Argument for Sticking with Blogspot.com
When you run your own blog, it can be a difficult decision as to whether you should start out with a self-hosted or hosted blog. While it all depends on how much time and capital you want to put into it initially, there are also a few reasons why you should think otherwise.
Let’s presume that you have already established a site that isn’t specifically a blog. It might have the traditional format of a blog, but isn’t powered by a content management system (CMS), therefore it would take a long time to make the conversion to a blog solution, such as WordPress or Blogger. During the process, you would almost have to “rewrite” your blog, copying and pasting all the previous posts to the new platform.
Most of us would rather not have to deal with this, unless it would be a more permanent, proven move that could lead the blog to grow by leaps and bounds. For this reason, it would be a much easier approach to blog from Blogger, as some leading companies have continued to do.
Benefits of Staying with Blogger/Sharing Thoughts from Blogger
As previously mentioned, there are quite a few web-oriented companies that haven’t even setup their own blog on a custom domain, yet a sub-domain. Two that come to mind are Alexa and Associated Content. There must be a clear reason behind this, as it is quite painless to setup a sub-domain with Blogger or nearly any other platform.
- There are no additional costs or hosting fees associated with staying with Blogger. All the files are kept off-site, through the Picasa photo sharing and hosting service.
- It is extremely easy to maintain Blogger blogs, especially if you don’t want to create the full-fledged blog using other more complex systems.
- The company doesn’t have to be concerned about uptime. Unless there is a rare outage, Blogger has an uptime fairly close to one hundred percent.
- Built-in support for multiple authors allows you to focus on getting your ideas and any site/company updates out to your readers.
- You don’t necessarily need to know any form of coding or design – Blogger Gadgets allows these companies to add any necessary elements without looking elsewhere or having to deal with third-party widgets or tools.
Disadvantages
Although there are many advantages for both small and large companies when it comes to keeping your site on one of the *.blogspot.com domains, there are quite a few disadvantages. Remember that we are dealing with companies that have already developed a brand, and aren’t talking about starting a blog from scratch – more so, adding a blog to an existing brand.
- Less traffic and readers will visit the “blog” area of your site when you don’t focus as heavily on this area. As in the case of the examples provided earlier, my guess would be that they created the blogs simply to provide updates and a status of how the company is doing, rather than daily updates from a staff of writers.
- This approach is less conventional than having a blog setup as either blog.domain.com or domain.com/blog/, again leading to less readership over time.
- Listed under search engine results, many sites have a blog, which searchers might find useful. However, with a blog hosted off of your main server/site, it is more difficult for them to find your blog – it would probably listed further down the list instead.
Conclusion
Should you have started a site a few years ago (or didn’t think about adding a blog at first), adding one can be beneficial to your customers or readers. There are little excuses when it comes to starting with Blogger, and it is nearly as easy to create templates and integrate Blogger into your existing site as other platforms. Plus, it is simple to use and compatible, offering many features.
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I think many people started blogging when they do not have any confidence or experience for making money from the blog that’s why they have choose free blogging system otherwise the benefit of self hosting method is quite obvious.
Very informative article. Just discovered this site today and I’m already learning a lot about refining my blogging technique.
Blogspot is very simple and ease of use specially for newbies who dont want to spend those 9$ for domain and 20$ for hosting..If the blog really gets popular then only we should think of moving into a self hosted domain. Otherwise blogger is not bad to use. Also i think google gives importance to blogspot blogs in SEO works..
I think Blogger is an amazing platform to start of your blogging career proceedings.
Another benefit would be quicker adsense approval and higher google search position.