Blog Platform: Guide to select best blogging platform from wordpress and blogger. When it comes to choosing a blogging platform you have to select it wisely. there are many blogging platform and all are great but you have to use a blog platform that fits your requirement and budget. these are some popular blogging platform:
- Free* Hosted WordPress.com
- Self Hosted WordPress.org
- Google Blogger
- Tumblr
- Squarespace
- Medium
- Posthaven
- Ghost
and many more….
List of blogging platforms is very long but in this article we are not going to discuses on all blogging platforms. main focus of this post is to provide a detailed information for new bloggers. a comparison on different Blog Platform may help them to select a platform that fits their requirements and budget.
- We are limiting our discussion to only
- free* hosted wordpress.com (*you can invest if you want)
- self hosted wordPress.org
- Google’s free Blogger Platform.(you can invest on custom domain).
best blogging platforms and blog sites
this blog platform comparison done by different thing like ease of use, cost, customization & control and SEO. a blogging platform may be better in customization & control and other in cost. you just need to read the comparison and select the best suited for your requirements.
WordPress.com – a free* hosted blogging platform
don’t be confused in wordpress.com and wordpress.org. wordpress.com is a free hosted blogging platform (yes you can also invest on wordpress.com blog). it free blogging plan offers you basic design customization, storage space up to 3GB and. if you use free blogging plan then wordpress can display ads on your blog and you are not allowed to display your ads until you get more than 25000 page views per month. you are not allowed to upload plugins and custom themes.
Read more: Best WordPress Hosting (Updated) - Review’s & Buyers Guide
free wordpress.com regular expense
wordpress.com comes with different plans according to the requirement of user. if you don’t want to invest a single penny then you can use free plan. free plan provide you 3GB storage space. if you want to invest then you can choose from its personal plan, premium plan or business plan. currently its personal plan cost you $4, premium plan cost you $8 and business plan cost you $25. the pricing of these plans listed here as on 2021 and may change anytime so check wordpress.com plans for actual pricing.
free wordpress.com design customization and control
As you know wordpress.com blog is not hosted by the user so user have limited control over design customization. in free plan you have limited theme support and not allowed to upload custom theme for your blog. you have to use on of the free theme by wordpress.com. if you upgrade to higher plans then you will get more control over customization and design. you are not allowed to upload plugins if you want then you can buy their VIP Program.
free wordpress.com maintenance and backups
you need not to worry about maintenance, backups and optimization if you are blogging on wordoress.com. as the blog is hosted by wordoress.com so it will take care of maintenance, backups and optimization.
free wordpress.com SEO Effects
SEO effects are directly not related to your blogging platform. your content and backlinks are more important for SEO but as we have already know that wordpress.com bloggers are not allowed to upload plugins. you are not able to use some great SEO Plugins available in market.
Our call on wordpress.com blogging platform
if you want a quick start blogging, not interested to invest, not looking to make career in blogging then you can use wordpress.com without thinking to much. if you want to start blogging career then you should avoid this platform. to make your career better and safe you need full control on your blog and its design. i recommend this blogging platform only if are not looking to make blogging career, not thinking about the design and not looking to invest. a big no from me for the serious a blogger who want complete control over blog design, customization and performance.
WordPress.org – self hosted blogging platform
wordpress.org the self hosted blogging platform used by professional bloggers. wordpress is free and open-source CMS started in 2003. wordpress is the most widely used self hosted blogging tool in the world. you have full control over design customization, money you want to spend.
self hosted wordpress regular expense
wordpress.org blogging tool is open source and free to use but still you have to spend some money to make your blog live. you have to pay for the domain name and web hosting services. you have to pay about $10-$15 for your domain name once a year. web hosting cost depends on your requirements, traffic and hosting provider. high traffic sites needs more expensive hosting. for a new blog you can start about $2-$3 per month.
self hosted wordpress design customization and control
Design customization and control is the best part of self hosted wordpress blog. you have full control over your files. you can modify and customize your blog according to you. you can use third party themes and plugins. self hosted wordpress makes your blog flexible for design customization.
self hosted wordpress maintenance and backups
your blog is self hosted so you are responsible for maintenance. its your responsibility to take regular backups, update it regularly and keeping your site optimized.
self hosted wordpress SEO Effects
There are some great SEO plugins that may help in writing great post optimized for SEO. these plugins check your on page SEO and provide some great tips to optimize you content for search engines. these SEO plugins tells how you are using your target keyword in your content, title tag, url structure and in img alt tag etc.
Our call on self hosted wordpress blogging platform
Self Hosted wordpress is best blogging platform for professional bloggers as well as for personal bloggers. you have full control over your blog files, design and customization and added advantage of SEO and other great plugins, what else you want? but yes you have to spend some money.
Blogger – google’s free blogging platform
Google’s blogging platform blogger is also free like wordpress.com but it doesn’t have different upgrade plans for users. blogger platform provides same features for each blogger. i have also started blogging with blogger. on blogger you can customize your design, look and feel, upload custom third party themes and custom HTML/JavaScript code.
Blogger regular expense
blogger is completely free. its not like wordpress.com that offers free as well as premium features for paid users. blogger is very simple to use, easy to handle. blogger provide you a free sub-domain on blogspot.com and if you want to spend then you can spend $12-$15 yearly on custom domain.
Blogger design customization and control
blogger comes with very simple design and not impressive for blogging. you can upload a custom theme and customize its look and feel according your blogging requirements. if you are not good in theme designing for blogger then you can download a free theme online or you can purchase a premium blogging themes.
Blogger maintenance and backups
Blogger blog is hosted by google so you are free from maintenance as its done by google. you can easily take backup of your theme and blog posts. you never need to upgrade blogger like wordpress.
Blogger SEO Effects
you can rank your blogger blog as high as wordpress blog but still you can’t use the features provided in wordpress by SEO plugins. you don’t have a option to make title tag different from post title in blogger, sorry you can but its very hard to do for every post and time consuming as well.
Our call on Blogger
Great Blogging platform, easy to use for beginners. good for you if you want to start blogging and not looking to invest. you can find some successful bloggers on this platform.
Finally Which blogging platform you should use?
after reading this article you are well aware of features, pros and cons of these three blogging platform. now you have to decide which platform fulfills your requirements and of course suits your budget. if you want to start a blog just for a fun or to learn then you may use blogger or free hosted wordpress. if you a looking to start blogging as a career then you should go for self hosted wordpress. you can also start blogging on blogger or free hosted wordpress solutions and latter you can move on to self hosted blogging.