Alright, so I didn’t scare some of you away with yesterday’s post, Top 5 myths of blogging for money. If you’re new, where do you go from here? Although Blogger (aka Blogspot) is a great tool for beginners, serious bloggers flock to WordPress. (BTW, when I mention WordPress in this article, I’m referring to using the blogging platform from WordPress.org, not WordPress.com. If you don’t know the difference between the two, please check out my WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org post.)

There’s nothing wrong with using Blogger. In fact, I wrote a post not too long ago describing the quick steps for creating a free blog in Blogger. But if you want to make money, you need to migrate to WordPress. I’ve used both Blogger and WordPress for years and there is a big difference in features and control. I even used this site to chronicle a transition from Blogger to WordPress. WordPress is actually a free tool but it will cost you a few bucks for a domain name and hosting.

“Wait, you mean I should consider buying a domain name and paying for hosting?”

Yes, you should! I know, it seems scary for new bloggers; it’s a psychological thing. Why pay for anything when there are free tools? Well, you can use these other free blog sites for things like personal blogs, subsidiary blogs, random rant blogs, even backlink blogs but you won’t really be able to use it for a money making blog. And even if you don’t care about making money blogging, depending on how seriously you take your “hobby”, you may still consider having full control over everything on your blog. Think about all the things you spent $100 on. That’s more than you’ll need for your domain name and hosting for a year.

Although I used to work as a corporate trainer and currently teach at a Big Ten University, I have no interest in creating a step-by-step video for getting started in WordPress. Instead, I reviewed some of the WordPress training videos out there and found a pretty good newbie guide.

Just a quick warning: this is for beginners to WordPress. Bloggers already using WordPress won’t get much value from it.

I don’t know Chris Abraham personally but I think he does a good job walking you through the WordPress basics. I hope you found that the WordPress admin console is pretty intuitive and this video got you excited about using the product. Now that the fear of using something new is gone, the only other obstacle is breaking that mental barrier of spending money on a domain name and hosting. To me, $100 (actually closer to $75) is a small price to pay to tell people how serious I am about my blog.

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