Before we start blogging, we need to choose a blogging platform. A blogging platform is simply an utility that we use to create, maintain and update our blog. The the two most famous platforms are Blogger and WordPress. Blogger, created by Google, is famous for its simplicity and ease of use, whereas WordPress offers advanced controls, customization's and flexibility for your blog. But which blogging platform to choose? Quite often blogger's face dilemma in choosing between WordPress or Blogger. So, I decided to create a complete guide to help new and not-so-new blogger's to decide which blogging platform to choose depending on their present situation and needs. Combining lots and lots of research on this topic and my experience of using both of this blogging platforms for years, I have been successful in compiling this guide to help my readers choose the best suited blogging platform for them.
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1) Starting A Blog
- WordPress: Starting a self-hosted blog with WordPress requires technical knowledge on various aspects, like buying a domain name, buying a reliable and cheap Web host, installing WordPress software, changing name servers, installing themes and plugin's and so on. For some people these are like a nightmare and they consider these to be one of the biggest reasons of not supporting WordPress in the Blogger vs WordPress debate. But these things are not as complicated as you think them to be and can be learned by anyone within few hours. All you need to do is use Google and find some guides on setting up WordPress for your blog. They are as easy and interesting as learning the ABCs of English.
- Blogger: If you choose blogger, then you don't need to worry about anything. You don't need to have any technical knowledge for starting a blog with Blogger. It is as simple as creating an email account. Due to this reason, people who are very new to blogging, and does not have any prior knowledge on blogging, choose this as their blogging platform and get a chance to know the basics of blogging, like posting an article, commenting, managing the dashboard, keeping an eye on the stats, etc. They use Blogger as a trail ground and later shift from Blogger to WordPress.
Now, its your take to decide whether WordPress or Blogger, is going to be your blogging platform. But don't decide so quickly as you need to consider the other factor's too.
2) Hosting Opportunities
- WordPress: WordPress gives you complete control over any domain and sub-domain names you choose to use. Its on your own host, and you can do whatever you want with it. If you have programming skills, you can even change WordPress in your own way and customize it in your way. Upload any images, videos, music files, software's, and nearly everything you wish to. In the Blogger vs WordPress battle, WordPress stays ahead of Blogger by a huge distance in this aspect. If you are serious about blogging, and want to do blogging in a professional way then WordPress is the one which is going to give you full control and flexibility and not Blogger.
- Blogger: If you choose Blogger, then be ready to stick with the blogspot sub-domain forever. Although you can buy your own domain name and point it to the blogspot address, that still requires technical knowledge, and if you have that, then why not choose Blogger in the WordPress vs Blogger battle. You can upload images upto 1Gb in Picasa, which can be enough for any blogger.
3) Customization and Flexibility
- WordPress: It offers huge customization possibilities over Blogger. There are thousands of themes and plugins available in WordPress. Themes range from free themes to premium themes and even custom theme. You can even design your own custom theme and use it in WordPress. The WordPress Plugin Directory gives you access to above 17K plugins for free with over a billion downloads till date. These plugins are very important for any professional blogger as they can add more value to your blog. You can even customize various widgets for your blog, and they have importance in their own way.
- Blogger: You have very limited access to themes and there are no official plugin's available at all. Even if you find some unofficial plugin's, then also your tension is not over. Installing plugin's in blogger can make any one cry. This lack of flexibility diminishes your possibilities of having a better blog. Google remains busy to beat Facebook and have very little attention on Blogger.
So while deciding your blogging platform, between WordPress or Blogger, do consider these iportant aspects very carefully. If you want to continue blogging for long-term then decide right at this moment.
4) Security
- WordPress: You have complete security in WordPress. You live in your own Web host and have complete security in it. There is no one to breach in your blog and suspend or delete your posts. What ever you publish in your blog, it will remain there forever, at least till you own your Web host. Even if you publish spam content in your blog, then also there in no one to suspend or delete your work without your permission. Your hard work will remain with you, what ever the case may be. Your hosting company will even keep backups of your work, so that even if accidentally you loose all your blog content, you can get it back at any moment.
- Blogger: Your blog is under high risk of getting a Google suspension. Google Team can suspend and delete your entire work anytime and under any reason. Google hates spam, and Blogger is under Google World, so if some how Google finds your blog related with spam, then they can immediately delete your blog. Even if you don't host spam, still your blog has no tight security. I can tell you from my own experience, there are many blogspot blogs who once ranked number one, for many keywords in Google Search, has been banned by Google from its index and their blogs has been suspended forever.
The security aspect should be well kept into mind before choosing, WordPress or Blogger as your blogging platform.
5) SEO
- WordPress: In the WordPress vs Blogger battle, WordPress wins by far in SEO point of view. WordPress offers everything that you need to optimize your blog for the search engine's. The WordPress themes are well-designed and are highly optimized for the search engine's. WordPress also offers are huge variety of plugins to optimize each and every corner of your blog. There are plugins which can even Keyword Research for you inside WordPress, suggest you possible backlinks, and help you with your on-page optimization factors. You can just sit and relax while these plugins will do their work with ease.
- Blogger: Blogger lacks those SEO facilities that WordPress can provide you with. But now-a-days Google have stopped giving importance on Meta Tags and Meta Descriptions, so that's one thing you will probably have no problem with when you are in Blogger. But one thing I must say is very good about Blogger is that, Google indexes blogspot blogs much faster than WordPress blogs. Blogspot blogs are indexed within 24 hours, while WordPress blogs can take days or weeks to get indexed. But still this is not a matter to worry if you have a good Page Rank and have good quality incoming links to your WordPress blog.
Your Descision - Blogger or WordPress?
Now, its up to you to decide between Blogger or WordPress, which blogging platform to choose. Though newbies prefer Blogger as their blogging platform because of ease of use, but statistics say that these newbies after few months of blogging experience shift to WordPress. I personally use WordPress to run this blog, and if you ask me, I will tell you to definitely go for WordPress. WordPress was, is and will be the favorite blogging platform of the masses. You can also check out this cool infographic on Blogger vs WordPress, to have a quick glance at the comparisons between the two blogging platforms : WordPress and Blogger.
Share with us what blogging platform do you prefer and personally use?
To add to this I would recommend using a guide for WordPress such as WP Start Guide. This just makes it much more friendlier when you first start using WordPress.:)
http://commonreviewer.com/wordpress-products/wp-starter-guide-review-the-wordpress-starter-guide/
Nice Article. I am a great fan of both platforms. Before creating my first WordPress blog i was really unaware of flexibility in design and freedom of use....
Ramnadh recently posted..Blogger Or WordPress – Best Platform to Start a Blog
Yeah, flexibility of design and use is definitely an important factor that rules, btw which platform do you personally like?
[...] into the blogging opportunities provided by both of these platforms and decide who winds in the Blogger vs WordPress [...]
This can be so great for me thank you.
You are welcome! :-)