Blogger or Wordpress

[Heather MURPHY]

Hey

Im new to the community of book blogging. For several months I enjoyed rummaging online having a look at peoples blogs. Since I have published my first blog and feeling more involved in the community, I cant help thinking that I should have taken more notice to who I was hosting my blog with. Currently it is with WordPress but I have noticed they don't have a followers widget. 

 

Do you think I should move my Blog over to Blogger, as this seems the most popular. I'm thinking that since I am new and have only recently published my very first post that it would be the best time now or should I just hold fire. I like the idea of seeing who is following me and being able to find out about them and follow their blogs back in return.

 

All advice from seasoned professionals or amateurs, like myself very welcome!

Thanks

Heather

[Meg W.]

Here you are! I believe this is the one that I used.

[Meg W.]

Google "how to reply to comments on blogger." The widget I used was from Spice Up Your Blog. 

[KayAnna Kirby]

I've had experience with both. I like blogger because it's easier to build a community. I like the convenience of the follow option when I go to a blogger site, I can just press follow on a whim. With wordpress you would have to set up your rss feed and make sure it works.

 

Now I notice that you can put a google friend connect on your wordpress blog, so that makes it work for me.

 

I like self hosted wordpress blogs beccause the templates are all your own and you have more control.

[Bonnie]

I have a self hosted wordpress.org blog - I have to admit that I don't know too much about it (my friend's husband is my personal web developer) but the google friend connect widget (for followers) has been working successfully on my wordpress blog. I'm sure if you googled it there would be instructions on how to load it. I'm sorry that I can't be more help!

 

www.handsandhome.ca

[Bonnie]

As a side note, I know that a lot of people have installed Intense Debate as a commenting program on thier blogger blogs. This program allows you to reply directly to comments.

 

http://intensedebate.com/

[Sonia Lal]

I don't think the wordpress.com blogs allow google freind. Or any other widgit that requires JavaScript.

[The Book Heroine]

I have used blogger for quite some time now, even before book blogging. My husband uses wordpress for his blogs, but he doesn't use many widgets for his, so that portion doesn't matter. I like that blogger is easy to manipulate the layout, but to go really unique you must know html. I like the following on blogger and that it connects with my email account. Makes the signing in so easy. I am not against wordpress, I just don't know it well enough. Good luck in whatever you do!

 

http://bookheroine.blogspot.com/

[paranormal romance]

I have tried both wordpress.com and .org as well as blogger.I prefer Blogger.

 

I liked that on Wordpress.org there was an SEO widget that you could have more control of yout SEO keyword, in blogger it's done for you so you have less control.

 

With blogger I have found that it is so much more easy to customize your blog, move things around, add widgets, work with your labels, etc. Wordpress frustrated me to know end, I got so frustrated I finally shut down the wordpress site.

 

Blogger and Google have announced the Blogger was bought by Google so in the year to come I think you are going to a lot more enhancements to the Blogger application.

 

When I had my Wordpress blog I got tons of spam comments. This could have partially been my fault with the setting but Wordpress setting were so I guess the best word to use is unorganized that I coldn't find the right setting to do what I wanted. I have not received a single spam comment on blogger.

 

I think as far as wordpress looking more "professional" I think that is a personal preference and what you are trying to do with your blog as well as what you choose your background to look like. As well as who your audience is.  If I'm a YA reader and I want to look at some reviews of some new books to read what am I going to gravitate towards as far as presentation goes. That is something to think about regardless who you blog with. In any communications class they will tell you "Know your Audience" .

 

I also love the blogger community everyone is so friendly and there are blog hops, and people really support each other as well as follow each other.

 

Hope some of this helps as I have used both services.

 

I have two blogs with two completely different looks on blogger if you wanted to check out the versitility if blogger.

 

http://www.paranormalromancenovel.com

http://www.booksshoppingrocknroll.com

[Kris]

I agree with the comment that it's kind of like the pc vs mac debate.  I like some of the gadgets (widgets really) that blogger offers - like the google friends and a few of the other java widgets.  And I wish wordpress supported them.  For me, the key is that blogger doesn't let me organize the way I want - with lots and lots of pages.  So, wordpress is where I find myself.  I am waiting for my host to move mine from worpress.com to .org - where I will go from http://seriestracker.wordpress.com to www.seriestracker.info.  I am hoping that some of what I want to do, I will be able to with the transition to .org.  But again, the key to me was the paging abilities that wordpress gives and blogger does not.

[Nicole Etolen]

I have a self-hosted Wordpress blog and I love it. I just use the widget for GFC, it works great. I know nothing about non-self-hosted wordpress though.

[Keith B. Darrell]

I've only been using Blogger for about a month, but it is easy to use. There are a few improvements I'd like to see them make, but I'm not sure how often they update the software. 

 

http://keithbdarrell.blogspot.com/

[Kati Lear]

Blogger is way better I was looking into wordpress but. It can look bad and it can get messy so I went with blogger. Let me know what you choose.

 

http://klearsreviews.blogspot.com/