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Thread: Word Press or Blogger? Pro's and Con's

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    Default Word Press or Blogger? Pro's and Con's

    Hey all... I currently use blogger, for no other reason than it was the first blog tool I came across that was free and easy when I started my website.

    That said I'm at a point where it might make sense to make a transition. However I don't want to do this more than once... if I do change. SO. I'd love to hear some pro's and cons about Wordpress and Blogger... as well perhaps any other blog utilities that I may not have heard of.

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    I have never used blogger so I can't make an actual comparison, but I can tell you that I absolutely love wordpress.

    I recently moved a friends site from a blogger platform to wordpress and it could not have been easier. It is 100% automated, no manual moving of anything.

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    I did use blogger once, for a short period many years ago, and while it worked for me at the time, i think that if you are serious about a blog and want to do more (eg earn potential income, expand what your blog can do) with your blog, then you really need to host it yourself, just to have the flexibility.

    I currently use wordpress, and dont know that i would want to use anything else at this point.
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    I couldn't imagine using anything other than Word Press. I used blogger before also, and it does serve it's purpose, but if you are serious about making money blogging, then self hosting is the only way to have control over your business.

    There are other platforms like Square Space, and Joomla that offer some nice aesthetics, but Word Press is open source, and most of the plug ins that add functionality are free...and there are thousands of them.

    With any other professional blogging platform, you have to pay extra for plug ins, templates and themes, and you don't have such a large community of support.

    The design options, customizations, and functions of Word Press are far superior to blogger in just about every way.

    By the way, every link in my sig is run on word press.
    Last edited by Harold Mansfield; 01-26-2009 at 07:19 PM.

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    I still use Blogger for one of the blogs I write, although it will be moving to Wordpress soon (hint, hint Vangogh). One thing I've noticed with Blogger is you don't have the ability to add extra pages. Wordpress allows you to add informational pages to your blog quite easily.

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    Blogger has a specific framework you work within and if that works for you then it may be just what you need.

    Wordpress gives you the flexibility to add various modules to enhance it's functionality in ways Blogger won't. You can add literally hundreds of plugins to do anything from plot visitors on a map to allow them to buy goods from your own shopping cart system. Personally I like the freedom WordPress gives me over Blogger but it truly is a matter of what you are most comfortable with.
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    The main advantage of Blogger is it's free and easy to start. WordPress isn't difficult though. It's really just as easy and they also offer a free hosted version.

    The best setup with WordPress is to pay for hosting and install WordPress. If you get Linux hosting you'll most likely have tools in your hosting control panel to install WordPress for you. Takes me a few minutes to install WordPress manually, not including the time to upload the files, but that's mostly idle time.

    The advantages are the better control you have over your blog. You can do more with WordPress than you can with blogger, in part because you're hosting it yourself, but in part because of the application itself.

    WordPres can be set up as a full content management system. You can use it without ever using the blog. The last few sites I've developed for people have all been on WordPress and some you would never know were built using a blogging system.

    WP is generally search engine friendly out of the box (with a few small tweaks anyone can do). It also has several plugins to make it more search friendly.

    Speaking of plugins, there's a very active developer community around WordPress offering free plugins for most anything you'd want to add. Most of the time I think to myself I wish WordPress could do something. So I search for wordpress plugins something and in a few minutes have found someone built me a free plugin to add the functionality I was looking for.

    If you're up for customizing your own theme it's relatively easy to do. You'll want to know html and css, but if you can themes are easy to customize. If you prefer not to customize it yourself and decide instead to hire someone like me you'll likely pay less to have the work done than you would if the site was built on something other than WordPress.

    Lots of free themes available too that are easy to install if you have an FTP program to upload the files to the server.

    Blogging is easy. If you can post a blog on Blogger you can post one on WordPress. Might take you a couple of days to get used to a new interface, but odds are you'll be able to jump right in.
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    I think that the concept behind blogger is, make it fool proof. The idea of a fixed system that cannot be expanded, is proof of that concept. It means people that really are not sure on what they are doing have a fixed way to do what they need to with the knowledge that doing that same thing will give them the same results each time.

    I agree that installing wordpress is a very easy option. Fantastico makes it literally a 1 minute job if you have access, other wise you can use the file manger in cpanel and upload the zip, and unzip on the fly in less then 5 minutes.
    Joel Brown
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    love the foolproof part!!!!
    blogger is right for me...im pretty sure i couldnt handle the harder wordpress...i havent been able to learn all the stuffi can do on blogger yet anyway...i just love it, it gives me capabilities i never imagined...and i get so much nice feedback from it....

    now i do want a third column....the plan is to get dh in a nice helpful mood /aka butter him up and make him do it...i wouldnt even try and hes so good at stuf like that........i think that would expand my thing quite a bit...
    .i realize wordpress is way better in many ways...but for me at my level, im very happy with blogger...
    Last edited by greenoak; 01-29-2009 at 11:54 AM.
    ann at greenoak www.greenoakantiques.com

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    Nice to see you back Ann. There's nothing hard about WordPress. You'd likely find it just as easy to use as Blogger. If there was any issue it would be installing WordPress, though there's a good chance your hosting account will let you install WordPress with a few clicks. And even if you hired someone like me to install it for you the money wouldn't be much.
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