Category: Blogging

In my last article “Start Successful Blog: Content Writing – Step 2” I discussed how you can generate ideas to keep writing and keeping your readers come back for more. Today, we will talk about what blogging platform is right for you.

One of the most important aspects of blogging is the platform. There are many blogging platforms available out there. Most free and few have fees attached to them. This article will focus primarily on the free platforms, because unless you’re planning on running a newspaper type of website you shouldn’t be paying a dime for the platform. In this day and age, free is as good, if not better, than paid services and products.

The two widely used blogging platforms are Blogger (by Google) and WordPress. Yes, you might have heard of others or you’re already using something else, but these two the most commonly used platforms on the internet. Plus, I use and love both. We will start with Blogger as it is an excellent first step into the Blogosphere.

Blogger

If you’re new to blogging and the whole online thing, Blogger would be an excellent choice for you to make that first leap into blogging. The main advantage of Blogger is Google, everyone knows and loves Google. This means that Google hosts and maintains Blogger. This is the primary benefit of a hosted blogging platform, it eliminates technical knowledge and skills required to maintain it. All you have to do, is make it look pretty and write, write, write. Also, another advantage of using Blogger is the easy integration with other Google services, if you’re using them (which you should!). Plus, you can extend its functionality with plethora of gadgets (extensions/plugins). The last benefit of Blogger is the easy to use, user-friendly interface. While having major advantages, hosted blogging platforms do have disadvantages that might not be suitable for your needs.

The major disadvantage is the lack of freedom to do what you want. If you want full control of your blog, hosted blog is not a way to go. You don’t get access to the “insides”, meaning you can’t make any changes to the files that run your blog. The next disadvantage is the limited layout and appearance settings. Sure they give you a lot of control of how you want your layout to appear, but that control spans from left or right column. The themes (appearance) are limited, too. The last limitation that I want to mention is user agreement. It might not be limitation to most, but I did want to mention that you do have to follow Google’s agreement. Some people might not like that, but that’s very rare.

WordPress

Before getting deep into discussion about Wordpress (WP), I want to mention that WP offers hosted service (free) on WordPress.com, which does offer more freedom than Blogger but I will stick with Blogger as my choice for hosted blogging platform.

WP is the free, open-source blogging platform that is very good at what it does. This website is hosted by WP. The main advantage of hosting your own blog is the disadvantage of the Blogger discussed above, having the freedom to alter code as much as you like. Whatever you want, you can do it or at least find someone who can. Even though WP is free, the people behind it are very good at what they do, updates a always on the horizon with new or improved features. A big advantage of using WP is the huge selection of plugins and themes. Plugins extend your blog’s functionality, and you can find a plugin for anything pretty much these days. Majority of them are free, but you can find some more advanced plugins that have a price. These plugins are developed by third parties, so they have a choice to offer it for free or charge. But, as I said, I’m yet to find a plugin that does what I need and I need to pay for it. I can always find a free plugin that does the job, but a good way to thank developers is either promote it on your blog or make a donation. The same applies to themes; WP community has thousands of free themes to choose from, and of course paid ones if you need more. You will definitely find a theme that works for you!

Looking at the disadvantages, the major one is the maintenance associated with it. You are hosting your own blog that means you have to learn how to run it from the technical perspective. Also, hosting your own blog means that you will have to pay for hosting service – unlike Blogger, which has no fees associated with it whatsoever.

I want to mention few things that apply to both platforms. The first one is custom domain. You can have your own custom domain in both, that’s not a limitation. The next thing is support. The support for both is pretty much the same, they offer support forum where you can get help from the community. It takes time and sometimes a bit frustrating, but it’s free. One important thing that I want to mention is, with Blogger you can’t fix a bug. You need to wait on Google to fix it; while on the other hand, your own blog can be fixed when you have the answer. Sometimes it might take a while for Google to fix it, so I just want you to keep that in mind. It’s rare though.

Before choosing what platform you want to use get a piece of paper and a pen, jot down what your needs are, budget, and goals. Once you have that down, look over the pros and cons for both platforms and see which one aligns with your needs, budget, and goals.

Blogger is pretty self-explanatory once you sign up and begin to use it. So, the next article will focus on hosting your own WP. I will give you some good tips on how to optimize your WP installation to its fullest potential.