swansonager – what is matt up to?

Ok, so not really merging in a physical sense, but in more of a virtual sense of what each service offers their users from a feature perspective. In this post, we’ll explore the benefits and drawbacks of each blogging platform as well as each of the following services: Blogspot, Wordpress.com, Standalone Wordpress Software.

What are the different options for blog owners and authors that provide the most flexibility, ease of use, and the best benefits for both power and casual authors that want to create a blog for their business or passion.

Earlier this week, Alison commented on my post about how to get natural traffic from google in under 3 days and posed this question:

Thanks, Matt! Great post! As for those of us who use blogger, do you have any suggestions regarding it specifically? Or if not, is it a good idea to switch over to Wordpress?

She brings up a great question. A lot of you might know even know what the options are when it comes to starting a blog using some of the great open source and free options you have available. So let’s give a breakdown of those services first. You can basically have a blog that is either:

Option One – Use a free blogging service

For example, Google offers Blogspot for their users as a free service, or Wordpress (more on Wordpress in a second though)

Cost: FREE – Maybe you want to setup a free blog with blogspot

Cost: FREE – You could setup a free blog with hosted wordpress

Option Two – You host the Blog, Software and Database

In this option, you install the blog software you download on your own web host or web server (you could go with something like Wordpress, B2Evolution, or Dot Net Blog Engine)

Cost: FREE (you only pay hosting and bandwidth + domain registration) -You might want to use the wordpress standalone software

I mentioned that Wordpress is a different beast in a way because they offer both option 1 and option 2 above – You can use Wordpress.com if you want to have a blog that is hosted by Wordpress or you can download the standalone version of wordpress from Wordpress.org to run the software yourself.

If you’re a .net guru, then dot net blog engine might be for you

Another option for open source is B2 Evolution – I used this back in early 2003-2005 to blog internally when I was a Sr. Software Engineer at CareerBuilder.com

What’s the best option to go with?

Really, it’s different for everyone. Like with most things, it’s really what you are comfortable using. Most beginners or folks that don’t come from a technical background, or have an understanding of html or any scripting language for that matter will probably go with Option #1 above – it’s free and very intuitive to set up and use. Most of the third party hosted blog provide ample functionality for the casual blogger to get started and run a site.

That being said, there are some drawbacks to using a third party blogging service:

1. Lack of broad plugin support (what a plugin you ask? we’ll use Wordpress for example – anything you could ever want to do has a plugin that someone has built)

2. Domain and URL Structure Control – you’re domain will be xxxxx.blogspot.com or xxxx.wordpress.com. (Note: you can use the cname process with blogspot though) but most folks have no clue what that means and I won’t go into it now…) Full details here: CName’ing your site with Blogspot

3. Root access for uploading files…sitemaps is done in a non traditional route for notifying Google which pages you have on your site – Lenin writes how to upload a sitemap for Blogspot…..

4. Database backup and storage backup – with Blogger or Wordpress.com backing up your data can be tricky and not automated that I know of (please someone correct me if I am wrong) – but with a standalone Wordpress site, you can easily backup your wordpress database automatically

5. You want your content to boost your domain – let’s face it, if you are going to put the time and effort into any business venture or blog, you want to have full ownership of the site as well as experience the full benefits down the road – like if you sell your site for 1M one day. Building out your site on a Blogger domain isn’t the best choice for setting up yourself for future success, imo. You can always migrate from blogspot to wordpress later on, but that can be tricky for the general blogger to complete successfully, etc.

Where Third Party Hosted Blogs win (usually)

Those are just a couple drawbacks but I’d like to mention a key area where Blogger or Wordpress might really be able to help you – it’s scale. You want to make sure your efforts will be seen by the masses and that your site can handle a lot of visitors, right? Blogger and Wordpress.com a used by millions of people everyday and they will be up 99.999% of the time in most cases. Running your own site does put you at risk to make sure your web host can handle the traffic load when you get on the front page of CNN – ok, that might not happen right away – but you need to be ready and set yourself up for success.

Conclusion of Third Party Hosted v. Standalone Blogging Software

Basically you can get a free blog that is more of a black box (blogger or hosted at wordpress) or you can do it yourself…Having ‘under the hood’ access if you will, provides way more flexibility but at the same time, requires a deeper understanding of technology.

On a personal note, if your friend wants a blog and knows nothing about the tech side, set them up with a wordpress hosted or blogspot blog, otherwise you’ve just got a new non paying customer to support

If you decide to go with option #1 above, Pulsed has published an excellent list of the features of a BlogSpot v. Wordpress.com Features that’s updated as of May 2009.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on which features of each type of service you love or hate… please comment and let me know!