Pro Tip: Start on WordPress instead of Blogger

There are tons of free blogging platforms out there, 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 start on WordPress.

Many people choose Blogger first. 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.

Benefits of Using WordPress

Easier transition to self-hosted. Should you decide blogging is really your thing, you’ll want to move to your own domain (www.yourblogname.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.

More attention from 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.

More choices. When my site was on Blogger, 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.

Speed. Ever get frustrated waiting for a site to load and just click away? You don’t want visitors to your blog doing that! 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.

The Bottom Line

If you still decide to use Blogger, you won’t be left out of the loop here. I’ll provide information and tutorials for both platforms. However, I would strongly urge you to set up a free WordPress account and give it a try. You can always delete the blog if you don’t like it!