Beware the online product review!
Not all reviews are quite what they seem
If you’ve ever thought about doing some blogging, read this to save a ton of time and get smarter about starting!
I did the research so you don’t have to!
(If you’ve been here recently, you know I’ve started writing as a new project alongside the art, with a plan for a new blog and to some book ideas as well.)
The first step is to know what you’re going to write about (you'd be surprised how many don't) and what your blog is for – justfor reading or do you want to sell e-books down the line? Once you’ve decided, it’s time to decide how you’re going to get it online.
And that’s where it gets messy. Google blogging sites. You’ll find tons of people saying:
Don’t use a free site unless you want to come across as totally amateur (no argument there)
WordPress.com is free but if you have your own domain it won’t come across as a .comthatigotfornothing site - ok to start but seems it lacks flexibility and you can get taken down if they don’t like your site (a peril for any other free site of course)
WordPress.org is the go-to for a hosted blog (well it’s the biggest…)
And this is where I spent hours reading up on blogging platforms – actually, there are far more platforms outside the ones you’ll read about. Oddly, they aren’t being mentioned.
Big names always get big attention
So, back to WordPress.org. Best in show – but it needs a host site to set it up on. Google ‘WordPress hosts’ – count up all the hosts being reviewed on say, 4 websites. Compare the reviews.
Yeah, that doesn’t seem very consistent. A top 5 entrant on one site doesn’t even figure in the top 12 of another. Read the comments – now it gets really dodgy. The number 1 reviewer pick is being slated in the comments and the reviewer is mysteriously not responding to those.
Suspicious?
I was prepared for a bit of disinformation. I’ve learned to recognise the signs from reading media comments this past year or two so maybe…
But no. It actually was suspicious. The term is ‘affiliate marketing’. And it can pay very well. Found two sites that tell you how that works:
Read this. Skip the reviews for now, and scroll down to find out why the reviews you’ve been reading are unreliable. And this made me cringe.
Now You Know...
I was watching a ‘start blogging’ YouTube video and guess what? They recommend…a colour connected (ahem) host site; the one which is almost universally recommended but also garnered more negative comments from users than any other. At this point, I just clicked off.
What else? OK, so maybe you’ve been persuaded that WP is the one. I remain unconvinced that no coding skills are needed. Now I’ve read…on sites whose business is WP...you can use it out of the box if you want something basic.
But reading the issues, they often seem to require coding skills to fix (so hire a web developer – more money). Additionally, the constant WP and/or widget updates (and you need a lot of widgets) cause huge amounts of time wasting (and site downtime) to put things straight again.
I was willing to consider it though, until I stumbled across a post on the security precautions required to ensure you’re not hacked. I’m talking over twenty exploits. I even understood the language in a few of them.
Btw, adding free widgets to your site increases the chances of a breach – so get the paid ones – yep, more money.
I decided WP wasn’t for me. I don’t code. I’m busy. I don’t have time to eff about fixing stuff, definitely don’t want concerns about security and don’t have the money to pay an expert.
So - back to comparing the usual suspects plus a couple of others I found.
Still haven’t made up my mind. You can get so paranoid after reading all the stuff you’d never start a site in the first place.
And the moral of the story is...
I saw many comments and questions from users who'd just jumped in to making a website and got in a mess right away. If you want to avoid expensive mistakes you have to delve a bit. It saves hours and money in the long run, and doing research gives you a sense of what you should be thinking about. Just read widely and with a critical eye!
