Full disclosure, I finally made the big move for my lifestyle blog from Blogger to WordPress by migrating my blog content from the Google Blogger platform to the more talk about and sophisticated WordPress.org.
The move from Blogger to WordPress was due to my awful experience trying to link my Blogger blog to Cloudflare.
I needed to connect to the cloud server because my blog was inaccessible by users of a particular service provider in my country.
The problem is that Glo users are unable to open my blog on Google chrome – This site can’t be reached.
After linking with Cloudflare, the SSL certificate for my blog changed to insecure due to mixing content problem on my HTML resource.
I searched for solutions online on how to restore the SSL certificate for my blog but ended up with a headache and sleepless night.
The issue could have been resolved simply with a WordPress plugin in minutes. You can imagine the technological rigidity with Blogspot users.
Since the process of resolving the problem was painstaking, I could not deal with the restrictions on the Blogger blog platform not even in a time when we are all trying to deal with the covid-19 pandemic.
I took the big decision to transfer my personal, lifestyle and online diary to WordPress.
Blogger is a great blogging platform that I had used since 2013. I am very familiar with the interface and tweaks.
There are lots of tools and features not available for lifestyle bloggers.
WordPress is the most recommended platform for lifestyle bloggers who are looking to get a professional outlook of their blog.
Blogger platform is mostly used by newbie lifestyle bloggers who just want to get things started in seconds.
With my experience with Blogger service for over eight years and now a WP user, here are reasons why you should move your lifestyle blog from Blogger to WordPress.
Reasons why you should move your lifestyle blog from Blogger to WordPress
- Get Better and Professional Blog Design
- Classic Text Editor available for WordPress
- Table of content for SEO
- Rich and Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- WordPress Plugins for easy Blog Design
- Full control over lifestyle blog
- Social Media Integration for your blog
- User-Friendly and Simplified Blog Interface
- E-commerc
- Best Way to Starting a Lifestyle Blogging Career
1. Get Better and Professional Blog Design
I had to ransack the internet just to get a responsive and attractive template for my Blogger blog. The free and premium blogger templates I found online were not beautiful.
Whenever I come across a Blogger template, there is always an essential blog widget that would be missing giving my blog an unprofessional look.
I am a Personal and Lifestyle blogger and in My Journey to Diary of a Lion; I must use a responsive feminine blog theme to appeal to my blog audience and give my blog a professional look.
It is almost unattainable with the arrays of Blogger templates available online. With WordPress, there are many varieties of options to choose from ranging from paid to free responsive blog themes.
The free WordPress theme is more attractive than most Blogger Premium templates.
If you are looking at setting up a blog with a professional interface, then you have to choose WordPress as your blogging platform over Blogger.com.
2. Classic Text Editor available for WordPress
I experienced a lot of difficulties uploading text directly from Microsoft Word to Blogger text editor without any alteration to the text format.
Whenever I input a blog post, there will always be a variation after publishing. It was a particular time-consuming situation since I had to edit my blog posts over and over again.
It was a frustrating experience for me.
3. Table of content for SEO
One important feature I admired in an SEO blog post is a table of contents.
It makes reading a blog post fluid and influences a good ranking on the search engine.
I tried to use this feature on Blogger/Blogspot using the HTML and CSS method to input the table of contents, the inclusion just messed things up and made my blog load slower.
WordPress has a Table of content plugins and different text plugins like TinyMCE to make your blog post optimized and readable.
WordPress has an enticing editor interface, especially with the Classic editor.
4. Rich and Better Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is simply a feature that enables your blog to get organic traffic from search engines.
The goal of every blog webmaster is to have a site that has a rich SEO and hit Google search front page.
SEO for a blog is a necessary webmaster feature, so important that people and companies engage SEO experts to get their blog and website SEO to increase their ranking on search engines and give their audience the best experience.
With Blogger/Blogspot, there are a whole lot of restrictions out there with getting a better SEO because the process of SEO optimization is usually carried out manually with little resultant effect.
It can be difficult if you are a new blogger.
It is common to download a Blogger template that finally meets your specification but with no SEO.
Blogger templates are usually unresponsive increasing blog loading time by over 5 seconds.
To rank well on the Google search engine, you need to optimize your blog to load for less than three seconds.
An almost impossible task with most Blogger templates if you activate a few widgets. You should move from WordPress to Blogger because WordPress has a better search engine optimization (SEO) feature.
5. WordPress Plugins for Easy Blog Design
Plugins are tools on WordPress that make blogging easy and exciting. WordPress plugins are like Blogger widget that enables you to easily add features and design your blog without any coding knowledge.
These plugins assist bloggers handle problems on their blogs without any technical difficulties.
For Blogger, you need to add features and resolve issues by manual method of editing your blog HTML source code which could mess up your template.
This process can be stressful if you do not possess basic knowledge of HTML and CSS.
On Google Blogger, my blog speed was above seven seconds which is a slow loading time on mobile. Google Webmaster Console gave me suggestions on how I could reduce the loading time by tweaking my Blogger template.
With my not so expert knowledge of HTML and CSS, I found this difficult to implement. With WordPress, such problems resolve without any hassle with plugins.
Plugins are easy to use tools for creating personalized blog customization.
Although, it appears plugins are part of the gimmicks used by hackers to penetrate sites. So, therefore, ensure that you get plugins from a reliable source.
6. Full control over lifestyle blog
Blogger is a free blogging platform hosted on Google servers. WordPress is an open-content management system written in PHP. According to statistics, over 30% of websites in the world are using WordPress.
Are you confused about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
Difference between WordPress.org, WordPress.com Blogger
WordPress.com is a free blogging platform for self-publishing like Blogger/Blogspot. You do not need to purchase a hosting plan from a hosting company to use WordPress.com.
WordPress.org requires that you buy a hosting plan to gain access to the platform. Other free blogging platforms include Medium and Tumblr.
WordPress.org is the best platform.
Since Blogger/Blogspot is a free self-publishing platform, there are tons of community guidelines that you must adhere to or else your blog would be taken down sometimes without any prior notification.
It is scary to think that your blog can be taken down by Google for violating a guideline.
Google Terms of service stipulates that your content belongs to Google.
With WordPress, this takes away the risk of your blog content being taken down for some random reasons.
WordPress is a high target by hackers. So, you need to work with your hosting company and install some security plugins like Sucuri scanner to protect your site.
7. Social Media Integration for your Blog
As a Personal and Lifestyle Blogger, you must embed social media icons for users to share your post and contact you on the different social media platform.
With Blogger/Blogspot, these icons are usually not fashionable and customizable. Have you ever come across a site with enticing social media icons?
There is a chance the website is running on WordPress.
We all want a lifestyle journal where we can seamlessly add a Pinterest pin, Twitter feed, Instagram Feed without any limitation whatsoever.
8. User-Friendly and Simplified Interface
Maybe because I’m new to the WordPress user interface or I’ve partied with Blogger for a very long time. I find WordPress intriguing with lots of options to the platform.
I feel happy to learn something exciting and from scratch.
If you want to explore multiple features in your blog journey, you will have to move from Blogger to WordPress.
9. E-commerce Integration
One of the perks WordPress has over blogger is the seemingly ease to integrate an online shop to your blog. With WordPress plugin like WooCommerce, you can sell your product online.
As you know by now, the percentage of internet users who purchase products online has been increasing geometrically over the past few years.
The number will continue to skyrocket as the world continues to go digital. As a lifestyle blogger, you should utilize the WordPress e-commerce feature to reach potential clients online.
10. Best Way to Starting a Lifestyle Blogging Career
Heck Yes! I broke my petty account to be on the WordPress platform. It means I cannot afford to play around not when I am paying for hosting and other services.
I now need to make sure that my investment is justifiable at the end of the year by utilizing various SEO options.
Unlike Blogger or Blogspot, I now have to pay my hosting provider to use the WordPress.org. Enough reason to get serious with blogging, Right?
With WordPress, you are likely to have to take blogging seriously as a career.
I bet you cannot afford for your money to go down the drain.
WordPress Hosting
Hosting is the way you rent space online for your blog. With blogger, you get this online space to set up your blog free of charge. However, this comes with a lot of limitations.
With WordPress, you need to rent this online space through a web hosting company.
It is necessary that you go for a web hosting service provider with the fast internet server, provides free SSL certificate, cost-effective and top-notch customer service.
During my search for a web hosting company, I came across Bluehost, considered to be one of the best hosting companies in the world.
Unfortunately, the cost was not affordable for me. I had to search for an indigenous web hosting company in Nigeria.
I found HarmonWeb a reliable web host in Nigeria. The thing I love the most about HarmonWeb is their responsive customer service and simplified user interface of their platform.
Since I hosted my blog on Harmonweb, I have not had any issue whatsoever.
I recommend you host your WordPress blog using this HarmonWeb by clicking this link.
Final Verdict
If you are getting into the blogosphere for the first time, I would recommend you try out Blogger just to get used to basic concepts and migrate to WordPress.org in the future.
Majority of Pro bloggers also began their blogging journey on Blogger before transferring to WordPress.
However, if you wish to hit the ground running when finance is not a constraint, then I recommend you start with WordPress.
Make sure that you write about topics that you are passionate and knowledgeable about, this will make the process to be exciting for you.
If you choose the wrong niche, you might end up frustrated or finding yourself indulging in various kinds of plagiarism practice.
Happy Blogging.
This post contains an affiliate link.
Thanks for this writeup. My question is this Can someone make money using blogger and how much traffic can one generate with blogger. I just build blogger site last week. Thanks.
Dear Isiaq,
I recommend you check out scribd.com and read extensively on blogging and how you can make money out of it.
You can register for the free trial for one month.