I'm excited to share this series with you, called "101 Blogging Tips". In the series there will be 101 blogging tips that you can begin applying to your blog today! Don't wait, get started now!
Tip #89: What hosting company do you use?
WordPress, hands down, is the most popular blog host as it should be. It offers the most flexibility and better SEO tools, as well as numerous plugins you can install to enhance your site's functionality.
Blogger is up there as well in popularity because 1. it's owned by Google and 2. because it's FREE. Even though it is free, it offers many tools to help develop and design your site, as well as full access to your site's HTML template which allows for full customization. In TypePad, you have to use Advanced Templates (a non-user-friendly, non-visual way of developing a site) and pay $14.95 a month for that type of customization. However, TypePad, like WordPress has a file manager. Blogger does not. Blogger is also limited to 10 pages where Typepad and WordPress have unlimited.
You can also find many, many sites for custom Blogger template (designs) where TypePad does not have this ability. You can use it's Theme Builder and CSS module for building new, custom designs…but you cannot install a template/theme/design from a third party site. WordPress has a ton of themes of different colors, number of sidebars, sliders, featured images, dropdown and custom menus, eCommerce-ready themes and much, much more.
Most importantly, when you purchase a self-hosted WordPress site, YOU own it and have control over it. With Blogger, Google owns it. With TypePad, TypePad owns it.
Want to learn more about all 3 platforms? Well, I wrote a book on it!!! Creative Blogging available for $22.98 from Amazon (and your local Barnes & Noble store)! I also wrote a book on just Google Blogger, now $16.65 on Amazon!
The list of differences goes on and on. Over at Stamping and Blogging as part of our How To Setup a Blog series, we review in depth the pros and cons of using Blogger, TypePad or WordPress.
Looking for WordPress hosting? Blue Host and Host Gator are the leaders. I am a Blue Host reseller and offer WordPress hosting as well at http://www.BlogsByHeatherWPHosting.com and offer dedicated IP addresses for all my clients! I am also an Affiliate of Blue Host and Host Gator.
