Free Blogspot And Free WordPress Blogs: Which Is Better?

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What Is Free WordPress Blog?

Free WordPress is the blog account you open on wordpress.com platform. In this, your blog address will be something like example.wordpress.com, sirphren.wordpress.com etc. Free account on wordpress.com is likened to a man who hired a house to live in for a while.

Other plans on wordpress.com are;

- Personal plan

- Premium plan

- Business plan and VIP

Some Of The Things You Should Know About free WordPress blog Are;

1). Disk space is 3GB

The capacity of the free WordPress account is just 3GB disk space which means once your contents, including media files, take up that space, you can’t publish more articles. If you are in a news or entertaining niche that means you may not find it interesting.

2). Limited Plugins and Themes

Plugins and themes are the main beautifying blocks of any WordPress blog or website. When using a free WordPress account, you can only use the free WordPress themes and just a couple of plugins. If you want to use other plugins or themes, you will have to upgrade to personal, premium, or business plans.

3). You Can’t use Third party advert HTML codes to monetize

The way free WordPress blog account is constructed, you can not implement third party’s advert HTML code. It won’t just work. The only way you can monetize with adverts on free WordPress blog is if you can keep up with generating about 250000 visits per month and by embedding affiliate links in your articles (make sure the affiliate doesn’t violate WordPress privacy). This is one of the limitations I encountered when I was running my blog on free WordPress account. In my subsequent posts, I will share with you some mistakes I made when I started blogging.

Apply Now: Cheap Domain Name: Where To Buy Domain Name

4). You blog won’t look professional

If you want to be looked upon as a professional blogger, you should look beyond starting your blogging career with free account, at least, not with free domain.

Apart from being seen as a professional, your blog address will not be easy for visitors to remember because it will look too long and boring. More so, if you want people to partner with you or sponsor, you must be seen as a serious blogger. No one is ready to sponsor free stuffs.

5). You can’t freely redirect your free WordPress domain to self hosted blog

As I always advise people that wanted to start on a bit of a high budget either for business or for an organization, the best way to start is on self-hosted WordPress blog (wordpress.org). If you are thinking of starting on free account and moving to self-hosted blog later, there are some hindrances you may face.

Some of these are, after exporting your content on free account to your self hosted blog, you will need to redirect your free domain. This redirection will cost you some dollars ($$$) because you can’t do it yourself even if you are a programmer. You may need to do it if you have generated a huge readership for your blog.

What Of Free Blogspot Blog Account?

Free blog can also be open on blogspot/blogger. The address looks like www.sirphren.blogspot.com etc. You can see the address is as long as that of the WordPress. The advantage it has over WordPress is its disk space, is unlimited compared to WordPress.

Blogspot also has some widgets that serve the purpose of plugins in WordPress and templates to give your blog a cool design. There is free and paid version of some templates. I have some premium templates with me. See websites to download free blogger templates here.

One of the reasons Blogspot is better is you can monetize your blog with google AdSense if you have the proper settings and original contents. But some ad networks do not accept free account on blogspot.

See a guide on how to apply for Google AdSense here

On Blogspot, before you can easily make some changes you must be vast in HTML, CSS and JS. Not that vast but at least the basics. To know how you can create free blog on Blogspot, download my free eBook on beginners guide on starting a blog here.

Why Do I Need Custom Domain?

One of my blogging mistakes was thinking I didn’t need a custom domain.

What are custom domains?

Custom domain is your personal web address that represents either your business or you. Example is www.assistblogger.com.

One of the reasons it is advisable to start off on custom domain is because you will eventually need it. Your domain authority also depends on how old it is.

So, imagine blogging on free domain for about 1-2 years and buying custom domain in the second year. Your domain authority will be back to square one which will require hard work from you before it shoots up. Read more on the reasons you need to have a custom domain, click here.

On both of these platforms, your blog’s security is taken care of by experts in either WordPress.com or Blogspot. But in self hosted blog, you and your host company secure your blog.

Concluding free Blogspot and Free WordPress blogs

To simplify this post, don’t be too in hurry to opt-in for either free blogspot and free WordPress blog account. What is worth doing at all is worth doing well. You can start a blog on a low budget as low as N5-10k with a custom domain and premium template on blogspot. Later when your blog gets busy and you need more functionality, you can easily move to self hosted blog. It is beneficial to start out with the right things in place so that you won’t be tempted to give up halfway.

Do you think starting a blog on free domains is the best way to start blogging? I will love to know your perception too.