A reader asks,

…there is the question of considering those sites that offer providing a “free website”, which has a blogging page and of course they come with lots of tools to set it up and I’ve visited some that appear to have turned out satisfactory. So my struggle is why not go with a “free website” which includes a blog page versus a site only for blogging?

I received this question while I was traveling, so asked the trusty and smart assistant to help me with the answer. We finish each others’ sentences so I knew she’d explain it well. Here’s our response, with additional comments from me in italic.

It depends on your goals for your blog. If you are just looking for a place to journal your thoughts and don’t care if you ever get traffic, a free blog is all you need. However, if you want to start a business or make money through your site/blog, it is a great way to go!

WordPress is much more than a blog. It is considered to be a content management system. It can handle everything from articles, photo galleries, audio, and video to more complex things such as shopping carts and membership areas. Also, people power complete web sites from small to the very big using it. It is very robust and you don’t have to ‘just blog’ on it.

Those of us who have been around for a while and started out using “free websites” will tell you that they aren’t all they are cracked up to be. That’s why we’ve left those free websites and gone with picking a domain name and hosting WordPress there. Here are a few of the reasons that many successful business owners choose WordPress for their website/blog. Many free services are very restrictive in their terms of use. Take your time and read the fine print you’ll see what we mean. From not allowing Adsense to not allowing affiliate links and commercial use the restrictions are all over the board but they are there in very fine print. Also, some put ads on your site. Yes, you will eventually put your own ads but that’s the thing isn’t it? You work so hard on creating valuable content, a nice web site and they profit from all your hard work. So no, that is certainly not free and in my eyes, not a fair bargain because hosting and creating a web site is relatively cheap. Building quality content and maintaining a site is not.

More Control – When you put WordPress on your own custom domain name, you have total control of what goes on your site. There are very few restrictions as opposed to the limitations on “free websites”

Flexibility – With your own hosting and domain name, you have a lot more options, like personalized e-mail with your own domain name. This adds a huge amount of credibility. People are less likely to take you seriously or buy if you’re on a “free site.”

Exposure – Search engines love WordPress. With a good search engine optimized Theme and simple tweaks to WordPress, you can get your site indexed easily just by adding content.

Ease of Use – WordPress is easy to use but with the help of Blogging Starter Pack, it’s even easier to learn how to make the most of your website and blogging efforts.