WordPress vs. BlogSpot: Which Is Better & Why?

280Shares
WordPress vs Blogspot
  • Save

When it comes to blogging, we have plenty of options to start a blog:

  • WordPress
  • BlogSpot
  • Tumblr
  • …and many others…

One of the most talked about topics here at ShoutMeLoud is:

Which blogging platform is better?

WordPress or Blogger?

This debate can get pretty confusing at times. Many users like BlogSpot because there are less technical hassles, and many users love WordPress because of its increased power and features. When someone asks me which platform they should start with, here is my usual answer:

Start with WordPress.com for a month, and once you get accustomed to blogging, start a new blog on the self-hosted WordPress platform.

Alternatively, you are free to use Blogger.com as your launchpad blogging platform, but don’t stick to it for too long.

I say this from experience because I started my blogging journey with BlogSpot and later migrated my blogger blog to WordPress.org.

Back then, there were a hell of a lot of learning experiences trying to figure out WordPress. But now, learning WordPress is quite easy with the help of detailed guides, tutorials, and videos.

Anyway, in this article, I have shared a detailed comparison of WordPress vs. BlogSpot and will explain which one is better for certain situations and why.

WordPress Vs. Blogger: Which Platform to choose?

Why and Why Not Blogger?

The Blogger platform (aka BlogSpot) is very useful when you just want to start a blog to share your thoughts. When you are not blogging for money, or you need a simple platform that doesn’t require any technical know-how, BlogSpot is really good.

While there are many limitations of BlogSpot in terms of functionalities and SEO benefit, if you just need a platform to start a blog with at almost 0 cost, BlogSpot is the right pick.

At the same time, if you are blogging for money, building authority, or for branding yourself, BlogSpot is not the ideal choice. This is because you have limited control over visibility in search engines, and after a while, you become very limited when you want to add new features.

I have read it many times:

  • Blogger is a Google product which means it gives more SEO advantages.

This is simply not true.

It doesn’t matter if you are using WordPress, Blogger, Drupal, or any other platform, SEO is decided by how you configure your complete site for search engines.

In the Blogger platform, we have limited control over our site. Despite the fact that they have added some new SEO features, BlogSpot still lacks in SEO optimization.

In a nutshell, the Blogger platform is better than WordPress when you are creating a blog for no other reason than you want to write. If you are OK with the limited features offered by the Blogger platform, then this is a great choice. For making money or creating a long term impact, WordPress platform is better.

Note: WordPress comes in two different forms. You can read about it here.

Why and Why Not WordPress?

Note: ShoutMeLoud uses WordPress (Self-hosted WordPress) as its blogging platform, but this will not make my comparison biased.

WordPress gives you complete control over your blog, and you can technically do anything you want.

You host your own files, can design it however you like, and can use it for any purpose (personal or professional).

You also get complete control over the SEO including adding SEO plugins to make your blog more SEO friendly. Moreover, you can always introduce the latest SEO techniques like “star ratings” using a plugin such as Rich Snippets.

WordPress will let you do everything you want to do.

But at the same time, you need to manage your own blog. You need to install WordPress on your own server and maintain your blog’s health.

It may sound technical, but with amazing support from the WordPress community, you can learn everything in no time.

In fact, if you stumble onto the ShoutMeLoud WordPress guide, most of your queries regarding WordPress will be answered.

Getting started with WordPress may require some effort in terms of watching videos, learning how to add a plugin, getting used to the dashboard, etc.

But we also have to do that with Blogger, right?

If you are planning to create a blog with the mindset of making it popular and making money from it, you should go for the self-hosted WordPress blog.

If you are an occasional writer or a hobby-blogger, BlogSpot is the best pick for you.

Here is a handy chart from HowJoyful, explaining the feature differences between BlogSpot vs. WordPress.com vs. Self-hosted WordPress (WordPress.org):

WordPress or Blogger
  • Save

Matt Cutts on Blogger or WordPress for SEO:

Matt Cutts is not only a Google engineer, and he is also the head of the Google Web Spam team.

He is one of those guys who educates normal users like you and me about what Google expects from a website and how the Google search engine works.

In the past, I have shared many webmaster videos from Matt, and he has always helped me learn something new. In a recent video, a user asked him:

  • “Which is better in terms of SEO: WordPress or Blogger?”

Matt answered the query with this video:

Subscribe on YouTube

Interestingly, Matt Cutts uses the WordPress platform for his personal blog, though he mentioned that Blogger is good for new users as it’s very simple to get started. He says that for casual blogging, it’s fantastic.

With regards to SEO advantages between Blogger and WordPress, both are about the same with the default installation.

The WordPress default installation is not SEO friendly, but you can always make your WordPress blog SEO friendly with the help of many available plugins.

In short, WordPress gives you more power and you can customize it according to your needs.

Blogger Vs. WordPress: Why WordPress is better? 

As I mentioned above, I started my journey to Blogging with BlogSpot, and later I moved to WordPress. So, I’m aware of the benefits and downside of BlogSpot, and here I’m not going to talk about any benefits, as WordPress offers all those features which BlogSpot offers.

1. Control over your blog:

This is one of the major reasons I support self-hosted blog. Blogspot is owned by Google, and there are chances that they can delete your Blogspot account without giving you any warning. Even if you use the custom domain feature (Using your domain name ), chances are high that if spammers use feature Flag as spam and report your blog as spam.

Google might remove your blog. This is something very common and by doing a quick search on Google, you will realize many bloggers faced this problem while using BlogSpot.

Winner: Self hosted blog

2. Search engine optimization:

It doesn’t matter where your blog is hosted, traffic is the first and last thing any blogger will look for. Search engine optimization in simple words means Optimizing your blog for search engines and getting traffic from search engine”. Comparing WordPress and BlogSpot, WordPress offers more options to optimize your blog for search engine where as in BlogSpot you are limited to certain settings.

Here are few posts which will help you to optimize your WordPress blog for search engine optimization

3. Plugins and support:

WordPress is blessed with features like the plugin and a strong community to get support.

  • Save

When I was on BlogSpot, I spent lots of time editing my theme to show related posts and adding such features. WordPress makes your life easy using simple plugins for everything you need. By using plugins, you can achieve anything, and if not, you can take help of WordPress support forum to get the custom code and extend the capabilities of your blog.

Here is a list of 30 must have WordPress plugins.

4. Reputation:

This can be considered as the human tendency or perception, that most of the people see Blogs built on blogger platform as non-serious. One of the simple reason is its free, and a mass number of people are using it for Blackhat SEO, spamming and for affiliate landing pages.

When talking about self-hosted blog, people think that the person has paid for the service, and he is serious about his blog.

5. Theme and templates:

BlogSpot offers many templates but due to the commercial nature of WordPress, you will find unlimited free and Premium WordPress themes. Moreover, since you have FTP access, you can alter the complete look and feel of your WordPress theme.

6. AdSense:

AdSense is the lifeline for any blogger who is looking forward to making money from his blog. Initially, BlogSpot used to be the best way to get your AdSense account approved, but later on, it’s becoming tough to get your Adsense account with BlogSpot.

With WordPress and your domain email address, getting your blog approved is very easy. Another advantage of a self-hosted blog.

If you are an AdSense user, you should consider checking out following posts on AdSense:

The Verdict: Blogger vs. WordPress

WordPress platform is anytime a better choice over Blogspot platform.

It’s important to figure out why you want to start a blog and then go from there. Blogger has many limitations that WordPress doesn’t have. In terms of functionality, there’s no question that WordPress is far superior.

If this article convinced you to move your Blogger hosted blog to WordPress, you can read my article on how to migrate from BlogSpot to WordPress.

Do let me know: What’s your verdict on WordPress vs. Blogger? Which platform do you prefer and why?

Here are hand-picked articles for further reading:

Was this helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!
  • Save
280Shares
Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

87 thoughts on “WordPress vs. BlogSpot: Which Is Better & Why?”

  1. I have used WordPress & blogger both for blogging. I found WordPress more comfortable to use and easy. Also, it gives the professional look and feel to the blog. As I had a paid version it gives me customization option as well.

  2. Rahul

    Okay. This is an informational article and I really like the chart / table you entered. WordPress or Blogger? Well, this can be an unpopular opinion, but I think that MOST people are finally going to migrate to WordPress, so I guess why not start from there? To do this, you may have to spend a little money, but I have to say if you are serious about your blog, save some money to fulfill it.
    In my humble opinion, if you can type in Microsoft Word, you can type a blog in WordPress. After that, you can add plugins to improve the functionality of your blog. All coding needs all in the voltage. So, yes WordPress is the winner in my book all day

  3. Redge

    I am new and just started an account for blogging, and tried both blogspot and WordPress to see the comparison myself. As of now I’m happy with the looks of my WordPress.com acct than Blogger. WordPress looks good both in desktop and mobile. But on the blogger.. I’m still trying to fix some buttons/info floating within the article paragraph, figuring out why it highlights part of the article I didn’t want.. it’s a headache. And for now it’s quite clear, that if I want to monetize from blogging then I should also spend money in WordPress.org. Blogger and wordpress.com would be just a training ground.

  4. Sohal Gupta

    I prefer WordPress over Blogspot or any other CDN, The reason is simple WordPress is quite simple and has some advantages over SEO of Blog

  5. Venkat Vavilala

    Good article. I am also using wordpress for my blogs. I found so many new features and enjoying with the plugins. Previously I was on blogspot now I am on wordpress. It is more flexible with features and it guidance.

  6. Shashank Ranjan

    Hello Mr. Harsh,
    I love WordPress because this platform gives a complete professional look to any blog or website. User friendly dashboard, plugins support, SEO friendly feature that boosts your quality contents over the search engine. WP also does the job to enhance the scope for overall customization process & makes it perfect to start a blog. Whatever points you have mentioned here regarding the comparison are really great and able to clear all the doubt. Thanks for this very very informative post. Worth reading for all the blogger community especially the beginners.

  7. Reitesh Kumar

    @Harsh
    WordPress is most popular and best platform for us. It has better customization and features. Now I want to shift my blog BlogSpot to WordPress.

  8. Rakesh Panchal

    I have switched over from blogger to wordpress, it has better customization and features at small cost of hosting.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top
280 Shares