Which blog platform should I use: Blogger or WordPress?
This is where panic mode hit me the first time I started blogging. There are so many options (and terminologies) for starting a blog: Blogger. Blogspot. WordPress.com. WordPress.org. Weebly. Free hosted blog. Self-hosted blog. What does any of it mean?!
Let’s talk in terms of houses and apartments. An analogy. Go me! We (my husband a
nd I) are currently renting our apartment. We’re paying month to month and we have no contract. Which means our landlord could say, “See ya later” at any time. But, we can also leave at any time. We don’t get to knock out a wall or change the carpet. We can’t even fix a major problem without going through our landlord (we just called him to fix our heater. It’s either too hot or too cold!). Our money (effort) is going towards someone else’s property and not our own. On the flip side, we didn’t have to put down a big chunk of money to buy a house.
Renting an apartment is kind of like having a free, hosted blog.
(Interesting fact: That house in the picture? It was for sale in my dream neighborhood, unfortunately I’m still dreaming about it. Don’t do the same thing with your blog!)
You will read a lot of blog posts about this topic, and everyone has a different opinion. Some say a free hosted blog is a way to go, while others (including myself) believe that a self-hosted blog is the best way to start a successful blog.
Here are the top 3 reasons why I believe you should have a self-hosted blog.
- Ownership
- Design
- Monetization
Set up your own self-hosted blog!
Ownership
In my opinion, this is the number one reason to self-host your blog. All of the cons of self-hosting (which there’s only 1), and all of the pros of free hosting, are cancelled by this one reason. When you self-host your blog, you own your blog.
According to Google’s term of service,
When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.”
Free blogs, like Blogger reserve the right to use any content you post on your blog. That’s not all though. Since you do not own your blog, it can be deleted at ANY TIME. Or, the free blog service might decide they don’t want to offer a blog service anymore and they close up shop, which closes up your shop (blog). Blogger, for example, frequently accidentally deletes blogs when they are checking for spam sites. Seriously, it happens all the time. Go to Google’s forums and type in “my blog is missing” and you will read a lot of sad posts. Don’t let that happen to your hard work. Set up a self-hosted blog with this tutorial.
Design
Most free blogging platforms limit the design and style of your blog. Unless you are a very talented HTML coder, or you pay someone who is, it is very challenging to customize your blog. With WordPress you can pick out a theme that fits the design of your blog, and you don’t have to touch a single line of code, if you don’t want to. That’s a big deal for me. I don’t like code. It scares me.
Monetization
The last reason we recommend using a self-hosted blog is so that you can make money blogging. Who doesn’t want to make money blogging? BlogSpot.com does allow advertising. It is easy to incorporates Google AdSense. Blogger also says, “There are a number of 3rd-party content monetization services you can implement with our HTML/Javascript gadget.” Source Although this seems like it is possible and convenient to advertise with a BlogSpot blog, this is how many bloggers end up with their blogs deleted, like mentioned in the ownership category above. The risk of 3rd party advertising on blogger is: “The code used by some third-party programs may look like malicious traffic redirection (ala AdBrite).” Source
WordPress.com does not allow bloggers to post any ads or to post sponsored or paid posts. No money making for WordPress.com bloggers. A lot of people make the mistake of starting with WordPress.com because they think it is the same as WordPress.org, but they are not the same! http://en.support.wordpress.com/advertising/
In conclusion, when you have a self-hosted website with a WordPress platform, you can post whatever you want on your site, your time and money investments go towards progressing your own website (you do have to spend some money though), you have full control of the appearance of your blog, and you can decide who you want to advertise with so that your blog can make money.
There are several companies out there to purchase your site from. They all offer about the same thing. For bloggers just starting out, we recommend JustHost. They are very affordable and have great service. They have always helped me resolve my problems and provide quick feedback. When I decided to close down my floral blog, they gave me a full refund on my unused months!
Start blogging on a self-hosted blog, today!
Ready to switch from Blogger to WordPress?
Check out our series on how to move your blog from Blogger to WordPress.
Thank you for all the great tips! I just started a blog, about 2 days ago! I signed up with wordpress but I’m having trouble formatting. I want to add a thumbnail photo & better format my blog. Is there a good place to learn about formatting as well as widgets etc?
Thanks! Meredith
Hi Meredith! Congratulations on your new blog! Where do you want the thumbnail image? Check out these two tutorials: Gravatar and Author Box
As to formatting. Are you familiar with coding? If not, I recommend finding a theme that is already formatted how you want. I really love Genesis themes.
Actually, you might want to check out my series Starting a Blog, the right way. Walk through all 19 steps and you’ll have your blog set up!
I just made the switch to WP yesterday, so this question is more out of curiosity than anything else. But I’ve had my own domain name (sheisfierce.org instead of .blogspot.com) for a few months now, but I worked through Blogger instead of WordPress. Is that still self-hosted, because I’m using my own domain name through Bluehost? Or does it have to be on WordPress.org in order to be considered self-hosted, and therefore my own work which Google can’t use or delete or anything like that?
Great question Kiersten. I think I’ll do a post on this soon! The answer is no. Having your own domain name on blogger.com doesn’t make you self-hosted. Purchasing a domain name for your blogger blog, is just putting on a mask. The blog is still located at yourblog.blogspot.com. In fact, everything behind the scenes uses the .blogspot URL. Ever notice the .blogspot url show up in your Bloglovin account or even in your analytics?
WordPress isn’t the only blogging platform that can be on a self-hosted site. It’s just the most popular. You can also use Weebly on a self-hosted site.
Congrats on the new site! Let me know if you have any questions about WordPress for me.
Ooooo thank you so much! I always wondered that, because of the way people talk about it.
I agree wholeheartedly, Kristie! And honestly, it really is better to just start off with a self-hosted blog. I love the control I have over my own blog.
Thank you for the explanation. I have been thinking of switching to WordPress.