Today, Most newbie bloggers prefer to start a blog on WordPress instead of blogger because WordPress has the flexibility than Blogger.
It doesn’t mean other platform sucks, but Blogger and WordPress are the most popular.
Both make it fairly easy to pick a design and start blogging within minutes. After using both, however, I strongly recommend that you should start on WordPress (self-hosted).
Still, you better know which one is suitable for you…
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WordPress vs Blogger – Which Should You Use to Blog?
If you want to start a blog on self-hosted, you have full control over your blog. But if you choose a free blog you lose control of your blog.
Many people choose Blogger first and Blogger is owned by Google. When you sign up for a blog, you can simply use your existing Google account and password. It’s easy to do, and the interface is familiar.
However, I only kept my site on Blogger for a few months before I saw the light.
When your blog is hosted by a company, you are subject to its terms and conditions. If you violate them, your blog could be banned or deleted with no notice.
Friends of mine have lost years of posts and photos because they unknowingly angered the Google gods. And guess what?
That site is linked to your Google account, so you could also find yourself locked out of Gmail, Google Plus, or other related services.
This doesn’t happen a lot, but it could be annoying (or even devastating) if it happened to you.
While a free WordPress site is subject to similar terms and conditions, your account stands alone.
If something happens, you can always pack up and go elsewhere – you aren’t risking your email and other accounts.
And while it takes some adjustment to get used to the WordPress interface, you’ll find far greater flexibility than Blogger gives you.
Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog on WordPress
Benefits of Using WordPress (.ORG)
1. Easier transition to Self-hosted
Should you decide blogging is really your thing, you’ll want to move to your own domain (richatiwari.com) and a self-hosted site.
Then you are only subject to the laws of your country regarding what you post – no company will be breathing down your neck.
Since most self-hosted sites use the WordPress platform, your transition will be pretty seamless.
2. You are the Owner of Your Blog
The ownership of the server is one of the most important benefits as compared with free blogging platforms like wordpress.com or blogger.com. That is you can store your blog or website files, media, and documents in your own space.
Self-hosting means your computer acts as the server. But most people prefer third-party web hosting companies such as Bluehost (one of the most famous web hosting services) which can provide all the advantages to users, instead of making their own computer as a server.
The only thing you have to do is pay some bucks for the online storage space for your blog. For getting a self-hosted WordPress blog, you need some initial blogging investment is one of the disadvantages.
But it can make a lot of advantages on the basis of full freedom control, search engine optimization (SEO), branding, professional look, flexibility, monetizing with advertising, affiliation, etc.
Whereas in a free blogging platform, there is an initial investment, the above-mentioned things will not get difficult to get the professional look.
Ultimately, there is very little control over your blog. Another con of free blogging platforms is that they turn off your site without informing you. Maybe due to some unknown reasons like many times happen with my Blogspot blogs in blogger.com to me
3. Install Custom Theme as You Like
Installing a custom professional WordPress theme is one of the main advantages of the self-hosted WordPress blog (Word Press.org) which is not possible with free wordpress.com blogs.
And it also gives full support for maintaining the themes; helps to get a good professional look for your blog.
You can customize, modify and do whatever changes are needed in the WP themes as you install them. By doing this, you can create a good impression on your blog and make them bookmark your site.
Always remember “First Impression is The Best Impression”
4. WordPress Plugins means Blog Flexibility
By using a self-hosted WordPress blog. you are actually achieving the new ability called “flexibility” to your blog as compared with free platforms.
You can upload and install any WordPress plugins as per your need and make your blog as per your need.
For example, If you want to make a web store associated with your blog/website, WordPress plugins will help you to create it with simple steps.
5. Easy to Install and Use
WordPress blog installation on your own web hosting is very simple and easy. Third-party web hosting like Hostgator or Bluehost provides apps like Softaculous or Fantastico, which helps you to install WordPress on your host within 2-3 minutes.
The WordPress user interface is very easy to use and manage things around it. if you are a newbie to WordPress blogging, just follow my WordPress blogging tutorial for beginners which are actually made for you guys
6. Search Engine Loves Self-hosted (WordPress)
WordPress developers develop its syntax and coding which are easy to access and attractive to search engine robots like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.
Due to simple and clean layouts, permalinks settings, SEO WordPress plugins help to make your blog more visible to search engines.
Ultimately, the WordPress developers are always trying to get more traffic to your blog/website via Search engines.
I’m assuming you want people to find what you write. You’d think Blogger sites would get more attention from Google, but the opposite is actually true.
The way that WordPress blogs are designed makes it easier for the search engines to scan and index them, meaning your posts will start showing up when people search for the things you write about.
7. Make Money From Your Own Ads
Owning a self-hosting blog provides freedom to show your own ads or third party advertising networks such as Google Adsense, Chitika, Infolinks, etc, and make money with your blog.
You don’t have to share your earnings with any other guys or free blogging platforms. With self-hosted you get more choices.
When my site was on Blogger back in 2018, I saw so many cool things on other sites that I wanted to add to mine.
Many times, I found I wasn’t able to use certain gadgets or widgets on Blogger – it was SO frustrating! I also got tired of the same few themes that Blogger offered because so many other blogs used the same one.
I wanted my blog to stand out so I moved to WordPress in 2019. Now I have more flexibility than ever.
8. Speed
Ever get frustrated waiting for a site to load and just click away? You don’t want visitors to your blog doing that!
Then pick WordPress, and WordPress sites load very quickly as long as you don’t bog them down with a bunch of random stuff – and even if you do, there are caching plugins to enable photos and page code to load super fast.
Disadvantages of Self-hosting
1. Needs Initial Investment for Web hosting and Domain name
It is one of the main disadvantages but as I already mentioned earlier, you will benefit by investing in something.
If you are really going to do serious or professional blogging. Major web hosting companies like Bluehost provide online space with better customer support and blogging software which costs around $2.95 dollar per month and a free domain for a year.
If you want to buy a domain from another place like Namecheap, a domain name costs around $10 per year. In my opinion, you can afford this initial investment and you will feel its benefits in the future.
2. Newbies Afraid of Initial Investment
Newbies have very little knowledge in the blogging field and so they should be afraid to invest in getting a self-hosted WordPress blog. In such cases, they can go for a free blogging platform like WordPress.com or blogger which I don’t recommend.
But of course later on you can also transfer their blog from WordPress.com or blogger.com to WordPress.org. But it’s a time consuming and heavy task for a non-tech guy.
I know it’s hard to manage the initial blogging cost for many newbie bloggers but it’s worth money in the long run.
Conclusion
Overall, Self-hosting WordPress blogs have their own advantages which help beginner level bloggers to get their blogs first in search engine pages and provide professional looks, brand and full control over the site.
As compared to free blogging platforms, it is better to go for WordPress.org, if you are trying to take blogging as a serious career or you need to get a professional look and flexibility to your blogs.
If you are completely new in the blogging area, better to try out with blogger.com or WordPress.com free platforms which are free of cost and no additional design knowledge is needed to create a blog.
So, I hope you guys understand something about why you should start a blog on WordPress instead of Blogger.
If you have any suggestions and ideas, share them within the comment box for making the article more knowledgeable which will benefit others.
Share your honest opinions about this WordPress….
FD Shakil is the founder of Passive Blogger, where he teaches people how to build a successful blogging business. His core mission is to help 5000 people to earn money from blogging. Connect: Facebook Group: Passive Blogger, Twitter: @fdshakil
Although there are countless options when it comes to setting up a blog, FD Shakil, you said it right. Blogger and WordPress are the two major players around the corner.
As per BuiltWith data, WordPress wins this race as it is probably used by a large portion of all websites in the top 1 million domains while Blogger’s use is limited; just 1 percent of the top 1 million sites.
Anyone who has practiced both probably knows the flexibility and monetization ease provided by WP. Loved this post, Richa.