website. This is so important.
Your expenses include the hosting company which is as low as $5 per month and then to buy a theme ( the website look) which can really range in prices. And you have to pay for your domain name each year on Godaddy that is about $9 per year. So it is a very low cost way to go.
I totally advocate blogging on ActiveRain and other non owned platforms but you should always have your own website that you own, you control, you can make choices on without having to depend on someone else to do that for you.
And no matter what, at the end of the day, if you are in business, you must invest in marketing and in your business in order to make money. You can short cut some of the expense by doing the work yourself investing your time decreasing the amount of money invested.
Ask your questions in the comment section below:
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