Blogger or WordPress

So, you want to start a blog. You already chose a hosting provider, know exactly what your niche is and how you’re going to brand your newfound business.

Still, there is one question left to answer – which blogging platform should you choose? There are so many options out there, it can get overwhelming when making your pick.

In this article, we will compare two heavyweight champions of blogging platforms. Without further ado, let’s settle who wins when it comes to Blogger vs. WordPress.

What Are Blogger and WordPress?

Both Blogger and WordPress started off as blogging platforms. While they certainly grew and changed, both of them are still one of the most popular services to power up blogs. However, they are both very similar and different in many ways.

Blogger

Blogger is one of the oldest blogging platforms on the web. It was created back in 1999 by Pyra Labs and was bought by Google in 2003.

With blogger, anyone can create a blog as it requires little to no technical skills. It is easy to use service and allows you to create and launch a blog in a matter of minutes.

To build a free profile, you will need a Google account. If you don’t have one, it will only take seconds to acquire it.

Once logged in, you will see Blogger’s Dashboard and Settings tab. You can start creating a blog right away!

WordPress

Note: be mindful that in this article I am talking about WordPress.org, a self-hosted platform, not WordPress.com.

WordPress started out as a simple blogging platform. Nonetheless, it grew to be a lot more than that. Today WordPress is a sophisticated CMS (content management system). Not only can you create and manage a blog, but you can also make robust and powerful websites with ease.

However, WordPress is a self-hosted platform, so you do need to acquire web hosting to launch your website.

Some people might feel frightened by its steep learning curve, as you do need some technical knowledge to successfully create and manage a WordPress site. However, WordPress is extremely powerful and flexible, so those who want a robust and secure website can count on this platform.

With the help of thousands of plugins and themes, you will be able to create a blog of your dreams, manage it with ease and grow it in no time.

Is That All?

Is that all these platforms can offer? Don’t worry, we have only scratched the surface.

So let’s dive deeper!

1. Appearance

Blogger allows you to customize your site’s templates, colors, and layouts. There are options to customize templates using HTML and CSS, however, they are limited compared to what WordPress has to offer.

Keep in mind, that this might not be a problem at all, as there are many beautiful, highly functional templates you can get from third-party sources – such as Gooyaabi Templates and BTemplate.

Meanwhile, WordPress is famous for its sheer amount of highly customizable themes. You can find them in their Theme Directory or other third-party theme sources such as Theme Forest, Elegant Themes, and Thrive Themes.

Since WordPress is so flexible, you’ll be able to find a theme for any kind of website – be it an ecommerce site, an online forum or a blog.

What is more, all the themes can be customized via the Theme Editor. Moreover, you can also make your own themes using plugins, such as Click Child Themes.

2. Customization

Similar to the huge amount of available themes, WordPress is also rich in plugins. They are used for any task possible – everything from theme design to SEO, ecommerce, security and much more.

Apart from plugins, you can also customize your site via your hosting provider’s control panel. You can manage your site’s data and files via FTP or phpMyAdmin. What is more, it’s even possible to improve your site’s functionality via the functions.php file.

It’s true that everything is easier with Blogger because the customization tools are already provided. However, they’re limited to certain tasks, such as comments, pages, layouts, etc., so there’s not a lot you can actually do to change your website’s functionality.

3. Ownership

Since Blogger is owned by Google, the company has full control of your site. If you don’t fully follow Google Terms of Service or break a few of their rules by accident, your site might get banned.

What is more, Google has the right to close down any of their projects at any time. Just like with Google+, it’s the company that decides whether the service will survive or not.

That being said, WordPress is an open-source platform. You use it to create and manage a website, however, it is powered by your hosting provider. Meaning, you have full ownership of your website and it will be live as long as you pay your bills!

4. Security and Transferability

Since Blogger is maintained and managed by Google, it includes automated updates, which leaves you with one less thing to worry about!

WordPress, on the other hand, requires you to manually update it. This can be a problem when you simply forget to do so since WordPress’ security highly depends on software updates.

However, when it comes to transferability, WordPress is safer than Blogger. WordPress allows you to migrate to another hosting server or even another CMS with less of a chance for data loss.

Meanwhile, if you move your Blogger site to a different platform, you may lose your SEO rank.

5. SEO

Even though Blogger is owned by Google, that doesn’t mean that Blogger is superior when it comes to SEO  – surprisingly, it’s quite limited. Even though Blogger has been updated with advanced SEO features, it only allows users to set their meta tags description, page errors, redirections, search engine crawlers, and indexing.

SEO performance of any website actually depends on the configuration and regular practices. In this case, with WordPress, you can configure your website to the max and implement SEO with ease.

Moreover, it also provides robust SEO plugins to optimize on-page and off-page SEO performance. Yoast SEO, for example, is very easy to use and powerful plugin to improve your website’s rank on SERPs.

6. Support

While WordPress doesn’t have dedicated support, it makes up for with their wide community, thousands of tutorials, forums, video lessons, and online courses. What is more, most of hosting providers know WordPress in and out, so you can always ask for help there.

Blogger, on the other hand, doesn’t have such an active community. However, it has a community forum and dedicated customer support.

Which One Should You Choose?

Keep in mind, that when it comes to Blogger vs. WordPress, different people will prefer different platforms. It all depends on your needs and plans for the blog.

• If you want a simple blog and easy setup – choose Blogger. With a Google account in your hand, you can create a profile and build a simple blog in minutes. Blogger doesn’t require a hosting service as Google will be the one hosting your data.
• Choose WordPress if you’re comfortable with technicalities and need a more complex website. You will get hosting and a domain name, have full control of your site and its data and will be able to customize it as much as you want.
• If you want an easy-to-manage blog, choose Blogger. You don’t need to worry about updates and security. All you have to do is update your content regularly.
• If you expect a lot of traffic and have multiple authors – WordPress is the safer bet. While it is harder to manage, its functionality is much broader.
• If you don’t have a budget to start, choose Blogger. Blogger is free to use.
• If you’re going to blog and planning to make some income, I recommend you to choose WordPress over Blogger. WordPress allows its user to highly optimize their SEO performance, so it will be easier to bring traffic and monetize your blog.

Conclusion

Blogger or WordPress – it surely is a question to ask yourself when choosing a platform for your blog. Simply speaking, if you want a simple service – choose Blogger. If you want power and functionality – choose WordPress.

Here are some indicators that may emphasize their key differences:

• Appearance. WordPress allows for greater modification of your site’s appearance than Blogger.
• Customization. WordPress is more customizable than Blogger.
• Ownership. WordPress allows you to fully own your site while Blogger sites are owned by Google.
• Security and Transferability. Blogger is safer than WordPress since Google manages most of its updates.
• SEO. WordPress provides comprehensive SEO optimization features while Blogger only gives limited SEO compatibility
• Support. WordPress has wide community support, while Blogger offers fewer dedicated recourses.

So, what will be your choice?