Blogging Platforms Comparison and Choosing the Best One for You
If you're new to blogging, you've probably heard about a couple of the most popular blogging platforms.
The two most popular that people start with are Google's Blogger and WordPress.
com.
Each one has their good and bad points like flexibility, ability to customize, and how easy it is to add advertisements.
So let's compare them.
Blogger - A lot of beginners head right to Google's Blogger because it's one of the easiest free blogging platforms to use.
You just sign up for a Google account and follow Google's step-by-step instructions for setting up your blog.
Adding Google AdSense ads to a Blogger blog is easy and Google has step-by-step instructions for setting that up too.
Since it's so easy, and it's free, most new online marketers choose this blogging platform to get a blog started.
It's hassle-free and just about anyone who wants to start a blog can do it.
On the down side, they don't have a lot of blog templates to choose from and you can't really customize any of them.
But if you're not that picky, you can set up a great free blog on Blogger.
Also, you don't own the domain or hosting space so there are limitations as far as adding plugins or doing any customization.
And without your own domain name, you're limited as far as personal branding.
Another minus is that you can't export your blog's content if you want to move to WordPress.
So keep that in mind if you want to use Blogger.
It's a good idea to keep copies of all of your blog posts on your computer so you can recreate them in WordPress if you decide to upgrade your blogging platform.
WordPress.
com - WordPress.
com is another of the free blogging platforms that a lot of new bloggers use.
It's a little more complicated to set up than Blogger but there are setup instructions to follow.
WordPress has more free templates to choose from than Blogger, so it's one of the better blogging platforms when it comes to design.
But like with Blogger, you still don't own your own domain or hosting space with WordPress.
com.
And if you want to put ads on your blog to make money, you'll have to upgrade to WordPress.
org - which means purchasing a hosting package and a domain name.
WordPress.
org - A lot of people get confused between the two -.
com and.
org when it comes to WordPress blogging platforms.
When people talk about WordPress.
org, they're actually talking about their own domain and hosting service that allows you to install the WordPress platform.
WordPress.
org is the site where you can also download additional themes and plugins to upload/install and activate on your WordPress blog.
On WordPress.
com, you can only activate the free themes that are built into the platform.
Once you have your own domain name and paid hosting, though, you can install the WordPress blogging platform (WordPress.
org) and customize it any way you want.
The good thing about starting with a free WordPress.
com blog is that if you decide later on that you want your own domain and hosting, you can export your blog's content and then import it to your new WordPress blog.
The two most popular that people start with are Google's Blogger and WordPress.
com.
Each one has their good and bad points like flexibility, ability to customize, and how easy it is to add advertisements.
So let's compare them.
Blogger - A lot of beginners head right to Google's Blogger because it's one of the easiest free blogging platforms to use.
You just sign up for a Google account and follow Google's step-by-step instructions for setting up your blog.
Adding Google AdSense ads to a Blogger blog is easy and Google has step-by-step instructions for setting that up too.
Since it's so easy, and it's free, most new online marketers choose this blogging platform to get a blog started.
It's hassle-free and just about anyone who wants to start a blog can do it.
On the down side, they don't have a lot of blog templates to choose from and you can't really customize any of them.
But if you're not that picky, you can set up a great free blog on Blogger.
Also, you don't own the domain or hosting space so there are limitations as far as adding plugins or doing any customization.
And without your own domain name, you're limited as far as personal branding.
Another minus is that you can't export your blog's content if you want to move to WordPress.
So keep that in mind if you want to use Blogger.
It's a good idea to keep copies of all of your blog posts on your computer so you can recreate them in WordPress if you decide to upgrade your blogging platform.
WordPress.
com - WordPress.
com is another of the free blogging platforms that a lot of new bloggers use.
It's a little more complicated to set up than Blogger but there are setup instructions to follow.
WordPress has more free templates to choose from than Blogger, so it's one of the better blogging platforms when it comes to design.
But like with Blogger, you still don't own your own domain or hosting space with WordPress.
com.
And if you want to put ads on your blog to make money, you'll have to upgrade to WordPress.
org - which means purchasing a hosting package and a domain name.
WordPress.
org - A lot of people get confused between the two -.
com and.
org when it comes to WordPress blogging platforms.
When people talk about WordPress.
org, they're actually talking about their own domain and hosting service that allows you to install the WordPress platform.
WordPress.
org is the site where you can also download additional themes and plugins to upload/install and activate on your WordPress blog.
On WordPress.
com, you can only activate the free themes that are built into the platform.
Once you have your own domain name and paid hosting, though, you can install the WordPress blogging platform (WordPress.
org) and customize it any way you want.
The good thing about starting with a free WordPress.
com blog is that if you decide later on that you want your own domain and hosting, you can export your blog's content and then import it to your new WordPress blog.
