Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Wordpress or Blogger? which one is better and why?

Blogger Pros:

* Free hosting
* Drag and drop gadgets (widgets) around easily
* Owned by Google
* Easy to setup in 5 minutes
* Easy for a "newbie" to understand how to use
* You can place ads on your blog to monetize it (make money)
* You can add a custom domain without paying for hosting
* Free access to edit the HTML and CSS if you want to
* Images are hosted for free with no limits (that I see)
* Let's you export your blog for backup on your computer (posts)
* Let's you backup your template
* Creates a free archive daily, weekly, or monthly

Blogger Cons:

* Limited gadgets (widgets)
* Limited features (like WordPress plug-ins)
* Requires knowledge of HTML to add certain features
* Cannot create "real" static pages
* Limited templates available for free

Now that I gave you this list let me explain a bit more.

Pros:

Blogger is owned by Google so getting on the search engines seem to be easier. I had a couple of Blogger blogs appear on page 1 of the search engine results for my topic in 3 days using a free Blogger blog domain name (.blogspot.com). Hosting is always free even if you own a custom domain. Google allows you to monetize (make money) with your blog by adding Google Adsense ads and other ads. It takes approximately 5 minutes to set up a Blogger blog using one of their standard templates and even a person who is new to blogging can understand how to create a post within a few minutes. You can create gadgets (sometimes called widgets) easily and if you get "tired" of where they appear on the blog you just click and drag them to a new location. You cannot create a real static page using Blogger. I have, however, found a work around that makes posts look static and have gadgets appear only on the homepage.

Cons:

There are limited free, professional templates available for Blogger because more designers seem to be making templates for WordPress blogs. There are limited gadgets (widgets) available unlike WordPress which let's you install plug-ins that give you more options. The limited features I am talking about would be the plug-ins that WordPress offers such as the All-in-One SEO package, printing a page option, threaded comments, and more. These things are possible with Blogger but you would need extensive HTML knowledge to create them or at least feel comfortable "tweaking" the HTML code.

WordPress Blogging Platform

WordPress.org Pros:

This list would also include many of the Wordpress.com Pro features since it is the same system.

* Free WordPress platform software
* You can create static pages like on a website
* Free Professional templates available all over the Internet to download and upload through your Dashboard
* Thousands of free plug-ins available
* You can tweak HTML and CSS

WordPress.org Cons:

* You must pay for hosting
* You must keep your own backup
* You must figure out how to install the software on your host
* You must manually download and install all upgrades yourself

Now that I gave you this list let me explain a bit more.

Pros:

WordPress.com gives you a free blog and a wordpress.com domain address and also hosts your blog for free. It does provide some good quality templates and the ability to add widgets like link lists, HTML code, etc. There is a lot of help available on their website and WordPress has more professional-looking templates than Blogger. You can use thread comments which let's the owner of the blog reply to a comment and it stays with that particular comment instead of just showing in the list of comments. The new version is much easier to use than just several months ago. Upgrades are automatically installed for you and they backup your site. You get a certain amount of storage so you can upload pictures and videos for free until you reach that limit. The WordPress dashboard is sleek and modern looking.

Cons:

With WordPress.com (free version) you are limited to the templates available in the gallery. Although there are many professional WordPress templates available on the web you cannot use them unless you use the WordPress.org site and download the software on your own hosting account (that you pay for) and install it. Unless your host provides help this can be extremely challenging and not suggested for a newbie blogger. You also have to manually install all of the upgrades that WordPress comes out with. You cannot use the free plug-ins on the free WordPress.com site and you cannot add javascript or monetize your free blog. If you cannot add javascript then some things like adding a Twitter widget or a photo gallery widget will also not work. You cannot tweak the HTML code on the free site but you can if you pay for hosting and download the software.

Source(s):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091011013811AAv9ZFi

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