Do you feel pressure to move to WordPress? Are you feeling left behind thinking everyone is over there?
I used to feel that way, but the longer I have been on blogger the more I realize it can be a great platform to blog on. I love blogger and have been blogging for over 5 years on the blogger platform. I am not an expert when it comes to blog design or html and coding, but I have figured out quite a few things over the years.
Here are my 7 reasons you do not have to move to WordPress.
1. Free –
Whether you are a hobby blogger, just starting out, or even a part-time blogger, you probably will not be bringing in the big bucks. It takes time to make money. Blogger is completely free. However, with a self-hosted website you would be paying webhosting fees along with possible security fees, custom themes, premium plugins, etc. It is not a given that you will have to pay a lot to run it, but as your blog traffic grows, hosting fees will grow as well.
2. Customization –
I know that you can do more on WordPress in terms of customizing than you can on blogger. But that does not mean that you can’t customize blogger or that blogger blogs won’t look as professional as a WordPress blog. There are many blog designers that can customize a blogger site and make it look very professional. Personally, I would much rather pay a designer to customize my blog then to have to do that all myself because I can’t afford both a designer and webhosting fees.
3. Server capacity –
Blogger has unlimited server capacity. What this means is if you are lucky enough to have a post go viral and get 10s of thousands of hits, your blog won’t go down. But if you are self-hosted and don’t pay enough, all those potential new subscribers will get an error instead of a post. An example of this happening is What I wish I knew before that post went viral
No, this won’t happen to everyone, but it is a possibility.
4. Plugins –
Maybe they are not as big of a pain as it appears. But I cannot tell you how many times I hear of some plugin not working on someones site. An update goes through and you have to deactivate and activate every plug in to figure why your blog isn’t working correctly.
5. Easy to use –
Although, I have only played around with WordPress and never really used it, blogger is so easy. To me this is an important consideration. I know how to use blogger pretty well. Which means I can spend my limited blogging time on creating content, using social media, sharing posts, commenting, etc. If I switched to WP, I am going to have to spend quite a bit of time learning how to use it. I would much rather use that time on blogging and generating traffic.
6. G+ integration –
This might not be a important to a lot of bloggers who don’t really use G+, but the integration of G+ with blogger has benefits. One big benefit is the integration of G+ commenting on your blog. I have this. When someone comments on my blog post, it automatically gets shared on their G+ wall. I might share my blog post once on G+ myself, but if I get 3 comments on the post, I will get three more shares which will increase the number of people who see my post. It’s a win-win.
7. Google does not own your content on blogger –
This is a biggy. This might be one of the most popular reasons I hear to switch to WordPress and everything I have read about it is that this just is not true. Since I am not a blogger expert, I am going to quote one that is, David Kutcher:
Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate…
The only murky part, about granting the reproduction of your content to publish and distribute, is there because Google has to transmit your data and must have that language in their contract in order to allow you to view your data across its services.
You can read his whole reasoning on why google does NOT own your content. I would also recommend following him cause he is pretty smart and has helped me out several times with blogger.
So there are my 7 reasons I don’t think you HAVE to move to WordPress. I hope those of you who choose to stay on blogger (for now or forever) will feel better about your decision.
Are there any other benefits of Blogger I forgot to mention?
Suzy blogs at suzyhomemaker.net where she writes about real food, recipes, ingredients and nutrition. Start your path to Real Food and follow Suzy on Pinterest or G+.