WordPress vs Blogger vs Self Hosted Blogging

To begin with, each of these blogging methods has their own pros and cons depending on your skill and preference as a blogger.

WordPress and Blogger are more for the beginner to intermediate level blogger because they are easy to use, straight-forward and have templates that make the life of a blogger thousands of times easier. Where-as self-hosted blogging is something that should be undertaken if you have prior knowledge under your belt and some money to spare.

Blogger

Blogger is a blogging site recently taken over by Google. It has many good features such as its user-friendly ecosystem. A first time blogger will have no problem with a wide array of pre-sets and themes available.

The knowledge of CSS, HTML or other programming languages is virtually not necessary but is often helpful. Blogger provides a wide array of widgets that can be easily incorporated into the blog without much headache. Best of all Blogger is free!

One of the major downsides though to Blogger is the fact that they monitor your blog. This might seem harmless but in fact they check to see how many ads you have on your site as well as links that direct to the same site multiple times. If they think you are a “spam blog” they will delete the site without prior notice. This obviously can be quite unfortunate if you built up a blog reader community and out of nowhere, you suddenly lose touch with all of them.

WordPress

As for WordPress, there are two main versions that you need to be aware of. There is the free version, then there is the self hosted version (which is not free as you pay for your own hosting fees). That aside there are some things that separate WordPress from Blogger, such as the ability to drag and drop things.

Though a limiting factor to WordPress is the fact that they restrict quite a lot of content, such as widgets, some flash content and certain forms of HTML and JavaScript. Affiliate marketing and home businesses also can’t make a free blog due to the terms and conditions banning them from creating a blog. This can really put a damper in those wanting to run anything other than a personal website.

Self Hosting

With self hosting, you are not restricted to terms and conditions because you purchase your own domain. You have the freedom to design your blog the way you want to, using elements of the web freely. You can purchase WordPress (paid version) which gives you the benefit of the WordPress ethos without the restricting terms and conditions.

Though all of this comes with a cost. You tend to pay for your own hosting fees which isn’t too steep of a cost, but it is still a cost. You do have to know a little bit to an extensive amount of HTML, CSS and maybe perhaps more depending on how far you want to take your blog. In addition, you have to learn how to market and optimize your site to be found on search engines like Google for your blog. However, all of this is a small price to pay for freedom of speech and content.

Conclusion

To sum it up, the choice is yours. Only you can judge what you need and which blogging solution would best fit that purpose. Each of these blogging services has their own pros and cons, but ultimately at the end of the day your blogs success rides on how well you market it, and how good your content is.

How do you host your blog?

Tagged as: blog hosting, blogger, blogger vs self hosted, Blogging, getting your blog hosted, hosted blogging, hosting your blog, hosting your blog on wordpress, self hosted, Wordpress, wordpress vs blogger, wordpress vs self hosted

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Serg March 17, 2011 at 9:03 am

I prefer blogger, it is so easy and scalable to a satisfying point. Of course if you are a pro you self host WordPress. But it takes a bit of time to configure and optimize. Blogger is just easy for a part time blogger like myself. Good article.

Christian Twitter: smartboydesigns March 17, 2011 at 2:21 pm: Blogger ranks very well in the search engines as well – and posts are quickly found. In the beginning, it’s a great way to get a jump start in blogging.

Chaudie March 19, 2011 at 7:49 pm

I started out with blogger. It was really great to use…. until I wanted to be more custom with my layout design.

This is my first year using a self hosted site (wordpress.org), I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’m trying to be less picky and right now I’m quite satisfied.

It’s funny though, because my blogspot blog still has a high ranking on google, I’m thinking about blogging on both to increase the traffic on my domain.

Christian Twitter: smartboydesigns March 19, 2011 at 11:39 pm

It’s interesting how high Blogger blogs rank, especially in Google. I haven’t done much research in this area – so I don’t know the reasons they rank so high. I wonder if they’re given extra seo “juice”, by being owned by the same organization. Generally speaking though, wouldn’t that be illegal?

Chaudie March 20, 2011 at 12:08 am

Well, since google was the one that started that rule, I guess not. But I don’t see anyone trying to challenge them. Also, I rank very high for my niche. So that may have something to do with it.