Why WordPress?

Chances are you’re thinking of launching a brand new website for your blog and/or business, or perhaps you already have some sort of site but it’s time for an upgrade?  There’s no shortage of options out on the web, but understanding your options can be overwhelming.

Whether starting out new or upgrading an existing site, you probably want to build your site on WordPress. Here’s why:

Note: When I say WordPress, I’m talking about a self-hosted WordPress.org site, not a free WordPress.com site – more on this at the end of the post).

1. A lot of design options. WordPress has 1,000’s of beautiful templates and themes available. Most themes are easy to customize because a lot of them have an option panel allowing you to upload your logo, change colors, create sliders, etc.  Make sure you choose a theme that’s mobile responsive otherwise your site might as well be invisible (read why here)
2. Customizable. With just one click of a button you can customize your site to appear and function as you would like due to the massive amounts of plug-ins and add-ons available! Virtually almost any kind of solution you need is out there. Need an easy way to build forms? Integrate social media? Improve SEO search results? There’s a plug-in.  Then once your WordPress site is set up, it’s fairly easy to use!
3. Updates. Technology and the digital world change constantly. It’s easy to keep your site up-to-date with the latest versions of software – just by clicking a button.
4. SEO Friendly. WordPress is written using standard compliance high quality code and produces semantic mark up. What?! Just know that it makes your site very attractive to search engines, haha.
5. Ready for Growth. As your business grows, your wordpress site can adapt to your needs and sophistication.  You can easily add a blog, gallery, portfolio, membership site, store, etc.

Why You Should Be Using WordPress.

I get asked often: Why should I use WordPress? Isn’t my current site good enough? Why do I need to switch to WordPress? And which is better, WordPress vs. Blogger?

Besides the 5 reasons stated above, I thought a comparison would be helpful.  Since we tend to do a lot of Blogger to WordPress site migrations, I’ll do a WordPress vs. Blogger platform comparison.

Note: I’m covering the pros and cons between WordPress and Blogger, but you can really plug in most of the others like Wix, Weebly, Squarespace…)

1. Ownership.

Blogger is a free blogging service provided by Google, BUT is not owned by you!  Google runs this service and has the right to shut it down, or shut down your access to it at any time.

With WordPress, you use a hosting provider to host your own site.  You decide how long you want to run it and when you want to shut it down.  You also own all your data, and control what information you’d like to share with a 3^rd party.  I’d suggest Bluehost or Rochenhost hosting providers, depending on your needs.

 2. Appearance.

Blogger by default provides a limited set of templates to use.  You can modify the colors and layout using built-in tools, but you can’t create your own layouts or make custom modifications.

WordPress has 1,000’s of free and premium WordPress themes that allow you to create professional, easy-to-navigate, beautiful websites.  And as stated earlier, tons of plug-ins and add-ons to customize your site!

3. Control.

Blogger is a service with very limited tools. The things you can do on your blog are limited, and there’s no way you can extend them to meet your growing need.

WordPress is an open source software, so you can easily extend it to add new features such as adding a store to your site, creating a portfolio, membership, etc.

4. Movability.

Moving your site from Blogger to a different platform is not an easy task.  Even though blogger allows you to export your content, your data will stay on Google’s servers for a really long time.

You can easily move your WordPress site to a new host, another content management system or even change your domain name.

5. SEO.

Blogger, like the other free blog set ups, don’t do any favors for your SEO efforts. Personal note: I’ve checked the page ranking of several large blogger websites, and most rank low or worse yet, zero.  This is not good!

WordPress being self-hosted + your own domain name offers huge SEO advantages.

6. Security.

Blogger has the Google secure platform advantage.  You don’t have to worry about managing your server’s resources, securing your blog, or creating backups!

WordPress is quite secure, but since it is self-hosted you are responsible for security and backups.  One of my favorites is the paid plug-in Backup Buddy.  You can schedule backups and store them off-site.  Note: I don’t recommend your backup to be on the same server as your website hosting.  IF your hosting server for your site gets corrupted, so does your backup!

7. The Future.

Blogger has not seen a major update for a really long time (I believe since 2011, correct me if I’m wrong).  We have seen Google kill popular services like Adsense for feeds, the possible demise of Feedburner, and the lack of support for Google+.  The future of Blogger depends on Google – It is never smart to be dependent on another business.

WordPress is an open source software and its future is NOT dependent on one company or individual.  It’s the world’s most popular content management system… I think it’s safe to say its future is pretty secure!

I hope this WordPress vs. Blogger comparison helped you understand the pros and cons of each… and why you should be using WordPress!

Added Bonus:  Many WordPress users get confused between a self-hosted WordPress.org site vs. a free WordPress.com site – Here’s an infographic by WPBeginner that illustrates the differences. Enjoy!

 

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Main Photo: Kodework