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Archive for November, 2011

Bloggers: Should You Use Blogger.com or WordPress?

Blogger.com (also known as Blogspot) and WordPress are the two most commonly used blogging platforms today. Blogger.com was a pioneer in the blogging industry, allowing users to set up accounts and blog for free beginning in 1999. Blogger.com was purchased by Google in 2003, which enabled it to grow using Google’s resources. Today, Blogger.com has an undisclosed number of millions of users blogging on their system.

WordPress began in 2003 as the successor to another (now relatively unknown) blogging system. It has since become the blog platform of choice for most blogging professionals. There are currently over two million people who are active users of WordPress.com, and there are millions of others who have downloaded various versions of the WordPress code.

Using the Blogger setup mandates that your blog be hosted on their servers. In comparison, blogs running on WordPress’ platform can be hosted at WordPress.com, or the WordPress software can be downloaded and used on your choice of web hosts. Below are some of the key features of Blogger.com versus the two versions of WordPress setups.

Blogger.com Features
Free hosting for up to 1 GB worth of space
Blog content is maintained on Blogger.com web servers
Ability to choose and customize templates (limited flexibility)
Easy to get started; easy to use
Upload and store image files and video files

WordPress.com Features
Free hosting for up to 3GB worth of space
Blog content is maintained on WordPress.com web servers
Ability to choose and customize templates (limited flexibility)
Easy to get started; easy to use
Upload and store image, video, and other (limited) file formats

WordPress Self-Hosted Features
Blog content is maintained on user’s preferred web host
Nearly unlimited ability to choose and customize templates and widgets
Takes some technical ability to setup and configure
Files support limited only by web server, which likely means virtually unlimited

Who Uses Which
A quick perusal of a few the various blogs running on the Blogspot.com domain versus those that use one of the WordPress setups (accounts on WordPress.com and self-hosted blogs using WordPress software) indicates that Blogspot.com is more commonly used for people who blog about their families, pets, and other personal kinds of topics. Compared to WordPress users, Blogger.com users are typically not “professional” bloggers, although there are plenty of Common Joe bloggers who monetize their Blogspot blogs and make a living doing it.

Self-hosted WordPress blogs lean more toward professional entities who have an IT person or department who handles their maintenance. They are often more formal. Because WordPress.com is similar in its functionality to Blogger.com, blogs using WordPress.com are similar to Blogger blogs in content, naturally more casual or personal than self-hosted WordPress blogs.

Cost
Blogspot accounts are free. So are accounts on WordPress.com. However, if you want to do any significant customization of your WordPress.com-hosted blog, you’ll have to pay to upgrade to their Custom CSS membership, which costs $14.97 per year. WordPress.com accounts can be upgraded to give you additional disk space($19.97/year for 5GB up to $89.97/year for 25GB), unlimited user accounts for your blog($29.97/year), and the ability to add videos (Blogger.com naturally has this support built in.) to your blog ($59.97/year). If your blog runs on the WordPress platform downloadable from WordPress.org, your costs are dependent upon your hosting account, which could cost as little as $5.00 per month or as much as hundreds of dollars monthly.

Flexibility
Because WordPress is open source software, it gives experienced bloggers much more flexibility when it comes to customizing a blog. When you download and install WordPress, you have full access to the database and the PHP, CSS, and image files that comprise the WordPress blogging platform. In contrast to Blogger’s platform, having development access to the entire system allows users to be as creative as they want to be. This flexibility does not exist to nearly the extent with accounts that are hosted on WordPress.com. One bonus that WordPress.com does provide is the ability to host files other than simply images. MS PowerPoint files, Word (.doc) and Open Office (.odt) word processing files, and PDF files can be uploaded and stored for use on a WordPress.com account.

Although Blogger allows and encourages users of their setup to customize their blogs adding Google gadgets and changing layouts, I’ve found that there is a lot of guesswork involved when trying to figure out how to manipulate their XML schema, which is used to customize templates beyond adding gadgets and changing layouts. When I customize blogs hosted on Blogger’s system, I often feel like I’m abstracted from their lower level setup. Some of Blogger’s XML tags are documented, but that documentation is sparse. When I’m customizing a Blogspot blog, it’s as if I’m throwing my work over a wall, and then checking to see what I get back. This interface can be frustrating.

A comparison that is noteworthy between each of these blog platforms is the ability to categorize posts. Greater flexibility exists with both WordPress.com-hosted blogs and self-hosted ones using the WordPress software than with Blogger.com. Categories are created using Labels on Blogger.com blogs. This setup does not allow for sub-categories on Blogger account. Sub-categories are a natural part of both WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs.

Ease of Use
For the layman blogger, getting started with blogging on Blogger’s platform is the simplest of tasks. You simply create an account, choose a template, and start writing away. The interface is very straight forward for users of Blogger. WordPress.com are similar, slightly more complicated. WordPress self-hosted blogs require a user to download the software, upload it to a server, configure database settings, and run the installation program included with the software. This process is pretty straightforward for someone with IT experience, but for most other people it is a little intimidating.

Once a blog is setup with any of these platforms, using it is simple enough regardless of which one you choose. However, of all the interfaces, Blogger.com is probably the easiest to understand and navigate.

Security and Updates
WordPress has had a history of vulnerability to hacks. To minimize that risk, it is recommended that users of WordPress be vigilant about maintaining their sites. Specifically, WordPress blog owners hosting their own blogs are encouraged to keep up with current updates.

Blogger users can essentially allow the Blogger development team to worry about hacks. Because the blog data is kept on Blogger’s servers, there is much less likelihood that Blogger sites can be hacked.

Which One’s Best for Me
If your intentions are simply to publish your information to the world without hassling with intense customization and continuing updates, Blogger.com is the way to go. Because most run-of-the-mill bloggers fit into this category, Blogger has the largest number (although nobody knows how many that is) of blogs in the Internet today.

If you have the resources and desire to be more sophisticated in your blogging habits, WordPress is what you should use. Accessibility to the inner workings of WordPress allows it to be used for much more than just a simple online journal. I recently talked to someone who told me his company uses WordPress software as a content management system, performing many of the functions of a CMS such as Joomla.

There are millions of blogs out there so it can be difficult to distinguish yourself. Just making a blog header can personalize the template so your visitors know exactly what your blog is about before they ever actually start reading. The blog header makes a first impression on the guests of your site so make sure that it’s a good impression.

Photos are popular sources for blog headers. You’ll want to make sure that the picture directly relates to your content or incorporate it with a witty tagline. Be aware that people all around the world will be visiting your blog so make sure that you take that into account when deciding whether or not to use pictures of your kids.

For a personal blog or if you scrapbook or sell crafts you might be interested in a cute cartoon graphic. This can look like you but still have a sense of whimsy. This creates a welcoming feel on your blog. It’s rare to find these graphics for free but if you look through free stock photo sites you may be able to dig up a few. You’ll want to contact the artist before you put it in your template. The picture may only be available for private use instead of on commercial sites. You’ll also want the artist to be aware that you’ll be using the photo in a template, especially if you are going to let other people use your design as well.

You’ll need some kind of photo editing software when creating designs for blogs. There is free software that is comparable to Photoshop such as the GIMP program. Be aware that there is a sharp learning curve for these kinds of programs because there are so many different features available. Give yourself enough time to really learn the full capabilities of the software. This will give you a professional looking design.

If you aren’t a designer then turn to people who are for free help. Many designers offer free headers. These are basic designs that you can use for a background. Then you can just add the title of you blog or maybe hang a frame with a picture that speaks to your niche on it. The downside to this is that you’ll probably have to include a link in your template back to the designer but it saves you a lot of money.

The other way to create a free blog header is through the use of collage. You might want to just crop different photos and then resize them. Then you can lay them out in your blog header for a tile effect. This way you’ll have a totally different look from every other blog out there. You’ll want to make sure that the title of you blog is still visible and readable on top of a custom header.

A free blog header allows you to personalize a template easily. You can create a custom look without a big budget and it’s an opportunity to tap into your creative skills.

Blogger is a great online blogging platform, which is free to join. You can set up a blog to help you earn money or to help you to generate free traffic to other websites and your writings. Blogger is owned by Google, which means that it is a high quality website, however, as with any other site, there are pros and cons to using the site. Here are a few:

The Pros

Blogger is free to join and will even allow you to use a free subdomain, but at the same time you can direct your blog to your own domain name, which is easy to set it up. The benefit of having your own domain name is that it will basically help you to look more professional.

Unlike some blogging platforms, blogger allows you to put up affiliate ads and Google AdSense to help you make money. Blogger made it extremely easy for you to add Amazon products to your blog posts without you having to leave blogger. This is a huge time saver.

Another great benefit of setting up a blog with Blogger is that your blogs will naturally rank high within the search engines. Therefore it is a great place for you to add links to your website or other articles that you have on the web.

Blogger is also extremely easy for anyone to get started with, as they walk you through the steps, on how to get started.

On top of that, blogger also allows you to set up different blogs which you can proudly display in your profile for others to visit.

The Cons

Blogger is great, and they require that you maintain a high quality blog. As a result they will monitor your activities on the site. Basically what they monitor is the amount of ads you have up, as well as the number of links that are pointing to the same site. If you fail to meet their standards your blog will be deemed as a spam blog, and as a result your blog may be deleted without a warning or any kind of notice.

Another area where perhaps they could improve is to offer the users a wider variety of templates to choose from.

However, don’t get me wrong, blogger is definitely a great blogging platform to help you to generate lots of free traffic, as well as an online residual income.