I just want to give everyone a warning to think about if you are deciding blogging is something you want to do for your self or your company.

When you use free blogging software your competition can screw you over big time!

Blogger!

I used Blogger for my first blog and I created the blog in response to three local companies trying to knock my main business site off of the first page of Google for a particular search phrase. Anyway, my blog was doing well and I was getting tons of traffic. I thought I was safe, but I wasn’t. If someone reports to Google that you are spamming your blog Google will consider your blog spam until you prove otherwise.

I didn’t get an email; all the sudden I had to enter a code to prove a person was writing the entry and I didn’t know why. In the end I found out someone reported me as spam {11 times in one day- I am not suppose to know that though :-)} and Google threw all my pages into supplemental and the Google people told me there was really know way to guarantee they would ever come out of supplemental; the pages were already considered spam.

WordPress!

I have a client that really has not had their blog long. I get an email from WordPress saying I have 7 hours to remove all links back to their business site, except ONE in the blogroll or I could place one in a text widget. After a bunch of emails and me insisting on some sort of answer I discovered that someone contacted WordPress and told them that this business was violating the Terms of Service (TOS) by adding a link to their signature.

My Recommendation…

If you can afford $64 for the first year go with HostICan. I signed up for hosting with a coupon and it cost $64. They have instructions and tutorials on how to set up everything and they will talk you through it on the phone. I had no clue how to do anything and now I can do about anything! If you think you need a blog and you don’t want issues with competitors just go ahead and spend a little money. You can make that $64 back with affiliates anyway.