WordPress Or Blogger? Which Is Better?

Some bloggers are married to Blogger.com and others swear by WordPress. Which is better?

There are good reasons for going with either one. To be sure, pros and cons abound on both sides, but I’m partial to WordPress for business blogs and there are several reasons why. But before I tell you what they are, let me just tout the virtues of Blogger.com:

• It’s owned by Google

There. That should do it.

Now, I’m not being sarcastic. Google has a lot of pull in terms of who is ranked in the search engines – particularly its own. And if you own the system then you can give it a little extra credit. And that’s the primary benefit of Blogger.com. You get extra credit for SEO with Google.

Now, the downside is it’s a free web-based blogging platform. And you might ask, “Well, why is that a downside?” It’s a downside because if it’s free then everyone can use it, and everyone will – including spammers. Spammers love Blogger.com because it’s free and easy to use. They don’t have to buy a domain name or install any software and there is no commitment to maintain anything. And because of this, Blogger.com is the biggest spam neighborhood on the Internet. That alone is reason not to use it for your business blog.

This blog post from a Blogger.com advocate confirms what I’m saying:

Yes, WordPress is a “must have” for a serious blogger, especially if their topic is “making money” or “blogging” but, in many circumstances, Blogger is a superior platform and here are 3 reasons why.

And what does this blogger say are the three reasons that Blogger.com is superior?

• It’s free
• The user interface is simple to use
• No SEO needed

OK. Fabulous. WordPress is free and the user interface is simple to use. But you do need to optimize it and think about SEO when you write your posts. It doesn’t have the advantage of being owned by Google. Blogger.com does, and I’ve seen non-SEOd Blogger blogs rank highly simply because they use a Blogger.com interface. It’s the only advantage that you have with Blogger.com. Still, I reiterate it’s huge negative: Big-time spam neighborhood!

WordPress, O WordPress, Wherefore Art
Thou WordPress?
There are some technical challenges to overcome with WordPress. If you aren’t familiar with FTP, you’ll be lost. If you’ve never installed software on a website, CMS, or other blogger software then there is a learning curve. But that’s no reason not to do it. You can hire someone to do that for you or learn to do it yourself – it really isn’t hard once you get past the learning curve.

After the technical challenges, you can build a great blog with WordPress. You have more flexibility in terms of design with free access to unlimited plug-ins and widgets, your pick of free templates, or you can hire a designer to design your own unique template, you can have your own domain name, and with excellent writing and SEO abilities you can have a darn good blog within your niche.

There is no advantage to being with a platform where no SEO is necessary to rank. It’s like having a job because you are the business owner’s son. The other employees know you have no skills to offer. You’re just there to take up space because you can’t go out on your own. WordPress allows you to prove your independence.

It almost always better to own the real estate than to rent it. With Blogger.com, you are a renter, which means you can be evicted any time. With WordPress, you are an owner. the only thing that will get you evicted is not maintaining your financial obligations. For $10/year you can have your very own domain name. Pay your bill, it’s yours forever, and if you can’t afford $10/year then you shouldn’t have a blog any way. WordPress is free, easy to install, and with the proper SEO will help you brand your business long term. There really is no reason not to use WordPress as your blog platform.