Over the years, I have looked at different blog providers. I have built some pretty nice blogs with some great followings, but I don't believe in paying for something if I don't have to and in blogging there's no difference.
Most of my blogs have been with WordPress. I've had a few with other companies too. WordPress provide a nice looking, easy to use blog. There are lots of templates and they have some good widgets, but the problem there, is that they don't allow the use of widgets from other organisations. I have an account with Widgetbox and I see the importance of having good widgets in order to maximise the flow of traffic to my blog. If those widgets aren't available, there is little chance of your blog being able to spread virally. There are some Facebook widgets, but you need to access the actual posts in order to view them. I just don't think that is adequate enough.
With WordPress, the statistics they provide are also limited to how many all-time visitors you've had to your blog and it gives a graph, but that's not really helpful enough. They really need to look at their facilities for statistics and improve where they deem necessary. WordPress would definitely increase on the numbers of people using them as a blog provider if they did work on these features.
Therefore, I was left with a dilemma. Did I need to stick with a blog that I was working hard on maintaining while I couldn't have my blog advertised widely by other people? Or, did I do a search for another blog provider, where I may be able to use Widgetbox widgets.
So, I did a search for a more user friendly, more accessible blog with greater functionality and more potential to maximise traffic. I signed up for quite a few and then I found something that said - try blogger. So, I did. I tried to put my Widgetbox widgets into the Blogger blog and that worked. I now have around 40 shout icons going to all the social bookmarking sites (including Facebook and Delicious), a Tweet this widget for Twitter and a language translation tool allowing for people around the world to access my blog and translate it into their own language.
As far as statistics go, I don't need to use an ad tracker because Blogger does that too. It tracks all the hits, lets me know where they are from, where the hit originated from geographically and even allows me to see what operating system the visitor was using.
So, now I'm happy. I can build up a large readership. I can use the great kind of material I was using in my WordPress blog, and I can realise not only my potential, but also the potential that a free blog provider, namely Blogger, can provide.
Check out my Blogger blog for yourself, just go to http://davidverney.blogspot.com/
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