New blog recommentdations - Any Pelican bloggers?

[daepp]

Here are a few of my considerations. There are most likely many more that I haven't even thought of.


- does not have to be free, but that would be nice
- I am a very amateurish photographer, but I like to photoblog trips and events and I usually include comments/captions
- It would be nice to be able to tie it into facebook or PP or the like
- I do have a Godaddy account with several URL's so adding such would not be hard if I wanted it to have it's own web address
- I do not know how to program - my training started with BASIC, then a bit of FORTRAN (with punch cards no less), then ended with COBOL, which I never used!

So aside from the cost, is it better to use pay sites or use free?
Is there software to buy that would make it easy to host. My son just built me a mega-fast gaming PC with 5TB of storage - and I don't even game!

Any info would be appreciated.

Thank you kindly,

David

[id10t]

Who hosts your current domains? They may have it ready to go for you.

Setting up wordpress on a 1and1.com account is trivial. Or just open an account on blogger.com - dunno if they do custom domains or not, but if not it is trivial to add a link to your "normal" site

[wdfifteen]

The Wordpress has several free blog templates that are easy to use and can be used with other hosts. GoDaddy can host it for you, or look around for a free host.

[TimT]

Doesn't Smugmug have something like you are looking for? The have a good forum also Dgrin

[Mericet]

I would use Wordpress.com. You can start the blog on their site, really easy to use. Many templates to choose from as well. It is also easy to migrate the site later as most web hosts will support a Wordpress site.

[Brando]

You want to host your blog on your own website. You will get zero to minimal link value hosting it under another service.

[daepp]

Mr. Brando - what does link value do for you?

[Brando]

Originally Posted by daepp

Mr. Brando - what does link value do for you?

Has to do with SEO. If you want your main website to build up authority, rank for terms, etc it can help by building up internal linking and relevancy.

If you host your blog on a separate domain it can work to drive links and traffic - and ranking for certain terms when optimized - to your main site. If you are not concerned about that, host your blog wherever is easiest for you to manage.

[tdw28210]

See Wordpress and Facebook samples in my signature. They are tied in to each other, but the Facebook site usually gets more traffic. I've got 300 subscribers to the website/blog and 440 Facebook "likes", most of which never post. I started on Facebook, but got sick of seeing Facebook monetize my content - hence the website/blog.