What Blogger Platform is Best for a Craft Blog?
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What Blogging Platform is Best for a Craft Blog?
The best blogging platform for you will depend on the purpose and goals of your blog. Here are a few things to consider:
Are you planning to sell supplies or craft products?
Blogger is not compatible with e-commerce software. You can write about your products and link to an external shop that’s through Etsy, Shopify, or another e-commerce company. If you’d like to sell courses, you can use Teachable.
In addition to using a self-hosted WordPress site as a blog, it can be expanded to include a shop using plugins such as WooCommerce.
Are you planning to monetize your site?
There are several ways that you can earn money online using a blog:
Affiliate Marketing: You can write articles, product reviews, and tutorials and include affiliate links in your posts. When someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you get a small commission for making the referral. Learn more >>
Pitch Companies: Established bloggers that are a match for what companies are looking for can receive products to review or giveaway to readers.
Sponsored Posts: You can get paid to write about a product or service on your blog.
Ads: You can place banners on your blog and earn a small commission. A popular choice is Google Adsense.
When you apply to partner with a company or ad network, you will need a professional site with high quality content. At a minimum, you will need a custom domain connected to your Blogger site. However, you will have the most flexibility with ad types and placement when you use a self-hosted WordPress site.
What is your budget?
Blogger Cost: You can create a blog on Blogger for free. Unlike some other free blogging platforms, Blogger does not display ads on your site. If you don’t want your Blogger site to look like yourwebsitetitle.blogspot.com, you can connect a domain for $10-$15.
Theme Cost: Default Blogger templates are very limited with features and layout options. Templates by Albemarle PR have a standard layout of content on the left side and a sidebar on the right. We offer instant download templates for $10 and semi-custom premades for $30. We also offer design services for customizing Blogger templates by Georgia Lou Studios.
Self-hosted WordPress Cost: We use SiteGround for our hosting and you can read more about our experience here. Many of our clients have also been happy with BlueHost. For a basic blog, the lowest hosting level would be sufficient. If you’d like to add an e-commerce option to your WordPress site, additional costs will be involved to enhance site security and to add additional features. We use the GoGeek plan with SiteGround.
Theme Cost: Because WordPress has such a large development community, there are many themes available. We recommend themes built on the the Genesis Framework by StudioPress and you can read why here. All of our premade and custom WordPress themes use the Genesis Framework. We also offer design services for themes through StudioPress and Elegant Themes.
What is your technical background?
Blogger is a very simple blogging platform. You will not need to take additional time to complete maintenance tasks and security updates.
The features of your WordPress site can be extended using plugins. Most of them are free and do not require coding knowledge. WordPress has a large community of users and developers so new plugins and themes are always being developed and updated. WordPress is updated on a regular basis to keep it secure and working smoothly. This means that you will need to know how to backup your WordPress database and run updates. You should also have a basic understanding of how to access your FTP files.
You can take courses to learn more about WordPress or browse support forums.
Will you need these features?
- Photo galleries
- Tools that will help you find the best keywords so you’re found in search engines
- Image compression tools that will help make your site load fast
- Page builder so you can create custom page layouts (grids, columns, rows, etc.)
- Price comparison charts and tables
- Custom forms
When you have a self-hosted WordPress site, you can install plugins to achieve extra features like those mentioned above.
You should also know…
You don’t technically own your blog if it’s hosted with Blogger. If Google believes you’ve violated their terms, they can suspend your blog. If you decide to use Blogger, you should create manual backups of your content on a regular basis.
You can start with Blogger and transfer your content to WordPress later. However, you should consider the cost of design services for your Blogger site and the potential expense of hiring someone to transfer your content if you need help.