In this installment of our series on “this or that?” we’re going to discuss a very common question that is asked from people who want to get into blogging, which is only one of the most popular activities online today. We’re going to cover the pros and cons of going with a site like blogger to create your blog with or hosting a blog on your own domain and using something like WordPress. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll have a good idea of which direction you want to go in.

Let’s start off with the easier of the two options because this is where most people start. I’m talking about going with a service like Blogger.

Blogger is a piece of cake. You go to the site, sign up, choose your template and you’re done. The only thing left is to post your blog entries. You can literally be up and running in a manner of minutes. It’s free and they handle all the maintenance. It doesn’t get any easier than this. Hard to imagine there being any downside to hosting your blog with a service like Blogger. Well, there are some negatives that you need to be aware of.

The first is probably the most important. When you host a blog through Blogger, you have a page that has a URL something like this…

homebizhelpcenter.blogspot.com

This just happens to be one of my blogs. You will notice that the last part of this URL is blogspot.com. The reason that this is important is because your individual blog is not going to get indexed by the search engines as technically the site isn’t yours. It belongs to Blogger. So all your hard work isn’t going to move you up the search engine ranks. You’re just a cog in a long line of cogs. So if you really want to build an online presence, this isn’t the way to go.

The next thing about going through Blogger that isn’t so great is that because it is technically their site and not yours, they can yank it out from under you at any time that they want. You have absolutely no say in the matter. If they think it’s a spam blog, that’s it, you’re history. So you have no control over what happens to your blog. Also, there are only so many looks you can choose for your blog because they only give you so many templates. In addition to that, the functionality of a blog hosted at Blogger is also limited.

Now, with WordPress, you can pretty much do anything you like. You get your own domain, can choose any themes you want, can add as much functionality to your blog as you want and ultimately end up with your own web site. Sounds perfect, right? Almost. There are downsides.

For one, you need to get your own domain, which costs money. So WordPress is not a free option in that sense. Plus, you have to install it yourself. Oh sure you can get somebody to do it for you but there is still more work involved. Plus, the learning curve for really putting up a WordPress blog that is second to none is quite steep. My first WordPress blog is still primitive in relation to what you can do with it.

So there you have it. The good and bad, pros and cons to having your own blog using WordPress or going through a site like Blogger.

It all comes down to what’s more important to you. Ease of use or having your own web presence.

Some choices are easier than others. This is one of the tough ones.

i am told that the virtuemart theme is not related to the joomla template however when i click to preview shop it shows the joomla template and not the virtuemart theme, regardless of me changing the virtuemart theme in the admin – config – sites section of virtuemart bit of joomla.

when i installed the virtuemart ecommerce package in the section og virtuemart themes was a template that was also in the joomla themes section – don’t know if this makes a difference.

also when i try to change theme options in the virtuemart section they dont appear on the site, however if i add or change a product that appears.

help appreciated.
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