When is WordPress.com just good enough?
I get this question a lot:
“If I’m serious about my blogging efforts, shouldn’t I be hosting my blog with my own ISP?”
The answer, like so many things, is “it depends.” For most individuals and even small businesses, I actually recommend starting out with WordPress.com. Only making the leap to a self-hosted option when (and if) you run up against certain specific needs. Such as:
- Do you truly *need* a heavily customized blog design? For example, to tie back in to your corporate branding?
- Do you need to do something unique, such as hosting and displaying a deep video library? (though VideoPress may be a viable option now)
- Do you need a custom plugin not offered by WP.com?
- Do you want to run your own advertising?
- Do you need to hack the core WordPress PHP files to do interesting things?
If “no” was the answer the above, then just stick with WordPress.com. After all, it does offer a wealth of free options, highly quality themes, and serious premium options, such as private branding and custom CSS, to make it suitable for most blogging efforts (such as Mayo Clinic’s excellent blogs).
So start small, focus on the content, and don’t hassle with self-hosting unless you need to.
Enjoy your long weekend!
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