Here’s a true-to-life question that’s ripped from the headlines. Or at least ripped from my very own blog.

I launched my first course in 2007, to teach coaches who were just starting out how to build their own websites. And the tool I used to do this was Blogger. Blogger is free, there’s no software to download or special commands to learn, and I had great success (and a ton of fun) teaching my participants how to use it.

It was very important for me to use Blogger to build the course website, because I wanted my own work to be a case study in how coaches could use Blogger. Part of my message was that anyone graduating from my course could produce a site that looked just as good as my “professional” one. And they did!

So why did I switch to WordPress?

The short answer: I wanted to do more than Blogger would let me do. WordPress is more powerful. I wanted to tweak stuff I wasn’t allowed to mess with on Blogger. What can I say, I’m just a tweak freak. (Unless that has some underworld connotation I’m not aware of. Then I’m just a freak. And proud of it!)

Some examples of my thought processes and needs:

• WordPress has more available themes. I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted the site to look like, so I searched for 3-column themes and found a slew of contenders, in a wide spectrum of customizability. I’ve already hacked and customized this theme quite a bit while retaining the basic look-and-feel. And I haven’t ruled out the idea of creating my own theme someday.
• There are hundreds of WordPress plugins available, and more being developed all the time. I wanted some sidebar-widget-type features that were getting really clunky, or weren’t achievable at all, with Blogger (like the “Wendy on Twitter” bits, plus a plugin to display customized post lists.
• I wanted to host the site myself, in order to have full control. Not everyone needs this. It’s the biggest tradeoff: You get full control but you also get full responsibility for downloading, installing, and updating software. I’ll say it again: This is not for everyone.

Note that I’m talking here about the software that you get from WordPress.org, not the hosted-blogging service at WordPress.com. I favor Blogger over WordPress.com too, for different reasons, but that’s a whole ‘nother post.

So does this mean I’m no longer recommending Blogger?

No! I still totally heart Blogger (and BlogSpot), and I’ll continue to teach people how to use it. I’m still happily using it for other sites I’ve got going, and I’ve still got clients and past course participants who are active Blogger users.

Blogger is absolutely my top recommended free tool for beginners who want to build a website. And the top three reasons for my recommendation still stand:

1. It’s free (completely free. No extra costs for add-ons, no hidden fees. Free.)
2. There’s no software to download or manage
3. You don’t need a web host or a domain name (though you can use your own domain name if you wish)

WordPress is also free, but in order to use it, you need to have web hosting and a domain name, and you need to be able to install the software on your web server. And I completely get that the idea of installing software anywhere is enough to make most people break out in hives.

I also believe (and now I have personal experience to back up this belief) that starting out on Blogger is a perfectly fine idea even if you’re thinking of moving to WordPress later on. Blogger met my needs for quite a long time, and my switch to WordPress happened when my needs outgrew it and when I was ready for the technical challenges, such as:

Even I, (cue trumpet fanfare) Web Expert Wendy Cholbi, used the one-click WordPress install offered by my web host, so you could claim that I don’t know exactly how to install the software myself. And you know those themes I was raving about earlier? The first one I picked nearly drove me insane when I was trying to get it to look the way I wanted. And in the migration from Blogger to WordPress, a bunch of my links broke, and I’m still chasing around to fix them.

Despite these challenges, my new web home/hub is shaping up to be a really fun place to play, connect, teach, learn, and grow. Join the conversation, won’t you? Do you have Blogger or WordPress questions or challenges? Want to tell me why you prefer one over the other? I’d love to hear it; just leave a comment here!