Readers of my blog know how I came into blogging by accident only because my then eleven years old daughter wanted to have a web page, and we stumbled on to Blogger.

We lucked out as I found out later that Blogger is probably the best free blogging platform around. I agree.

It is Easy to Use
Especially for a novice blogger like me. Terms like platform, html, css, templates, tags, SEO, PR, and what have you, all were foreign to me. I made great use of Blogger’s easy to use and understand Help Center. For just about everything I did from naming the Blog to adding an email address to setting up users. I still have a binder full of print outs that I saved for reference.

Templates are Easy to Customize/Hack
Once you get your blogs set up and you get familiar with the layout of the Blogger platform, you can start playing with the way it looks. If you don’t care much about customizing the templates, you can simply choose from a wide variety of free templates available and comes pre-installed or you can search for other designs created by others on the web. There is something about tweaking a template that gave me immense satisfaction. I think it had to do with the fact that I didn’t really know anything to begin with and to be able to change things around and have my blog actually look nice with my tweaks just made me feel a little smarter, a little geekier. And wait until you get into Blogger Hacks! You really start feeling a lot geeky then even though you are still just following what geeks before you have done.

You can Monetize or Start Earning Cash
Blogger so far, is one of the few free blogging platforms that have no ads if you choose not to have any. But if you are considering earning some extra cash from Adsense or any other ways to make money from Blogging (we’ll get to those later), Blogger will let you do that. That’s how I got started making money and eventually was able to buy my own domain and pay for my own hosting.

Lesson Learned
If all you care about is writing and you don’t really care about making money or making sure you have a secure back up of your posts, then Blogger is for you. It’s free and easy and all you have to do is do what you like doing. If however, you become obsessed with blogging as many of us have done, I suggest getting your own domain name, they are not that expensive, and paying to host your domain.

I waited a little too long to move on from Blogger. And I really haven’t cut the strings completely yet; that’s how attached I am to my Blogger blogs. I still visit them and do occasional posts if it’s nothing but an update of what’s going on in my other domains. That’s how I am though, even in real life. I like getting comfortable and complacent just where I am. I still hear that little voice in my head whispering “if it aint broke don’t fix it”.

If you find that you are becoming passionate about blogging. If you find you are thinking about it night and day. If everything in your life starts becoming ‘bloggable’. Then you have evolved into a ‘for real’ blogger and you need to start playing like the big boys. Get your own domain and host, and move on to the big play ground.

Related Content

Subscribe to the post comments feeds or Leave a trackback