Tiny Tech Training: Choosing Between WordPress.com or WordPress.org
Today kicks off a series of Tiny Tech Trainings about building a website! Over the next several weeks, I’ll cover all the aspects of getting started online. With this series of videos, you’ll be able to get your own web presence up and running – quickly and inexpensively!
We start with:
Choosing Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org
Doesn’t it seem like a mean trick that there are two things – named so similar, yet functioning so differently??
And in the realm of technology – where it’s already hard enough for the average person to figure out what to do and when!
Here’s a 15 minute video that shares the differences between these two tools, tells when to use each, and gives a little more information on how to get started with WordPress.org.
If you know anything about what I teach, then you know without even watching the video that I’m a fan of building your website on WordPress.org. In the next Tiny Tech Training, I’ll go into more detail on hosting – the key component necessary to use WordPress.org. From there, I’ll see how far I can get to getting a site LIVE – without making the training not tiny anymore!
There are two things you need to have in place to go live with a site – and I mention them in the video above – a URL and a Hosting Provider.
Your URL is your address – it’s your real estate on the internet. I’ll talk more about this in the next video too, and I mentioned GoDaddy as the place that I buy my web addresses. You can search for “GoDaddy coupon” and almost always find a link that will let you buy the first year for just 99 cents for most standard URLs.
Then there’s Hosting. This is another conversation entirely, and I’ll go into details in the next video, but several of you have asked me about who to use for hosting. Here are a few good options:
- BlueHost – this is a “preferred” hosting service of WordPress.org. It’s easy to use and one of the more in-expensive options
- DreamHost – this is a top-rated hosting service, and this link will take you to a special offer for $100 off a year of service!
- HostGator – this is the service that I have used and recommended for many years. They are relatively inexpensive to host multiple sites, and easy to use.
- WP Engine – this is a premium service – more expensive, but has extensive services and faster load times. I am moving all of my domains to this service at this time.
That’s it for this week! I’ll be back next Tuesday (for real, next Tuesday) with the next Tiny Tech Training on building your website!
Of course, I love your questions and comments, and will reply to them all! XOXO Dori
Hi Dori ~ Great Tiny Training. Also great timing for me. I just “stumbled” across OptimizePress. Is this connected to WordPress? And if so, how does that fit into the choice scheme here? Not to confuse or complicate things, but would love to know your thoughts on this. With the brochure page, are you able to build a database through squeeze pages, can you have a store? That’s about it for now. Thanks again. This is going to be a great series.
Hi Sue!
Great questions!
OK, Optimize Press is both a “theme” and a “plug-in” that you can use on a WordPress.org site. I have this tool, and have used it on a couple of site – it’s not the theme that I use for this site. It’s a good theme – a little pricier than others, but it has the ability to turn your site into a membership site, with protected content, so it’s worth the money, for sure. And, it has “templates” or pre-built pages you can use. I’ll be hitting up Themes in this series soon, and I’ll write down to discuss OptimizePress as an option.
With regard to the “brochure” thing – well, if you go with WordPress.com, that’s when it gets more difficult to do the integrations with different systems. Can you integrate with some email systems to build “opt-in” pages and the like – yes. Is it very flexible or easy – no. I do recommend WordPress.org if you are going to do the things you mention.
XOXO
Dori
So helpful, Dori! This is all new to me, and I am just trying to learn as much as I can as I go along- you are answering many of my questions. Thank you SO much! Karen
I’m so happy to offer support Karen! XOXO Dori
Hi Dori, that was an awesome clear great talk and explanation. Thank You! I have a question. Can you add a wordpress ‘module’, I don’t know what to call it.. Can you add wordpress to an already static paged website, and this wordpress would function like a an on site blog that could be updated, but also keep the static pages and add to them?
Also, did it say that Dream Host and Blue Host, also include one domain name (isn’t that the url?). Like that url address could be thru them instead of Go Daddy? (Right now, I use one and one.com for both hosting and url domain. I just thought I should go and check and see if they have easy install of wordpress…
Oh, one more question. Can adsense go into wordpress?
thanks so much!!-Lilly
Hi Lilly!
I’m glad the info I shared was clear – and these are GREAT questions!
So, if you make your site a WordPress site, your entire site would be WP. However, that doesn’t mean that you don’t have “static” pages. WP lets you create pages and posts – pages stay the same, posts are you blog posts. I will include this concept in the training series after we have a site up and running, but for now, the thing to know is that if you have another type of site – say one on Wix or Yahoo site builder, or anything like that, you would need to get migration support to move those pages over to WP. Or, simply re-build those pages in WP, which wouldn’t be that difficult either.
You can have a site “link” to a WP blog – but really you would have 2 sites, one that is none WP and one that is WP, but the menu structure can make it look like I’m just navigating to a blog page. There are a few complexities to it, and I don’t recommend it for a lot of reasons.
And yes, if you start up with DreamHost or Blue Host, they do include 1 domain registration, which means you can skip the GoDaddy part if you do those – like you have with 1and1. There is probably an easy install with 1and1 as well, they just aren’t one that I personally recommend.
And yes, you can use AdSense on WP. You can do virtually anything with a site powered by WP that you can do with a site built with custom code – it’s just a matter of how with each type of system.
I hope this helps, and thanks for connecting!! XOXO Dori
Hi Dori,
I have just purchased Dream Host (with the discount) this came with a domain name for free, is that what you mean by URL?
Warmth,
Emma Sumner
Yes, Emma, the URL is the domain name – I see that you figured it out and made it work!
XOXO Dori
Thanks Dori. I am just looking into creating my website. Thanks. Namasté Yvonne
This was great. You made it so clear the difference between the two sites and cleared up a lot of confusion for me. I have a link to a wordpress.com page on my regular website and I see that having a wordpress.org site could be even more fun! Love it! Thanks!