The Future Of This Site And Why I Can’t Generate Revenue (Yet)
Posted by JC on October 30, 2006
When I first launched this blog, I had intentions of quickly setting up advertising and a whole slew of other forms of generating revenue through this site. I had a layout all ready and I was going to rapidly build this site through my “Building This Site” series. I had read a great deal about doing this and how WordPress seemed to be the most ideal, most restriction-free way of generating revenue.
Unfortunately, the deeper I looked into adding to this site, the less I found I could do.
Why?
First – the most important thing: I am using WordPress.com.
WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org
Currently I use WordPress.com to create this blog. WordPress.com is a site that allows you to create your own blog, provides hosting for you to do so, and is completely free. Since WordPress.com hosts your blog for you, there are several (and I mean several) restrictions. One of the most important restriction is that WordPress.com does not allow advertising of any kind (because this requires you to add javascript code into your site).
In fact, any outside code is frowned upon when operating a WordPress.com blog. The reason is for security purposes. Since WordPress.com hosts your site for you, things like javascript code and other forms programming may introduce viruses or perhaps even slow down their systems.
So if you are running a blog and your URL for your blog is something like: myblog.wordpress.com, it means your blog is using WordPress.com, which means tough luck – you can’t run advertising of any sort.
So what is WordPress.org? WELL – if you have a domain name and you have found a host for your site, you can get all of WordPress features from WordPress.org. Basically at WordPress.org, you get the complete package of software that allows you to run your own WordPress blog provided you have a host and you have your own domain name.
If you are using the WordPress.org package, it is very versatile and it has many plugins and widgets and gives you the flexability to do anything you really wish to your blog.
Since WordPress is not in charge of hosting your blog, you are free to put anything (javascript and all) into your blog. When you see people talking about how WordPress is great because of all the features and about how they can integrate all kinds of advertising on their blogs, you have to keep in mind: these people have their own domain name and they have their own hosting!
When I first thought of the idea for this site, I was unfortunately duped into using WordPress.com because of all the hype and how all other bloggers were hyping WordPress. Keep in mind that when I was reading articles about making money with your blog, I was still a novice and didn’t have a clue as to the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Here is a list of things I cannot do with this WordPress.com blog:
- I cannot place advertising on this blog
- I cannot adjust the way this blog looks (i.e. adjust margins, widen sidebars)
- Certain elements do not work 100% (my SiteMeter counter does not work 100%)
- I cannot add anything that can analyze the traffic coming to this site (such as Google Analytics, etc)
- I cannot add certain elements that can help drive traffic to this site (i.e. Diggit, Del.icio.us and Reddit buttons)
- I cannot add anything that requires you to add code to the blog (which is a lot!)
So What Now?
Since I’ve already put in a lot of time and effort into this blog and since I really like the features that the package from WordPress.org, I will continue with this blog and someday in the future I will transfer this blog onto my own host (I’ve read that doing this is a real pain, but like they say – no pain, no gain!).
I’ll continue adding content to this site (which is a key to any good blog) and once I have an established set of readers and have some good regular traffic coming to the site, I can then start considering moving this blog onto it’s own host. I will continue with my “Building This Site” series, but I will instead focus on what I’m doing to drive traffic (which is still considered building a site) – such things as Technocrati, Fark, Digg, Del.icio.us, etc (don’t worry, I’ll cover these in later posts) .
Over the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing more things related to blogging including terms and definitions, how to use certain tools, review of certain programming that will be needed and any developments in the blogging arena.
So Why Don’t I Just Use Blogger/Blogspot?
I’ve had some success in generating income from my other Blogger/Blogspot blogs and so comes the question: why didn’t I use Blogger/Blogspot?
I know they currently have a Beta Blogger (a new version of Blogger) that is supposed to have more features than the current existing Blogger, but I still like the wealth of features and the freedom that WordPress has.
And besides, I wanted this blog to be kind of a “learn-as-you-go” type of thing so that readers out there could also follow along.
In the meantime, I hope you bear with me and hopefully we can all learn a lot in the coming weeks!
Blogging For Income 
Phileo said
JC,
I take it that you’re aware of this on the differences between wordpress.com and wordpress.org.
But after reading your post, I’d say that you probably know more about the differences than that faq post reveals. Quite a bummer that you can’t place any scripting code into this blog. How will you drive traffic to this blog if you can’t add in scripting code?
And how bad is it to migrate your blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org ?
diadascency said
Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.
The University of Florida, Florida State University found that physically attractive people almost instantly attract the attention of the interlocutor, sobesednitsy with them, literally, it is difficult to make eye. This conclusion was reached by a series of psychological experiments, which were determined by the people who believe in sending the first seconds after the acquaintance. Here, a curious feature: single, unmarried experimental preferred to look at the guys, beauty opposite sex, and family, people most often by representatives of their sex.
The authors believe that this feature developed a behavior as a result of the evolution: a man trying to find a decent pair to acquire offspring. If this is resolved, he wondered potential rivals. Detailed information about this magazine will be published Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
In turn, a joint study of the Rockefeller University, Rockefeller University and Duke University, Duke University in North Carolina revealed that women are perceived differently by men smell. During experiments studied the perception of women one of the ingredients of male pheromone-androstenona smell, which is contained in urine or sweat.
The results were startling: women are part of this repugnant odor, and the other part is very attractive, resembling the smell of vanilla, and the third group have not felt any smell. The authors argue that the reason is that the differences in the receptor responsible for the olfactory system, from different people are different.
It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.
Magnolia said
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Magnolia!
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