On HotBlogTips.com it should be obvious for regular visitors that I prefer WordPress over other blog formats. Without listing all of the reasons to choose WordPress, which there are many, I’d like to acknowledge another popular choice among bloggers and that is Blogger. Blogger, owned by Google, is a popular and easy to use blog building platform that anyone can use to create an online blog. Like WordPress.com, members of Blogger can create a blog without their own domain. And that is the issue that brings me to this post.
Most Bloggers would agree that we need our own domain in order to blog with any real success and I’m right there with that same opinion. I, like most in the circle of bloggers I mix with, prefer WordPress over Blogger. With that said, there are always exceptions and over the last two days I’ve seen several of those exceptions that I want to share.
Yesterday I was watching our local news and one of the news anchors was talking about a political issue and had a well known blogger on as an expert. It has become very common to see bloggers being interviewed as authorities on their blog’s subjects but what caught my attention was his BlogSpot (Blogger) URL. Forgive me, I can not recall the blogger or his site.
Later in the day I was listening to NPR (National Public Radio) and, again, another blogger joined the conversation with a BlogSpot URL. Wow, two bloggers in one day making it in the news as authorities in their fields simply because they had blogs. Both with Blogger blogs? Hmm, wonder if I’ve been too quick to judge.
Then to top things off, this morning I get my ‘Week In Review‘ feed subscription from GarryConn.com and one of his posts, JohnChow.com Regains Google Ranking, talks about how John Chow is back in Google’s good graces and he is now back in the search results for the key word term “make money online”. Now that is a great term and I ran the search to see where John was in there and guess who was number one? Not John Chow but, yes, a blog on BlogSpot, Grizzly’s How to Make Money Online for Beginners http://makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com/. It gets better, number two for the Google search term “make money online” is http://moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com/.
I can think of dozens of reasons why you should not build a blog on BlogSpot, or any other blog site for that matter, but that is just my opinion (which I will always continue to share). Obviously there are very successful bloggers still using free blog hosting sites so don’t let the whole ‘domain‘ issue stop you. Just get out there and Blog!
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I must say I’m loving Wordpress – now…but I started out blogging using Blogger. I found it to be easier to use, especially if one is just starting out! I still maintain my blogger blogs as well as blogging on Wordpress and definitely agree with you – “Just get out there and start blogging”!
Love your new blog by the way…
Brenda
.-= Brenda´s last blog ..Marketing with Candles, Electricity & Nuclear Fusion?? =-.
Hi Brenda, I started out on Blogger too. I had three blogs and I couldn’t get them to be do-follow so I made the move to WP and never looked back. I like the control that having our own domain provides. I don’t have to worry what what I can and can’t use. Blogger really is a great way for people to get started and apparently for a few to get very popular.
Hi Brian,
As an internet marketer I have learned to use many platforms to make money online including both WP blogs and Blogspot.
The WP is best debate is something that Bloggers continually echo as they are trying to build up a social following a la John Chow, Darren Rowse etc. If I was looking for social traffic then I would likely stick to WP myself – the thing is I have found Search Engine traffic is far more profitable and Blogspot is the easiest and quickest platform to rank well in the search engines. In essence there is no best platform – just the right platform for your goals.
It is ironic that I have developed a social following anyway, in spite of my plain simple Blogspot blog – never my intention as I prefer to stay under the radar. I have however noticed a number of bloggers such as yourself come to realize that Blogspot blogs can be as successful as any other platform – a refreshing change from the usual bashing it has taken over the years.
Thanks for the post – most enjoyable.
.-= Griz´s last blog ..Great Grandmother Needs Help =-.
Great comment Griz, Blogger’s been around for a long time. Blogger celebrates it’s tenth birthday this month and you don’t get that far and that big by ‘fooling’ everyone. I feel there’s some very good reasons to have our own domains and I love WordPress but Blogspot is a respectable host as well.
So far i’m kind of enjoying using the wordpress cms. I’ve had a few blogs with blogspot in the past and even though creating blogs and publishing content is very very easy to do at blogspot, the problem still lies at that it isn’t a self hosted domain name. Blogspot also doesn’t have the powerful and cool features that wordpress has. I’ve heard rumours that blogspot blogs do get indexed very fast by google, because Google owns blogspot.
If your a beginner i’d reccommend starting out with blogspot to get the hang of blogging.
Now i’m not trying to discouage people from using blogspot, because there are bloggers who have success using wordpress, but i personally choose wordpress as it has more features and control.
If you think you can be a success using blogspot then obviously you should go for it and take the jump.
.-= Gary@Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..You Have To Stand Out From The Crowd To Be Successful =-.
Hi Gary, We share the same opinion on this matter. You could take your entire comment and put my name on it and I could believe I wrote it. I’ve had a few sites on Blogspot too but I’m a huge WordPress fan. I now have several WordPress blogs and even many of my niche sites run with the WordPress format.
.-= Brian Hawkins´s last blog ..Brian D. Hawkins – A Name You Can Trust =-.