If you haven’t noticed, I just switched from Blogger to WordPress about a week ago. Both are excellent services however I do enjoy WordPress a lot more now that I am finally using it. Now let me break down what I’ve found.
Blogger
Blogger was a great, easy to set up service.
All of my posts were automatically included in Google’s Blog Search as well as it’s organic results. Adding new templates was very easy to do and the XML templates allow a lot of flexibility. I also received a good amount of traffic from people just browsing the Blogger blogs.
WordPress
WordPress is also pretty great. It does require a few extra steps to get started but everything is very well documented.
My favorite part about WordPress is all of the plugins that are available. There were a few problems I ran into with my Blogger blog that were easily solved with my WordPress blog; like displaying code and filtering spam. Another great thing is the WYSIWYG. Blogger’s WYSIWYG was very glitchy for me and I did not like how it formated everything. WordPress also provides you with a pinging service which, once set up, provides greater indexing capabilities than blogger.
So which one is better?
It depends on your level of experience blogging and your knowledge about web technologies. Blogger is easier to use and setup and if you have a GMail account, your already half way there. You can also personalize the URL and it gives very detailed instructions to do this. However, if you have your own web host and domain name I would go with WordPress. It isn’t to hard too set up and in the long run it has a lot more features to play with.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
great post!
i think this will help to those newbies like me.
thanks for the heads up!
I just switched to WP as well.. I am definitely digging it much more than blogger, even though I only use their free blog services.
I’ll probably get a host down the line
weird.. it says I’m anonymous and I thought I put in my nickname.
i probably screwed something up
I’ve been in love with Wordpress, but I wish I knew how to completely use it. I’m hopeless when it comes to coding and widgets and all of the other blog jargon- hence why I started reading your blog.
I’ve looked closely at WP, but prefer Movable Type. There used to be a big gap between the two products, but now with MT v4, I believe MT is actually a better product. They’ve now also got an open source version for those who expect stuff for free. Worth checking out.
Eliot
VDP blog: http://www.veedeepee.com
Not Bad
I LOVE WordPress (had tried Typepad and Blogger before settling on WP a couple of years ago), but I find that the task of keeping up with the latest version and the security issues really stresses me out. It’s to the point where I have been considering dropping all my blogging.
I’ve had a couple of hacking incidents and found my patience just evaporated when it came to dealing with that.
I am juggling both and I am leaning towards wordpress as well. Though you’re right about having your post available in the google results which does help. I like to use blogger for few posts and wordpress as my main source. The plug-ins are hands down better for word press.
Blogger is great for teaching yourself code. All of that template customization is frustrating but educational. I’m starting to dabble with the WP though.
Blogger is great for beginners. After you grow out of Blogger (you’ll know because there’s more you want to do that Blogger won’t do for you), Wordpress.org is the next logical step for growing into your technology skills.
We just moved to Wordpress after building and running our business on Blogger for over a year.
Blogger = Beginner
Wordpress = Intermediate/Advanced :)
I started with WP.com, but had difficulty how to change it over to .org status so that I can monetize. I found blogspot easier to set up, so I use that as well. I agree with Caitlyn’s comment as I am also new to blogging. Thanks for your article.
Im a wordpress lifer would never look any other way. how can anything come close to the most customizable, upgradable little script ever