WordPress Blog vs. Website Powered by WordPress

[Iris]

Hello, fellow SSWTers,

I need your help!

Should I continue to build my WordPress blog or build a website powered by WordPress??? My niche for this site is health & fitness. This site has the potential to grow fast with a lot of pages, so I want to plan it out with the end in mind.

At this time, I cannot afford to invest in having a custom-designed site developed by a web designer. I plan to invest in DreamWeaver in the near future but I want to move things along with this site now. I NEED TO TAKE ACTION!!!!!

So, if you have any knowledge or firsthand experience with this issue, please share your thoughts with me ... the up side, the down side, the pros and cons, etc.

Thanks!

[wade_watson]

A WordPress.com blog is fine for a completely noncommercial blog that you don't intend to invest too much of yourself in. Like any free blog service, however, you are completely at the mercy of the operators of the service. Free blogs do occasionally disappear without notice and from everything I have heard, WordPress.com seems to be more apt to do that than most. They seem to dislike any sort of business use of their service.

Setting up a WordPress blog on a paid hosting account is fairly easy and doesn't cost a whole lot. You can get a domain name for about $10 and set up hosting with something like HostGator or Dreamhost for $10-$11 a month. These hosts will let you install WordPress automatically and you will have a huge amount of web space to use as well. And you can place multiple site domains on the same host at no extra cost.

With your own WordPress installation, you can choose from a huge variety of themes and plugins. You can also modify them to suit your own needs. Most website operators eventually wish to place an opt-in box for a mailing list on their site. This is easy enough with a WordPress install. I'm not certain, but I don't believe WordPress.com allows this.

So, anyway, I'd say if your serious about blogging, go with a WP.org blog rather than WP.com.

Wade Watson

[TraciKnoppe]

Iris, one install of WordPress will do both blog and web site; no need to have to choose. I agree with Wade, use the .org version and get your own web host for that.

[Iris]

Yes, I have my blogs set up under WordPress.org and they are hosted by HostGator.

Should I wipe out the WP blog and reinstall it in a subfolder so that it appears as a page in my domain with a static home page? Or, can I continue to build my site with many pages under this blog layout?

[TraciKnoppe]

Here's instructions on how to setup one WordPress installation to run in two different folders: http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_Wo..._Own_Directory

[Iris]

Traci,

Do you think this is a necessary step I need to do . . . set things up as a website with a blog page vs. just a WP blog? Do you think it's necessary???

[angienewton]

Iris, I think a blog is just fine and then you can always add pages on/to your wordpress blog.

[TraciKnoppe]

My new site http://yourwebtechteam.com is setup just as one WordPress.org install, with the core of the web site set up as WordPress pages, not posts. Pages are static, posts are dynamic - meaning they are automatically archived each month by month & year and they would scroll down to show the latest blog post first.

For static content, that you need easily accessible/easy to find within your site, use pages.

Blog posts are for articles, latest news or something like that. Pages of product, About or Contact pages are examples of content that would go on a page, not a post.

[Iris]

Thanks, everybody for your feedback.

Traci, I think your site is the kind of setup I'm thinking of. I will check it out. Thanks!

[TomM]

This is a question that I have been wrestling with as well. It seems that Lynn prefers to use html sites for her product oriented affiliate sites vs wordpress. However, clearly Traci is saying you can use wordpress to set up a site with static pages also. I am not sure I understand the pros and cons of which to use for affiliate marketing of products. Any thoughts?