Wordpress VS Blogger

cormie

Hi there,
My developer is currently implementing a blog on my site. Now from my research of SEO, it seems that using Blogger (owned by Google) fares better for SEO than using wordpress. However, it seems that I wont be able to integrate blogger as well as I could wordpress to the site. Basically I want the blog to be able to fit into the style of the site and just have a simple url like domainname.com/blog, I want it to be hidden from the rest of the site content as 99.9% of visitors won't give a funk what I'm blogging about. I'll be using it for just writing up little bits in the hope it will help, even marginally, with SEO.

Now my developer has said that blogger is not as integrate-able as wordpress and would need to be done in an iframe and also couldn't use custom urls and that for blogs as far as I understand.

Has anyone here integrated a wordpress/blogger blog, or both and found one better than the other in terms of SEO and all that?

Would using wordpress as opposed to blogger really make that much of a difference to choose blogger over it?

Any feedback appreciated

cormie

Also, for both, can you log in to the wordpress/blogger websites to "blog" or is it done through my site CMS?

RoadKillTs

I think its a common misconception that Blogger is better at SEO because Google own it. I don't think it's true.

If the content is good then it will rank well. Personally I'd choose WordPress any day.

Its a lot more versatile and has a wide range of themes and plugins available.

cormie

Thanks a lot for the feedback I'm not even too sure how much a blog will impact my SEO anyway. If wordpress is more versatile and will still give the same advantages and more as blogger, than I guess I can just go with that! Just curious though as I thought blogger could be integrated, but it seems there's some difficulties doing it on my site and with the custom URLs and stuff

cormee

Where did you hear Blogger was more SEO'd than WordPress?

Here's Matt Cutts' opinion of WordPress from an SEO point of view

http://www.howtomakemyblog.com/seo/googles-matt-cutts-wordpress-the-best-blogging-platform-for-seo/

cormie

I think I just saw it mentioned on one of my many treks across the www for SEO enlightenment

Thanks for the replies, will go with Wordpress so

cormee

cormie wrote: »

I want it to be hidden from the rest of the site content as 99.9% of visitors won't give a funk what I'm blogging about. I'll be using it for just writing up little bits in the hope it will help, even marginally, with SEO.

I wouldn't underestimate the power of a blog if I was you, it's a great way of interacting with your customers and showing expertise in your field without resorting to the self-promotional blurb most visitors hate. The most important thing about having a blog is that you update it regularly, so you'll need disipline.

And blogs do help with SEO, quite a lot. If you use a script like rss2html.php (don't use javascript) to convert the blog's RSS feed to html and embed that html on your homepage using an include you can have new content on your homepage everytime you write a new posting which is a great incentive for both visitors and Google to return more regularly.

cormie

Thanks again for that info. That sounds like a good idea, but again, I can't really think of anything that a visitor to my site is going to want to read that I'm blogging about. Most of my customers will come to my site looking for the quickest solution to their problem, finding a man with a van. I think this would take away or obstruct from the main goal of getting them to ring/fill in a form. The less reading for them the better? If it was my poker site it would be different of course. Poker players like to read about what's going on, what people blog about etc. But Jimmy who wants to move a bed from Cabra to Stillorgan probably doesn't want or have time to read anything other than my phone number and a "submit quote" button. What do you think?

Liam Byrne

cormee wrote: »

If you use a script like rss2html.php (don't use javascript) to convert the blog's RSS feed to html and embed that html on your homepage using an include you can have new content on your homepage everytime you write a new posting which is a great incentive for both visitors and Google to return more regularly.

+1

I've done this on a number of sites and it works great, giving them a news update on the home page and a properly-integrated blog page...although this is the first time I've heard of that particular script.

cormie

I hear google likes to see new content alright, now my site isn't something I'd be changing at all really. I don't have new products or news or anything like that. Would this feed make google think there is constantly new content and rank it higher? Could the feed be any size?

Liam Byrne

cormie wrote: »

Would this feed make google think there is constantly new content and rank it higher? Could the feed be any size?

If the feed is putting the regularly-updated content from the blog onto your website, then Google doesn't "think" there's new content, there will be!

It's still up to you to update the blog regularly enough to keep Google interested.

If you're not updating the blog with news or new products, then there's no reason for Google to consider your site "current".

cormie

Cool, thanks for that info. When I mean about the size of the feed, I mean could I just include the title of that particular blog post and have the font tiny and google will still think it's current?

Liam Byrne

cormie wrote: »

Cool, thanks for that info. When I mean about the size of the feed, I mean could I just include the title of that particular blog post and have the font tiny and google will still think it's current?

It'd still view it as current, but unless your site has content as well as headlines then there's no incentive for Google to send people to it.

You could maximise your chances by using styled actual <hx> tags, but you're still more likely to improve SEO if you have actual content.

Look at it this way.....if you did a search on Google for "motorbikes", and Google sent you to a page that contained a title "motorbikes" with no other content, would you be impressed or pissed off with Google ?

Would you think that the fact that that the site was updated yesterday made it worth Google sending you to it ?

Because believe it or not, that's the way Google tries to work.

I know that's a little more black-and-white than you're intending, but it is what you need to keep in mind, especially given what you asked.

Keywords + frequent updates + information related to what you searched for (not just keywords) is what a search engine looks for.

cormie

Thanks again for the input everyone, very helpful!

cormee

Liam Byrne wrote: »

+1

I've done this on a number of sites and it works great, giving them a news update on the home page and a properly-integrated blog page...although this is the first time I've heard of that particular script.

I think Simplepie is the more popular choice, it seems to have more of a community supporting it. Not sure how I ended up using RSS2HTML, it's not as user-friendly as Simplepie but I've been using it for a few years now so I guess it's better the devil you know.

I was wrong when I said you need to embed it in an include - it does that itself, I only use it as an include when it's part of a repeated page element like side navigation or something.