• What is a blog?
• What is a self hosted blog?
• What is WordPress?
• What are the advantages of Self hosted wordpress blog vs free blogging sites?
• How can i get a self hosted blog? How can i get started blogging?

So without further ado, here it goes.

What is a blog and who is it for?

In a few words, a blog is a website. However unlike traditional forms of coding & languages used on static websites such as HTML a blog is more dynamic & can be a combination of different coding languages. Even after that HTML is everywhere inside the codes of the blog, in most cases alongside PHP & JAVA. So if you know a little bit of HTML then you can pretty much modify your blog easily.

In more detail a blog is your gateway to express yourself. It a dynamic website that can be easily updated, manages & configured. Blogs or as they are traditionally known as web logs are for everyone. Yes i mean everyone, be it corporates or small business, full time blogger or a work at home mom. In the current scenario many people from around the world are using blogs, for almost any purpose you can imagine, be it a fan site for a celebrity, a personal diary, a way to earn a living, a log for development activities or a simple way to update the world about your life. If you want to share something, write something or make money online then blogging is for you.

What is a Self Hosted blog?

Now that you know what a blog is, its time to understand the difference between a self hosted blog versus a blogging service. You might have noticed many online services that help you create your blogs easily, some of the well known services are live journal, blogger.com, wordpress.com, type pad, etc. All these sites allow you to create a blog without going through the hassles involved in installing blogs, plugins, modifying the blog, getting web hosting, domains etc. Basically they provide you free blogs on their own site. But like everything else that is free, free blogs have their limitations. One of the biggest disadvantage of the using these services is that the blog you are running, is actually ‘NOT’ yours. I will explain this more in detail later.

On the other hand there are self hosted blogs, which are complete stand alone websites [blogs] that does not depend on any sort of 3rd party services whatsoever. Yes, self hosted blogs do need a backbone and that backbone is the platform they use. A self hosted blog platform is nothing but a blogging CMS (Content Management System). Examples of these systems include wordpress.org (notice it’s not the same as wordpress.com), type pad, b2 evolution, movable type, joomla, durpal, nucleus etc. In a few words, these platforms let you control your blog in any way you want. And if you think having a blogger.com blog with a .com domain name, then please let me tell you that your blog is still not a self hosted blog.

What that means is that you need to ‘host’ the website (blog) on your own server, with your own domain name using a blogging platform, CMS, Script whatever you wish to call it. That is what a self hosted blog actually means. Because your blog is not ‘hosted’ by a 3rd party like blogger.

What is WordPress?

By now you would have already got an idea about what wordpress really is. But in order to avoid any confusion i would like you to note that the wordpress platform ( wordpress.org) is actually the same platform which is used on wordpress.com, it is a self hosted version of wordpress, just like blogger. Now lets get back to wordpress CMS. WordPress blogging platform is first of all Free, it is the single most platform in the world that has a dedicated team which is continuously updating it & providing new features, along with hundreds of other individual developers that provide plugins, add on’s, themes, etc.

WordPress is advance in every sense & is feature filled. In fact self hosted wordpress have a huge advantage in terms of SEO and that is a tested & proved fact. On the other hand wordpress.com is just like blogger (or blogspot) which is yet another free blogging site. Now that you know what wordpress is, lets get to the part you’ve been waiting for.

Advantages & Disadvantages of Self Hosted WordPress blog vs Free Blogging Sites:

15+ Advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog:

There are many advantages of having a self hosted blog rather then a 3rd party hosted blog. Here are the advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog. (Note: These are also the disadvantages of not having a self hosted blog or using free blogging sites)

1. Quality Content: Having a self hosted blog means self hosted content. Your content have a better chance of being indexed & starting a self hosted blog shows your seriousness about the topic you are blogging for. This would be seen as a quality content blog by the search engines.
2. Advanced Communication: Self Hosted Blogs gives you the advantage to explore opportunities when it comes to communicating with your prospective clients or visitors. You can have your own email IDs admin@yourdomain.com which also builds trust and shows professionalism. This however would not be possible in free blog unless of course you were using a domain and email forwarders. You can also add modules that allows you to organize events, contests, engaging content for your visitors, etc. This again is not so possible with free blogging sites.
3. RSS Feeds: Self Hosted wordpress gives you an upper hands when it comes to content syndication with its built in RSS & ATOM features. Not all free blogging sites provide RSS features as extensive as wordpress. Self hosted blogs gives you the ability to provide email & RSS subscriptions as well as pull in your RSS feeds to your social sites such as twitter, linkdin, facebook, etc.
4. Total Control: With self hosted blogs you are in complete control, in contrast to free blogging platforms this could be a huge advantage if you are an avid blogger. You get total control as its your web hosting, your domain & your platform (since you are the admin). You also don’t have to worry about bandwidth limitations, hosting space, etc. Imagine if you were using free blogging sites and had built a complete blog with active visitors & lots of content & one day all of a sudden you realize your blog was shut down, closed, deleted. No matter what was the reason, you take this risk when you opt for free blogging sites.
5. Ease of Use: WordPress blogging platform is as easy as it gets. The navigation of wordpress dashboard is extremely user friendly & with so many resources available online regarding wordpress & everything related to wordpress you can easily get used to a self hosted wordpress blog. Well the most important part is, you don’t need any coding experience in order to update, modify or improve your blog. This might not be the case when it comes to free blogging platforms.
6. Community: Getting yourself a self hosted wordpress blog also means that you are joining a very large wordpress community. Even if you were to say free blogging sites also have communities, i would say their community is limited to the ‘site itself’, for example wordpress.com community is limited to wordpress.com since all the blogs are on that one single domain. But if you are using wordpress self hosted platform you a bigger community & that means more ways to grow your network & build reputation.
7. Clean Coding: WordPress & many other self hosted blog platforms are developed by professional developers and have valid & verified coding. This means that what ever site you run using these platforms you will always be on the safe side because you will never have a coding problem, you are also free to edit the codes to modify & suit your needs. This again is not the case when it comes to free blogging platforms.
8. Promotion & social media: You can easily promote a self hosted blog since its a separate web identity. You can add sharing tools, plugins and easily promote to twitter, facebook, digg, etc. Being independent is always better when it comes to credibility, branding & of course making money.
9. User Friendly Interface: Self hosted wordpress sites can easily be customized, giving you the option to make your site as user or visitor friendly as possible, without all the cluttering or bad navigation. In fact the recent wordpress updates gives you the ability to add new navigation menus easily without depending on your theme for it.
10. Plugins: WordPress has a huge collection of plugins contributed by the wordpress community developers. Most plugins are free & you can find a plugin for adding almost any functionality to your blog. There are also some paid or premium plugins that offer certain features but they are usually not listed on the wordpress plugin database.
11. Endless supply of Themes & Design Options: Design of a blog is very important and could give you the edge over other bloggers. Modifying designs of a blog or finding free themes for free blogging services can be hard, if not impossible. WordPress has a themes database where you can find free themes. There are also many individual theme developers providing paid themes, some of which are really elegant & amazing. Self Hosted WordPress also provides you the ability to change or Edit the CSS of the blog or almost anything you can imagine. You can also find some free premium wordpress themes.
12. Affordable:Self hosted blogs are free, but you still have to pay for domain names, web hosting, premium themes & plugins, etc. However self hosted blogs are always preferred over free blogging platforms due to the branding & professional factor. And to be honest wordpress hosted blogs are affordable to a small business or even to a stay at home mom because the hosting & domain charges are minimal compared to the advantages you get.
13. Secure & Easy to fix: If you ever encounter problems with a free blog then your blog is as close as dead, however with wordpress hosted blogs you have hundreds of hours of security feature coding, thousands of support articles & the ability to create complete back up of your sites & upload them any time via FTP!
14. Branding & Reputation: Having a unique domain name & look gives you the reputation and branding edge over free blogging sites. Self hosted blogs are easy to brand & build as a reputable blog. Free blogs are regarded as free and you can’t expect to build a company or a brand on a free blogging service, can you?
15. SEO: This by far is the biggest reason why wordpress is so popular. WordPress self hosted blogs due to the simple & clean coding, instant content updates and great features gives you a bigger advantage when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Search Engines love dynamic & continuously updating content, wordpress is exactly built on those concept. Better SEO = more visitors, which is better any day when compared to a dead, traffic less free blog.
16. Making Money: Yes that is right, if you want to make money blogging then switch to wordpress self hosted blogs. You have the ability to monetize your site, put on advertising such as ad-sense, banner ads, pop up ads, sell your site for a profit or even rent it. You definitely cannot do that on free blogging sites. Why? because some of them force their ads on your blog, some will simply not allow you to put any sort of ads on your own blog! In fact you end up making money for these free blogging platforms when you use their services, so choose wisely.

Disadvantages of self hosted blogs:

There aren’t many disadvantages to self hosted blogs, and the few that are depends purely on your situation.

1. Complicated Set up: If you don’t know how to follow simple instructions or are completely new to the web and have no tech knowledge then setting up a self hosted blog can be a denting task. However there are guides that can make this easy, but obviously it will take time. Free blogging sites are easy to set up since they provide the same set of themes, plugins, etc. All you have to do is create an account and your ready to go.
2. Cost: If budget is your problem or you don’t even have $100 or so to pay for web hosting & domains for up to a year, then self hosted blogs are not for you. Yes, there are costs but they are really worth it compared to the advantages you get. And of course you are not limited to a blog when you have web hosting & domain, you can do anything you can imagine!
3. Updates: Some self hosting blog platforms are hard to update, however wordpress blogs can be updated with a click of a button. So this is quite not a disadvantage unless you are using other self hosted blog platforms. Its a lot more complicated if you don’t know what your doing.
4. Hosting Issues: Having a bad host can ruin it for you & your blog. Some free & paid hosting services have downtime issues or the type of content you post, etc.  But if you are paying good & sign up for a reputable hosting company like Hostgator then this shouldn’t be a problem.

How can i get a self hosted blog? How can i get started blogging?

Finally now that you are aware of the advantages of having a self hosted wordpress blog. It is time to get started on blogging. The answer is really simple & a 3 step process:

• Get Web Hosting: I recommend HostGator Personally, because i use them myself (even this blog) & have had no issues in past 2 years. They also have unlimited bandwidth & space along with various features, the most important one is being able to install wordpress with a few clicks. Check out HostGator & their prices here. If you do plan to go with them then take the hatchling package as that is the most cheapest one & good for start ups. I personally use the baby package since i have more then 1 sites hosted with them. (Use code : SJRECOMMENDS to get 25% off)
• Get Domain Name: A good domain is important. Registering a domain should be cheap as compared to web hosting, most domain names cost around 7-10$ per year (.com/org/net) while a .info can cost as low as 2$. I usually register my domains with GoDaddy, sometimes with name cheap. Check them out.
• Install WordPress, Themes & Plugins: Hostgator provides fantastico installer, which makes it easy to install wordpress on your site in a few clicks. You can do this directly from your hosting CPanel account. You can get free themes & plugins as mentioned previously. If however you want more advanced & great looking themes then i recommend elegant themes. I personally use one of their themes for this blog & their themes are really great & absolutely cheap, they have more then 40+ themes for as low as 50 cents a theme.

TIP: If you register at Hostgator, then use the coupon code 'SJRECOMMENDS'
to get 25% of your package. Along with that, feel free to get in touch with
me if you need any help with blogging, i will try my best to help you.

Of course there is more to blogging then the above mentioned 3 step process. However i think this post is already long enough so i will leave that for my next post.

Final words:

Switch over to self hosted wordpress or any self hosted blogs if you are serious about blogging. And if you found this article useful then please share it! I would really appreciate if you shared it anywhere you want as a way of repaying me for the information. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter @sameerjoad & subscribe to my feeds to keep receiving more informative articles form me.

Till then take care & wishing you great success,

SJ

Seriously! Not kidding i did!

and for those of you who have a hard time digesting this, then here’s the screen shot of my AdSense account, that’s 97k in just 1 month – I am now officially the king of AdSense !

Now that i have your attention, want to know my secret?

Unlike all other gurus i am not going to make a ebook about this and sell, instead of doing that i am going to share those secrets which made me solid $97k within a month, so hang on with me till the end – believe me you don’t want to miss this!

Did you Got Ripped off ?? Ad Sense treasure? Make money with AdSense?

Well i did got ripped off many times with AdSense product and ebooks, i never made a single BUCK until i discovered this extremely ‘Top Secret’ which all AdSense gurus DON’T want YOU to know about! But i am going to expose the ‘top secret’ of all those ‘AdSense gurus’ today so you can too be a AdSense Guru.

But Wait till you find out how these so-called gurus rip you off without you suspecting a single thing. Before that let me tell you something about one so called program called Adsense Treasure [LINK REMOVED]

A guy named Abid says he made $40k dollars with AdSense using his super AdSense site, now to come to think of it – when someone boasts so much about their products then of course people want proof to believe it and this guy shows you PROOF as well,[screen shots of his AdSense account - which looks very real - almost like mine!]

Take a look at some interesting facts of what most AdSense gurus will sell, tell and earn!

1. The main Adsense treasure site is actually not the one which i showed you here, but this guy made it viral by introducing a affiliate program so indirectly he is making 100 other people to use his product and scam other innocent people, the picture you see on that site are not even real,if you were smart and Google those pictures on Google images for ‘AdSense treasure’ you will find them hosted over 100 sites and the exact same copies of these ‘AdSense treasure sites’ are everywhere on the net take a look at this one here. Does that ring a bell?

2. Most AdSense Gurus will sell you ‘articles’ or ‘article sites’ with a promise of get-set-forget but the hard truth is these articles they provide you are being used by 100+ other sites on the net, so if you even trusted this you will end up having duplicate content on your site which means you won’t make anything via AdSense as Google is going to penalize you!

3. Almost All AdSense gurus will sell you junk that is a ‘rewritten’ version of some old product which you never knew!

4. AdSense Gurus never show you a ‘live’ working site of their own using which they earn so much as they promise you!

5. AdSense Gurus earn more money selling their ‘AdSense products’ and via affiliate programs then they earn with that AdSense Program!

6. No AdSense guru will actually provide you with a valid ‘thank you’ letter from Google, but the truth is any AdSense or ad word member who performs excellently well is being thanked by Google or they have appreciation letter right form Google!

7. AdSense won’t make you money without a website or via ‘revenue sharing’ unless you work extremely hard!

8. Most Gurus will ask you to advertise via AdWords and then monetize your ‘advertised’ page via AdSense to make money, now that is Dumb! but people fell for it too

9. 80% of AdSense products are useless and the only way you earn money via it is through click bank!

10. AdSense is Google property, if you think you can trick and make money with AdSense like the gurus tell you to then you scammed a Internet Giant! Get used to it their are no shortcuts to making money with AdSense or tricks to earn overnight – the only fact is these are methods the gurus use to promote their products.

How they hypnotize you into buying and make you believe their products?

Its basically because the sales letters of such sites are too good to be true, just a few months back their was a site that promised you ‘free Google AdWords ads’ and everyone fell for it, without doing any research or being a well informed buyer – people JUST buy them!

And the biggest reason for that is the proofs they provide, those screen shots which are definitely not photoshop are too hard to part with, but now comes the interesting part you all been waiting for!

True AdSense money makers are those who are good in analytic and SEO along with lots of traffic. But wait their is still 1 way to make $97k+ with AdSense and that’s my way!

My secret to $97k+ a month!

remember the screen shot i showed you above?  No its not photoshop its real!

But the truth is i never earned $97k+ this month, i wish i did tho lol,bottom line that screen shot is fake!I had you believing me for a second dint i?

Here is the secret i promised – I used a ‘AdSense screen shot Generator’ to generate this image, its as easy as 1, 2, 3! and now imagine all those people who fell  for these scams and worse of all all those affiliates who promote these scams!

You want to know about the generator also? go here its one of those fake generators [please don't use it to scam others]

well i don’t know your intentions but my intention for that screen shot was to inform you about how easy it is for anyone to ‘label’ themselves are ‘AdSense gurus’ and rip you off, just like this guy abid and many others are doing online, i learned the lesson the hard way but i don’t want the same to happen to you guys! So watch out for these pesky AdSense gurus!

If you think you got scammed just like i did then give this article a digg or tweet and help spread the word!

Don’t forget to share and Buy me a smile (see sidebar) and of course join me on twitter, my fan page & subscribe to the feeds to stay updated. Till then have a great day,

SJ

This is my personal review of Moola.com, a program that pays you to play games with a potential to win up to $10 million by risking it all – SJ

Get paid to play?

Is that really possible? well if it was any other gambling site then i won’t write about it, but ‘get paid to play’ is turning out to be a very hot concept currently with many sites turning up, inspired by the ‘get paid to industry’ i think you guessed it already you are basically getting paid to do something which you already do. The concept is a mix of casinos and get paid to, but unlike casinos you don’t have to risk money form your pockets in order to climb up the ladder to earn big.

Well yes, but with a twist, Moola is one such ‘get paid to play site’ with a twist, Moola gives you 1 penny when you first join it and it gives you the ability to bet that penny against other users of your level on a game, their are many games you can chose from, the winner doubles the amount since he gets to keep his own penny and the losers penny, while the loser starts all over again with 1 penny, but according to Moola if you win 30 consecutive times then the amount you make is $10,737,418.24!!

WoW, that’s what you must be thinking but i don’t think anyone has reached that goal their yet, even tho their are some members who have successfully cashed out, the lowest amount with which you can cash out is $10.

Moola is not a gambling site but it is very very close to being one, since you don’t risk any money from your pocket its fun playing on the site, currently it features 4 games and has many features including lots of exciting competitions and games, if you want to see an entire list of moola’s services then search for moola on wikipedia.

What else is new?

Moola along with its exciting features and service also has ‘paid to shop’ offers, where you get good amounts of discounts based on the merchants affiliated with moola.

Moola was invitational based only, means only current users could invite you to join moola but recently moola started sending invitations from the site itself so that everyone can join. Moola also has the ability to invite your facebook friends to play moola from facebook.

The best part about moola is that even if you don’t really make anything out their you will definitely have fun or pass your time, maybe that’s why it was featured as no.11 on pc-worlds ‘15 best websites to waste your time‘.

What the people are saying?

Moola is great but it is limited, mostly because moola is a Canadian based company allowing only American and Canadians to register on the site, so others from around the world cannot participate on moola.Why am i reviewing it? because of the feedback i got from my friends who have used moola so i think its worth a mention.

secondly moola will show you advertisements from anywhere between 10-30 seconds each time you play a game, this means that you will have to let the video finish in order to proceed, this gives the advertisers benefits of making sure their videos are seen but it gets very annoying at times.

So that’s it for moola, if your from the US or Canada make sure you check out moola! Moola can make your ‘make money online‘ dream come true.

Update: Moola now accepts international members? I haven’t checked this personally but read a review on another site. So try it if and do leave a comment or your own review.

Don’t forget to share this post, subscribe to my RSS feeds & follow me on twitter @sameerjoad till then have a good day,

SJ

This is my personal review of Hunch.com, a recommendation engine that helps you make good & informed decisions – SJ

Can’t decide where you should go for summer holidays?

Or what jobs to apply for? Which new car would you buy? Where to invest that money you have been saving for awhile? What gift to buy for your relations? So many questions but hard to decide, right?

There are times when you are unable to decide what to do and those times are really stressful. Many people have a hard time making the right choices, some go for what they want to do while others chose to follow advices, but nonetheless when it comes to decision making we really wish that life could have been just a straight road but unfortunately its not, it has many turns, twists and surprises and ultimately we have to come to a decision. I consider making informed decisions as part of personal development.

Most of us are likely to follow advices or do the same as others around us do, but have you ever wondered if that’s the best suited choice for you? Need guidance?

Well look no further, introducing Hunch.

What president should i vote for?

Hunch is a very smart platform which helps you make the right choices regarding anything and everything, once you find your issue using the huge database, the hunch bot will start asking you questions related to your problem, these questions will have different answers attached to it and each answer has a different follow up question attached, so in a series of steps after you completed the questionnaires the hunch bot will search and match your results with the solutions database and it will give you the best options you should go for, in case you don’t like those it will always provide you with alternatives.

Based on your activities, the more you use hunch the better the hunch bot will get to know you and the better it will respond to your decision making. When you first visit the site, hunch will ask you few questions and those answers will be saved to your browser, the next time you visit hunch it will automatically detect you and it will get as close results as possible for you based on your location, personality, hobbies and more.

So if their is something you can’t decide about, make sure you check hunch.com their smart robot will definitely help you in your needs and best part about it is you don’t even have to sign up or create any accounts to use hunch system, even tho if you do create your account then hunch bot will perform a lot more better!

Go ahead and give it a try, Ask Hunch, enjoy your results and good luck decision making.

Update 2011: Hunch has grown incredibly and has helped thousands of people so far. They also have a goodies section & a very large community. You will now need to register at hunch for more.

Don’t forget to share this post, subscribe to my RSS feeds & follow me on twitter @sameerjoad till then have a good day,

SJ