Today, blogging has become a profession for many. However, most professional bloggers start out as hobbyist bloggers. And while the blogging journey varies for different people, there are several stages of the journey when a blogger thinks of shifting from their existing blogging platform to a new one. WordPress is a popular name for blogging across the internet. There are two categories; whether WordPress.org or WordPress.com need to be implemented while building your website requires an in-depth discussion.
WordPress Website Development Company in India are the creator of this platform leveraging business across Industries by establishing their presence through designing blogs and generating links on Google. But, what many bloggers don’t know is that there are two versions of the platform: a self-hosted one and a hosted one. While the former is available in the form of WordPress.org, the latter is available in the form of WordPress.com.
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The Benefits of Using WordPress.com for Your Website
In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial for businesses and individuals alike. One of the most popular platforms for building websites is WordPress.com. Whether you’re a small business owner, a blogger, or a creative professional, WordPress.com offers numerous benefits that can help you establish and maintain a successful online presence. Let’s explore some of the key advantages of using WordPress.com.
- Easy to Use and Setup: WordPress.com provides a user-friendly interface and intuitive tools that make it easy to set up a website, even for those with limited technical knowledge. You don’t have to worry about server setup, software installation, or complex coding. With just a few clicks, WordPress theme development allows you to customize it to match your brand, and start publishing content.
- Hosted Solution: One of the major advantages of WordPress.com is that it’s a hosted solution. This means that WordPress takes care of all the technical aspects of running a website, including server maintenance, security updates, and backups. You can focus on creating content and growing your online presence, without the hassle of managing servers or dealing with technical issues.
- Wide Range of Themes and Plugins: WordPress.com offers a vast library of professionally designed themes and a wide variety of plugins to enhance the functionality of your website.
Whether you need a clean and minimalist design or a feature-rich eCommerce site, you can find a theme that suits your needs. Plugins allow you to add functionality such as contact forms, social media integration, SEO optimization, and more, without requiring coding skills.
- Mobile Responsive: With the increasing use of smartphones and tablets, having a mobile-responsive website is essential. WordPress.com ensures that your website automatically adjusts to different screen sizes, providing a seamless user experience across devices. Besides ensuring website speed optimization, this responsiveness improves user engagement, boosts search engine rankings, and helps you reach a wider audience.
- SEO-Friendly: Search engine optimization (SEO) is vital for improving your website’s visibility and attracting organic traffic. WordPress.com is built with SEO best practices in mind, making it easier for search engines to crawl and index your content. It also offers SEO plugins, such as Yoast SEO, that enable you to optimize your pages and posts with meta tags, keywords, and other SEO elements.
- Community and Support: WordPress.com has a vibrant and supportive community of users, developers, and experts who are always ready to help. You can join forums, attend meetups, and access extensive documentation and tutorials. Additionally, WordPress.com offers dedicated customer support to assist you with any technical issues or questions you may have.
Some improvement Areas of WordPress.org
WordPress.org, being one of the most popular content management systems (CMS) in the world, certainly has numerous advantages. However, like any software platform, it also has its limitations that users should be aware of. Understanding these limitations can help individuals and businesses make informed decisions when considering WordPress.org as their CMS of choice.
- Technical Expertise: While WordPress.org is renowned for its user-friendly interface, setting up and maintaining a WordPress.org website may still require some technical expertise. Users should be familiar with concepts such as web hosting, domain management, and server configuration. Although there are extensive resources available in the form of documentation, forums, and online communities, some level of technical proficiency is beneficial for managing a WordPress.org website effectively.
- Security: WordPress.org, like any popular CMS, can be a target for hackers and malicious actors. Security vulnerabilities can arise due to outdated plugins, themes, or core files. While WordPress.org regularly releases security updates, it is essential for website owners to stay vigilant and ensure their site is properly protected. Implementing security best practices, such as strong passwords, regular backups, and using trusted plugins, can help mitigate these risks.
- Plugin and Theme Quality: The extensive plugin and theme ecosystem of WordPress.org is undoubtedly one of its strengths. However, the quality of these extensions can vary significantly. While many plugins and themes are well-maintained, regularly updated, and thoroughly tested, others may be outdated, incompatible, or even contain malicious code. Careful selection and research are necessary when choosing plugins and themes to avoid potential compatibility issues or security risks.
- Scalability and Performance: Although WordPress.org is capable of handling websites of all sizes, its performance may be affected by factors such as server resources, poorly optimized themes or plugins, and excessive database queries. High traffic volumes or complex functionalities may require additional optimization efforts, such as caching, content delivery networks (CDNs), or server upgrades, to ensure optimal performance and scalability.
- Learning Curve: Despite its user-friendly interface, WordPress.org can still have a learning curve for beginners. Understanding concepts like themes, templates, widgets, and plugins, as well as mastering the WordPress dashboard and settings, may take some time for individuals who are new to the platform. However, with the availability of tutorials, documentation, and online communities, users can gradually acquire the necessary skills to harness the full potential of WordPress.org.
How are both different and when should either of them be used?
Domain Name & Ownership Of Content:- The .com version provides a subdomain for your blog for free whereas the .org version requires you to buy a domain name for your blog. Additionally, the content on a .com blog is not owned by the user but the content on the latter is fully owned by the user.
Scope Of Customization:- The source code of the .com version cannot be modified while the source code of the .org version can be modified, thereby giving immense scope for customization for a blog built on the latter. Moreover, there exists a wide range of WordPress Plugins (15000+) available for the .org version and there are only 15-20 plugins available for use for the blogs on the .com version.
WordPress.org offers a wide range of flexibility to developers who are able to customize the website on their own. For example, by installing several WordPress themes you can make many changes to the website, in terms of designs and functionalities.
Design Choices:- There is a large variety of themes (ie 1500 +) available for the .org version while there are only a few themes (200 to be exact) available for the .com version. Therefore, bloggers on the former version enjoy more design choices.
Monetization:- A blog built on the .com version can be monetized only if it receives 25,000 page views per month and the income obtained thereafter must be split with them. However, in the case of a blog built on the .org version, you can begin employing suitable advertisements anytime.
Pricing:- The basic version of .com is free of cost. And premium membership offering 13 GB storage space costs, e-mail support, and some customization costs 99$. On the other hand, the .org version is free to install and set up.
Storage Space:- The storage space offered by the .com version is 3 GB for free. And the .org version offers unlimited storage space.
Maintenance:- A blog created on the .com version is maintained by the company Automatic. On the other hand, a blog created on the .org version needs to be maintained by the blogger himself.
Which One Should You Use?
Now, let us come to the important question. Which one should be used by a blogger? Considering the easy deployment of ads and the control and flexibility which WordPress.org offers, it is an ideal choice for bloggers who want to make money out of blogging. Whereas the .com version is ideal for hobbyist bloggers who don’t want to worry about site maintenance.
FAQs
Q. Which is better WordPress org or WordPress com?
Remembering the distinction between WordPress.com and WordPress.org is the simplest method. org offers sophisticated customisation and revenue opportunities.
Q. Is WordPress com the same as WordPress org?
WordPress.com offers hosting services as well as a platform on which you may construct your website using the WordPress application. As it is sometimes called, WordPress.org does not offer hosting services and is not even a platform.
Q. Is WordPress com more secure than WordPress org?
Since WordPress.com is a closed system hosted by a business, it is by default more secure. Even additional security can be added to WordPress.org, but doing so needs some configuration, a secure web server, and security plugins.
