Setting up Your Blog?

I just got an email with a great question and figured there must be a lot of people wondering this same thing.
Which is better? Blogger or WordPress?

This is a tricky question because it depends on what you consider better and what you are personally looking for.
For this post, I am considering Blogger as it is and WordPress as a self-hosted site, as opposed to a .wordpress.com free site. If you’re going to be using a free platform to blog, stick with Blogger. This article is explaining the difference between a Blogger hosted site and a self-hosted WordPress site.

Initial note: if you are on Blogger, get a premium domain name. I believe it is $10 and it’s super easy to do. Companies will take you a lot more seriously if you remove the “.blogspot” from your url. This is not to say you won’t get opportunities if you don’t do it, but you will come off as more serious about your business if you have a premium url. In Blogger, click “settings” and look for your url. Right under that, there will be a link labeled “+ Add a custom domain name”, click that and follow instructions and you’ll be off and running!

If you are looking to increase your following…
Unfortunately for WordPress, the “Join this site” that Blogger blogs have is not available on WordPress sites. Since this is the most commonly used “following” mechanism on most blogs, you are at a slight disadvantage when it comes to gaining followers. However, you can do things to get that advantage back. Set up a BlogLovin account, make sure your social icons are prevalent so you gain followers that way and be active on social media. A great example of someone who is on WordPress, but has a huge following is Hungry Runner Girl. She’s a WP site, but has a tremendous following, getting 80+ comments on every post (she posts twice a day). She has her social icons right at the top of her site in addition to being at the end of every post. She has over 6,000 Twitter followers and almost 5,000 fans on her Facebook page! So while WordPress sites cannot have the GFC follow option, there are definitely other ways to grow your following on WordPress. You just have to decide if you’re ready to lose the GFC Follow option.

If you are looking to increase your income stream…
Blogger used to have restrictions on what kind of ads (mostly Google only) you could place on your Blogger blogs. They don’t anymore. However, if you are going to be placing any ads other than Adsense, you’re going to have to know a little bit of HTML code. Adsense ads are easier to place on Blogger. Any other kind of ads are just as easy to place on WordPress as they are on Blogger. It should be noted that Google can change their rules as to what kinds of advertising can be placed on Blogger blogs, while there are no restrictions with your own WordPress site.

If you are looking for ease of use…
When starting out, running a website can seem daunting. HTML code is a frightening thing at first. So Blogger takes the hard to learn stuff out and makes it very easy for anyone to set up and run a blog. This is great for people who are just starting out or who don’t want to learn the nitty gritty behind websites. However, if you get to a point where you want more features from your site and more customization, WordPress then becomes the best option.

An additional bonus of Blogger is that it is the most cost effective platform to run. You don’t have to pay for hosting. The thing is, with companies like BlueHost offering hosting for $7 per month (sometimes even less!), it’s not going to cost a fortune to have a WP site. So I pretty much ignore the financial aspect. What I like the best about Blogger is that you will have virtually NO downtime. Any site hosted on another host may “go down” or become unavailable to access due to server errors, updates or any number of reasons. Blogger blogs stay up all of the time. I will say that in my years of owning and operating websites on their own hosting plans, I’ve only experienced downtime a few times and they have lasted for just minutes each time.

If you’re thinking long-term in general…
Wordpress all the way! When you are on Blogger, you certainly do own your content, but while it’s on a Blogger server Google (they own Blogger) can reproduce, modify, publish and distribute your content however they want. Additionally, as I touched on earlier, you are at the mercy of Blogger’s changes. WordPress has updates as well, but they never change the appearance of a website to your readers. It’s all stuff on the back end of the site. I should also note here that there are a few people out there who have literally had their Blogger accounts shut down in the blink of an eye for seemingly no reason. The thing about being on Blogger is that you are at the mercy of someone else. If you are on WordPress, you own your domain, you choose whatever host you want, so you are much more in control.

Additionally, WordPress has a much more complete array of useful plugins and add-ons that will be come useful as your blog grows. There are plugins that make post-by-post SEO a breeze. There are better comment spam protections available. There are plugins that literally solve just about every problem or want you could have on WordPress. Also, once you do get your feet wet in HTML editing, you’ll find that WordPress is easier.

My preference.
I prefer WordPress. For anyone who is thinking about starting up a site, I encourage WordPress. I have blogs on both platforms and there is nothing wrong with either, it’s all a matter of personal preference. I prefer WordPress because I have a moderate knowledge of HTML and like how easy it is to make HTML customization (once you know HTML, of course).

What I think speaks volumes about the argument is how often you hear “I’m making the switch to WordPress” and how you never really hear, “I’m making the switch to Blogger.” Generally, people consider a switch to WordPress as taking their blog to the next level. As I mentioned earlier, this is because they then have full 100% ownership and rights to the site, content and whatnot. Also, they now have flexibility in every aspect of their site. The more deep you are willing to dig into the nuts and bolts of your site, the more you will appreciate WordPress. If you’re looking for ease of use, Blogger is probably your best bet.

What do you have? Blogger or WordPress?