Introduction
When choosing a blogging platform when starting a side income blog, there are a few leading options.
A self-hosted WordPress site, also often referred to as a WordPress.org site, is a free and open-source content management system (CMS).
Other options include a free WordPress.com site, which uses a modified version of the WordPress.org CMS and can be built on a free WordPress.com subdomain. WordPress.com offers the use of your own registered or purchased domain name with a paid plan. Another free option is Blogger, which can be built on a blogspot.com subdomain, or is free to use with your own domain name.
A WordPress.org site is used by about 45% of websites on the internet and recommended. A benefit to the WordPress.org platform being so popular and a reason why it’s recommended is that within the WordPress community there is a huge developer base resulting in many WordPress theme options made available together with a huge support base that will help beginners to advanced users while they adapt to the WordPress ecosystem.
Self-hosted WordPress Site (WordPress.org)
WordPress is a CMS that can be downloaded for free from WordPress.org and to get it up and running, you must register a domain name or purchase an aftermarket one and purchase webhosting that you will upload the WordPress files to.
There are many benefits to acquiring a good domain name, such as offering your audience a good first impression and aiding in your credibility. A domain can be registered through a registrar such as Namecheap for about $10 or bought as an aftermarket domain. Namecheap also offers a marketplace where you can purchase aftermarket domains.
You will need a webhost plan which Namecheap also offers, starting at about $2 per month to host your website files to be retrieved through your domain name.
As WordPress is a CMS, content creation comes intuitively after installing it on your webhost, so an important next step is creating a unique layout for your site. A WordPress theme dictates the layout of your site and can be coded from scratch, a theme with customisable options can be downloaded from a WordPress developer and then customised, or alternatively a theme can be created with a page builder plugin such as Beaver Builder.
While it can take a lot of time to find a theme created by a developer that has customisable features that suits your blogs needs, it’s worth investing the time to try to find one that isn’t overpriced. As the large majority of websites on the internet use WordPress.org, there is great supply and demand for such themes being developed and many available to choose from.
The WordPress.org platform has frequent code updates, ensuring the CMS is kept up to date.
WordPress.com
For a more budget friendly option when starting a side income blog, WordPress.com can be used. It uses a modified version of the WordPress.org CMS and is hosted for free on WordPress.com. A domain isn’t required, as a WordPress.com subdomain is provided, but a registered or acquired domain name can also optionally be used with it with a paid plan.
Blogger
Another free option is Blogger. Blogger offers users a free blogspot.com subdomain but also has the option to be used with a registered or acquired domain.
Blogger is beginner friendly and easy to set up and while using it with a paid domain is a step up to using a subdomain, it’s limiting nature can impact your blog’s progress.
Conclusion
A self-hosted WordPress site is recommended when starting a side income blog, but examples of other platforms that can be used instead include WordPress.com and Blogger.
There are many other options to WordPress.org that we haven’t covered that are also CMSs that are free to download but require hosting and a registered or acquired domain, such as Joomla and Drupal.
Wix is a platform that offers a free plan that must be upgraded to a paid plan for it to work with your own domain name.