Can you rank with a blogspot blog?
Written by Chewie on October 4, 2009 – 8:30 amThe big question that people still ask despite the proof is whether you can rank for terms with a blogspot blog as with Wordpress. The answer is YES. At this point you can either believe me and move on, or you can read on and see the proof and why you can. First off, contrary to what some people will tell you, even so called SEO experts, you can rank for very competitive terms. For starters lets take one of the toughest terms to rank for, make money online. If you do a search in Google on that term you will find 2 blogger blogs out of the top 5 spots.
Lets look at another example, since it has been said that you can put any word in Google and add blog after it and you won’t find any blogger blog ranking. I did a search for “my blog” and what I found was some random guy I have never heard of from Indonesia with a blogspot blog ranking right after mybloglog.com. He titled his blog, “My Personal Blog“. Lets take some more examples since blogspot blogs suck and can’t rank for anything. Look up something as simple as “happy blog” and tell me what you find? Yet again another blogspot blog. And now lets take a more comical approach. Do a search for butt implants blog in Google and tell me what you find? If you want to get a few more laughs and read further on the subject then you need to go on and visit Griz post about problogger.com but I warn you, he has a blogspot blog which ranks at the top in Google for make money online, so don’t take him too seriously.
If you want even more laughs then go visit one of the funniest vloggers I know, Allyn Hane at his video blog. He will show you how to properly drink a beer and make a video at the same time.
OK, now that you know a blogger.com blog can rank for just about anything a Wordpress blog can, lets talk about why that is possible.
The first reason is because ranking well is 90% offpage SEO and 10% onpage. What I mean by that is simply, the more relevant links you have coming into a site whether it is a Blogspot blog or a Wordpress blog is what matters most. For those of you who are going to tell me that Wordpress is just easier to customize, I’m not going to argue with you on that point, but I can tell you that a blogger blog can be set up even faster. I’m not being partial here because I use both platforms. I am simply stating a fact that you will find a bunch of A-list bloggers speak contrary too.
Here is another bit of information based on my experience. A blogger blog will have a lot higher CTR than a Wordpress blog. Primarily because they are ugly, and people like to read pretty blogs. If you want to get some serious clicks, then you really should give blogger.com a try. If you are going to focus more on affiliate products then you do need to maintain some type of professional look to your site to gain more trust and improve conversions. If you want to follow the lead of the A-listers that’s fine, but I am going to keep using blogger as a way to make money and test the waters for keywords at no cost.
If you want to learn more on the basics of how to make money blogging then read part one in the series.
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Posted in Blogging | 15 Comments »
October 4th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I wonder how many people will just read this and ignore it, or even better argue with it … why confuse yourself with facts when in your heart you just ‘know’ things?
First of all I like Darren (as a friend). I don’t like what he is doing right now, but it’s a semi-free internet … more power to him, but don’t expect to see me in the forum … forums are the biggest excuse for getting nothing done … ie failure that there is on line.
I run some WordPress blogs … so I know how things work and don’t work, Thinking the the type if platform you run your blog on makes a difference is the height of proving to the world that you know not.
I am putting all my new efforts into blogspot blogs because of one main factor … WordPress has become bloated, bulky and hard to keep up to date. Anytime anyone wants a challenge, let’s take a list of 5 difficult keywords and get them ranked on Blogspot and on WordPress self-hosted sites. They will rank better, faster and cheaper on BlogSpot and the mini-network will be ever so much easier to maintain (and profit from).
October 5th, 2009 at 3:28 am
I am putting all my new efforts into blogspot blogs because of one main factor … WordPress has become bloated, bulky and hard to keep up to date. Anytime anyone wants a challenge, let’s take a list of 5 difficult keywords and get them ranked on Blogspot and on WordPress self-hosted sites. They will rank better, faster and cheaper on BlogSpot and the mini-network will be ever so much easier to maintain (and profit from).
October 5th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Nice post Chewie – nice to see this blog coming back to life too! I think people are fixated on wordpress/blogger debate or even the blog/website debate wordpress/joomla. As you rightly say – its doesnt bloody matter much – just get more backlinks!
October 5th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Thanks for this post. I saw a lot of blogspot blogs getting good rank in Google search engine. Choosing right keyword in title is very important for blogspot bloggers.
October 6th, 2009 at 12:33 am
@Dave – You just can’t beat free!
@Replica – Blogger is definitely a quick way to be up and running.
@Lissie – Anything is game!
October 8th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I actually think that it’s pretty funny that people say that I’m anti Blogspot blogs or that I say that they can’t rank well (not that you’ve said that, but there does seem to be this impression going around that I do).
I can’t remember ever saying it and if I did I must have been sleep deprived (I have toddlers) because it’s just not something that I believe.
I actually rarely talk about platforms – probably the main time that I did was in this post where I said:
“I’m not going to tell you which blog platform you should use because, as you will see, there are good reasons for choosing most of the available platforms depending upon the goals of your blog.
In fact as I look at some of the most successful blogs there are examples of most of the platforms mentioned in this post – that’s the great thing about blogging, success is not reliant upon the tool you use – it’s about how you use it!”
I certainly do recommend WordPress in that article – as that’s the platform that I use and have had some success with – but it’s just one of many varieties of blog platforms that people can have success with.
For me it comes down to the situation of the blogger. It’ll depend upon their skill set, how many blogs they want to maintain, whether they’re technologically minded enough to set up and maintain a blog on hosting, their workflow etc as to which platform they choose.
Blogspot blogs have been used by many very successfully over the years. The beauty of BS blogs is that they don’t take updating in terms of versions, plugins etc – something that many are attracted to. The fact that it’s free is even better. Perhaps there’s a loss of some control in this or some limitations on features that can be used – but if that’s not what you’re after then they are an option to consider.
Can they rank in Google – of course, sometimes very well. That’s because Google is platform agnostic – they look at other factors as we all know.
October 9th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
In fact if you search the item Make Money Online you’ll find the No.1 result is moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com, and that really surprised me!
October 19th, 2009 at 1:35 am
I also agree with you here. I have both blogger blogs and wordpress blogs as well. From my experience, the only thing I see different is that my wordpress posts are indexed much faster.
October 19th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Getting good Google rank is all about how many back links you have for your niche . We can rank very well with blogspot
November 20th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
its also worth mentioning that in order to rank well with a blogspot blog, you need the right template.
There are lots of free ones available that look pretty and functional but when you actually look at the html they dont include basic things such as H1 tags etc This can effect your potential SE rankings.
Its no suprise that most of the blogspot blogs Ive seen that rank well for competitive terms are using a template provided by blogger.
Pick good niche- choose clean html template- use right keywords and a bit of on page seo – get useful anchor text backlinks- rank increases (hopefully) – more traffic- make $$$
Well thats the theory anyway. Now I have to try it on my new blog.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:43 pm
blogspot sites do tend to be ranking rather well at the moment. Nice post.
Joe
January 24th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
my blogspot blog is doing good for me.
April 6th, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Good article.
Our blogspot blogs rank well, it’s all about backlinks at the moment.
Oh – and you can add H1 tags to your template if you so desire. This seems to help ranking a little.
Cheers from ZX Spectrum Games
April 24th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
If you can’t afford $10 for hosting and $8 for a domain, this business isn’t for you. Blogger blogs suck. They can take you out with a press of a button and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can work hard for years and have everything disappear just because the review team at blogger have nothing else better to do.
Always, always, always own your own domains.
May 20th, 2010 at 4:20 am
I’m happy with my blogger site, no problems thus far!
That siad, I’m very grateful to you for your article.
Special thanks from Premium Numbers