Blogger.com or Wordpress.com: Which Is For You?
The blogging industry is dominated by two major platforms; Blogger and WordPress, (WordPress.com or WordPress.org). So now that you've got an idea to talk about, which of this two platforms, should you use? Is a friend recommending you to use Blogger over WordPress, or vise versa? If yes, what are their reasons? Perhaps, they are sounding more on WordPress, than they are on Blogger. Anyway, this is where I'm going;
Your choice of either Blogger, or WordPress, shouldn't be dependent on what others experience are, but on your short and long term blogging goals.
It is also important to note that, comparing WordPress and Blogger, on a Broadway will not work. Why? WordPress is divided into wordpress.com, and wordpress.org (wordpress.com is of course free, but non is truly free). Blogger on the other hand, is just blogger.com, and it is totally free. So a comparison, between Blogger.com, and Wordpress.com would seems a little fair, than when paring Blogger.com, with Wordpress.org, or even a shallow comparison of Blogger versus WordPress.
As a beginner, I will strictly advice that you start your blogging journey, from a free hosted blogging platform, like Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. This would enable you to gain few, practical knowledge in what blogging, is really all about. Although, nothing is wrong, if you start your journey from a self hosted blog, like WordPress.org, but in that case, be sure you know what you are really doing, and you have read much, here on Hive. Aside gaining practical knowledge, there are few other factors, that could make you wanna try out, free hosted blogs, for instance, say financial constraints, or you probably, do not want to go into full time blogging.
Which Is For You, Blogger.com or Wordpress.com?
So since free hosted, from a five (5) cardinal point of a blog site, which is for you?
- Appearance
The appearance aspects of a blog is often neglected by most blogger, but the truth is, first impressions, always matters much. What will give your visitors, the desire to give you a second visit, is how good your site looks. Even search bots, place high priority on site appearances, so you must neglecte it. As at writing, both blogger.com, and WordPress.com, offers free themes, and templates, for their blogging platforms. Blogger does not sell paid themes, third party does. However, the inventory is limited, compare to wordpress.com.
- Usability
The interface of Blogger.com, and wordpress.com, are in entirety, different from each other. Although, setting up blogger.com is as easy as wordpress.com, But wordpress.com, offers a little more advanced interface than what you have on blogger.com. And as you would expect, due to the advance nature of wordpress.com, blogger.com seems to be more easy going and user friendly than wordpress.com.
- SEO
Search Engine Optimization, helps Google and Bing Bots, to communicate with your blog, in a more understanding way. With the recent blogger update, the SEO limitations, that plagued blogger.com, has been reduced to a minimum extent. In fact, if you take time to optimize you blogger settings, you'll discover that the SEO benefits of blogger.com, is a bit better than wordpress.com. Remember, you can not really enjoy full SEO benefits on wordpress.com, except you've moved from a free hosted account, to a paid hosted account. This will give you, extra SEO benefits, from plugins, which is then out of our scope of discussion.
- Security
This is probably, the most interesting aspects, of our blogger.com versus wordpress.com comparison. The little, little informations you put on your blog, how secure are they on either platforms. Well, you should have less to worry about, in this aspect. Why? Because both Google and WordPress have got impressive security management system, that should ensure the safety of your blog, even from the toughest hacker. But remember, no websites on earth is hacker proof, not even Google. But for comparison sake, your informations should be more secured on blogger.com, than it would on WordPress.
- Support And Growth
Both Google and WordPress provide support for users on their platform, but wordpress.com, tends to have a larger community and support, more than it Google counterpart. But what if you wanna move your blog from a free hosted blog, to a self hosted blog? Well, for me, I'd rather prefer not moving my site, on either platform, because you will loss you SEO value. However, upgrading from a free hosted WordPress.com, to a paid wordpress.com, could preserve your SEO juice, through the use of WordPress plugins, that's if financial involvement wouldn't be your issue.
Conclusion
Like I stated earlier, your choice of platform, should be based on your commitment, and on your short and long term goals. If you are out for a full time blogging, then you shouldn't be looking for free web hosting, except if it is to gain practical knowledge, of all you've studied from Hive, or other related resource or blogs. Now if you long term goal is to become a full time blogger, but you just want to give a trial to see if you can really blog or not, then it better you start with wordpress.com. But if you just wanna own an easy going, totally free blog, then you better stick with blogger.com. However, if you couldn't get the help you need in this article, then I advice you use the search button here on Hive, for a thorough search. Better still, you can comment your questions below.
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