These names, all have a unique approach but they all head on to one destination, blogging. This one word which makes these names big and some people celebrities. Another thing that I have seen in bloggers is the fact that they are pretty much confused about which platform to go ahead with and do what in order to make their blog a success.
Its a big question, and for all those people who say that platform doesn’t make a difference, they are completely wrong. Also the ones who say that WordPress is the best blogging platform and everyone should use it are also wrong and similarly the ones who say that the bloggers who don’t use WordPress would fail are also wrong.
Too much of facts! Isn’t it, but more or less these all are true which as newbies one may fail to understand but if you research for about 2-3 years you’ll get to this point and find answers for yourself easily. In this article I’ll talk mainly about platforms which are used as a service and I’ll only talk about free platforms. I’ll also brief a little about WordPress or the blog software king but mostly my focus is on Google Blogger and Tumblr.
Why not WordPress?
I love WordPress and for me its a tool by which I can build any type of a website. The freedom and independence is great but all becomes a reality is when you understand lines of code. Oh yeah, you should somewhere or the other have technical knowledge to harness the power of WordPress. If you can’t or you don’t then it is the same as Blogger or Tumblr apart from the fact you don’t pay anything there.
So if you have in mind that you don’t want to spend much or have any technical knowledge of servers and web design or security, don’t use WordPress cause you may screw up.
Another Important Thing !
Well in WordPress this is kind of compulsion but people using Blogger or Tumblr often don’t take this seriously. The point is you should always have your own domain. I suggest go ahead for .com as it would cost you not more than $10 a year(practically nothing) but there are other cheap alternatives as well such as . info and more which start as low as $3 per year. Its always your choice and believe it or not a domain name always helps. I suggest you to use GoDaddy or Namecheap as they are the best and the cheapest but you may consider other registrars as well.
Google Blogger
Of course a service by the incredible company Google and it is as simple as it can be. What it gives you are endless features and the whole service is free. Probably the simplest platform I have seen till now. Where it outsmarts its competition Tumblr is :
- Search optimized : Unlike before, now you get various of the advanced tools in blogger such as sitemap, and robots.txt and much more making it possible for you to get really good SEO. Above all the fact that Google will always highlight its service on the top. So if you look out for SEO, you should go ahead with this.
- Freedom : Yes, you are free comparatively because without knowing a single word of code you can change the complete layout of your blog to anything you imagine about. Not only this you need no technical experience to do anything else.
- Statistics : Already built in with analytics you don’t have to go and use any other software because you know it well how many people visit your blog regularly.
- Money : Its easy for you to integrate Adsence and Amazon Associates to your content in order to earn money as these are already built in. So you really need no extra effort to do much of the stuff.
- Security : No one can hack into your sites or anything. Why? Of course its Google, they know how to secure your data. And yeah, your data would be store on Google’s servers in California.
So I believe what you are thinking now, its a complete package why not move ahead with it? Well I’d ask you to continue reading for the next 5 minutes(may be) so that you may understand how Tumblr also has some great features.
Tumblr
- Built in Social Network : A report said that after Facebook, its Tumblr that is the most used social network in the USA for the year 2012. Now if that is true in any sense you better go ahead and do something about it. I mean with an already built in social network what ever you post and tag, goes directly to millions of audience. So you don’t do any of the hardwork to get some audience. And believe me getting an audience is one of the toughest job in the beginning and it gets worse if you have no experience.
- Post Anything : Yes, if you wnat to post a quote, post, image, conversation, video(hosted anywhere) or an audio file(hosted anywhere) its all possible. This is one big reason why I think if anyone is planning to go into micro blogging, they should go ahead with this option. [Also please check my microblog at tumblr]
- Use From Mobile: Travel a lot, you can post anything from the web using your tab, iPhone, iPad or any mobile device. And trust me the mobile app is really easy to use.
- Security: Oh yeah, once again you get some great professionals to look after the security of your site so its not getting hacked. Just imagine best engineers from the world are looking after the security of your blog and you’re not even paying for that.
So now this also looks like a great platform.
Final Conclusion
If you plan to write long articles then consider going ahead for Blogger and yes you can promote your articles on Tumblr after that or build a micro blog around your niche. On the other side if you feel you don’t have a lot of patience then go ahead and build a microblog at Tumblr, and that may also work well in case you want to go ahead and rock. And not to forget content is king, so you have to post good stuff and have a consistency in order to succeed.
Hope you make a great decision and have a great blogging career 
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