SEO: Blogger Isn’t the Answer
I just read a good article by Chris Crum over at WebPro News, entitled “The Blogger SEO Burden,” (Friday, Jan. 9, 2009)
In it, he includes a video with Stephan Spencer, Founder & President Netconcepts, who says that Blogger isn’t the way to go. Go over and watch the video. But here’s the thing…
If you have a Blogger blog, you’re building a blog that you can’t control! If you’re in business, that’s just plain dumb. Sorry. I had to say it.
It’s not that I’m not sympathetic to newbies. I started with a Blogger blog, way back when, too, and that was even before I knew what SEO was! I think Blogger had just opened. In fact, I know I learned some of the PHP stuff at Blogger. It was a good “trainer blog” for me, and it can be for you.
But when you get serious about your business, it’s time to move to a blog on your own hosting account. WordPress is more user-friendly than ever now, and Google loves the platform. It’s not quite SEO ready when you get it. You need to add “All in One SEO,” “DoFollow,” and “Google Sitemaps” for example. But really, unless you want to get super SEO, you’re probaly pretty good to go right there. I mean, you want to go with Analyticator, and some other stuff when you get into the stats. But if you’re just learning, the three plugins above are crucial.
Installing plugins in WordPress 2.7 is a breeze, and installing WordPress 2.7 is push-button when you use cPanel with Fantastico installer, or Elephante installer works the same way. These are services that just do all the work for you.
But if you don’t have cPanel or any of the installer programs, and you have MySQL databases available in your hosting plan, it’s really not all that difficult to install a WordPress blog from scratch. If you need help with that, it’s all laid out in step-by-step video over at my WordPress tech site: EasyBlogTricks.com. All you need do is register. (A Fantastico installation video is there, as well.)
Anyway, back to the article.
Chris goes on to muse that if Blogger is owned by Google, why isn’t Blogger like… the best?
So, he contacted Spencer who said, “”Believe it or not, the search engines are not expert at SEO. They are expert at search algorithms, which is a very different thing. that search engines don’t understand SEO.”
Interesting. I mean, Spenser is at a much higher level of SEO experience than I am, so it’s probably true. But, I can’t imagine that Google doesn’t have some of its own SEOs on board. I mean, like a casino hires cheats to watch the floor, right? Why wouldn’t Google hire SEOs? Just makes sense.
But regardless of whether this is the case, I hate to break it to all you blogspot.com people out there, but for SEO, getting page rank, and for rising in the SERPs and getting all that cool free organic traffic, Blogger sucks.
Why build your business on a platform you can’t control? Makes no sense to me. Spend the $10 a month on hosting over at Host Gator and throw up a blog in 5 minutes. Be the commander of your own destiny. I mean, if you can’t afford the $10 for hosting, you’re just playing at business, you aren’t a serious business person. Stop thinking that “free” will accomplish anything.
It totally won’t.
Edward Moore
January 16th, 2009 at 3:21 pm #
Great article Pat and you touched on several things too.
I liked and agree with the statement telling people they can’t depend on making money with everything for FREE.
Making money takes real work, commitment and yes takes at least some money to get started, for things like hosting, a decent auto responder and a few other things.
To your health,
Edward Moore
tony
January 17th, 2009 at 3:25 pm #
yeah i also agree with your writing.
i ever heard some one who lost his blog??(that man uses blogger.com)
it teaches me that making sites in free place is risky.besides we can’t make it s we want there is a limitation.
i hve a opinion that to be succesfull in buisness we have to invest, and one of the investment besides commitment, nd time is hosting.
well i wish a luck for you
Ben
January 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm #
I am surprised to see that different blogging sites work better with different search engines. It is particularly interesting that your friend muses that Wordpress might work better than blogger with Google.
Good luck in learning much about search engine optimization and keep posting what you learn!
Tom
January 18th, 2009 at 8:48 pm #
I completely agree with you here. I started out on blogger too until I realized that I was putting all my effort into a blog that I didn’t really own.
If blogger decided to pull the plug it would all be gone and there would be nothing I could do. So I moved to Wordpress and never looked back.
I would mention that if someone has a successful blog on Blogger it’s not a total loss. It’s fairly simple to redirect the Blogger blog to your Wordpress address and have the search engines follow it.
Good luck!
Leo
January 20th, 2009 at 5:37 pm #
I can see your point of reference with blogger in terms of building a business. However, there are plenty of sites out there of the blogspot persuasion that do make a lot of money. And there are alot that are on the first page of Google for competitive terms. (see “make money online”)
I personally use blogspot blogs to test niches before investing too much time, money and energy into them. Then again, I am probably in the minority.
John
January 21st, 2009 at 12:44 am #
@Edward Moore – I must agree with Chris Crum and his article on Blogging. If you have a business, as I do, one must be able to control their website, not the other way around (LOL). I am doing my own hosting now and am more satisfied, being that I alone control it and the destiny of my business.
Pat Marcello
January 21st, 2009 at 11:10 am #
Yes, Leo, that’s true. But…
You still can’t control your content. And what if one day Blogger decides you’re doing stuff they don’t like?
Bye-bye blog. I know that Rob Benwell has had those types of problems and agree that his methods are unorthodox, but still…
Why give any other entity control over your business, but you.
If you’re testing, that’s fine. You can export into WordPress. I’m talking about people who use Blogger for business for the long haul, which I see as a very bad idea.
–Pat
chad
January 22nd, 2009 at 2:38 am #
I’d also have to agree here. I too like the previous posters had started out using blogger many moons ago. Before google ate them up actually. I assumed when google moved in that this would help page ranking but it’s certainly not the case. Using the SEO plugins and wordpress have dramatically improved things..no doubt.
Tiffany
January 24th, 2009 at 4:55 pm #
Great article! I totally agree. Like the other commenters, when I began blogging years ago I was using blogger as well, though I hosted it on my own site. It was just a personal blog, so ease of use was my biggest concern.
Now that I actually want to make money from blogging, blogger just doesn’t cut it. Wordpress is so much more flexible in terms of design and the plugins are a million times better than anything blogger ever offered.
ubumba
January 31st, 2009 at 5:54 pm #
I`m involved there`s a lot of articles on casino gambling. There are dissimilar methods, tactics, strategies, algorithms of counting, calculations and so on.
But these items are only heap of ads and i don`t want to analyze them `cause i don`t have any basic knowledge. It`s ineffective. Estimation i think will be wrong.
Is there anyone here who is interested in such topic?
I`d appreciate someone`s explaining to me is there any systems or strategies, what are they (what approaches or concepts lay in basis) and in which casinos could they be applied to?
Thanx a lot.
Pat Marcello
January 31st, 2009 at 7:06 pm #
Ubumba,
I can give you my stragtegies, but gambling really isn’t my nice.
Still, if you want to be a really good gambler, you need to study the games, the odds, everything. Watch Casino sometime with Robert DeNiro. He’s a true gambler, a gambler’s gambler, and he knows it all. I mean… all.
He worked at it. Lived, breathed, and slept gambling. It was his life.
And I guess that when you want something, that’s the kind of dedication you need to have. I know I’ve been at Internet marketing for over 5 years now, and I’m still learning every day. Every year, I make more money. You can never stop learning, and like I told Fluffy, find out which way you learn best.
Then, study hard.
– Pat