Are you thinking about creating a blog? If so, you’re on the right track because blogging can be used to promote a business, to promote an upcoming event, or to share the your personal interests. With technology rapidly evolving in this past decade alone, many individuals now choose to communicate via a blog rather than calling someone over the phone. A phone call used to be the most efficient method of reaching a potential client or a family member; however, in today’s technology advanced society, businesses, friends, and family members can email one another or even leave comments on blogs.
In this article, we will list the similarities and differences between three of the most well-renowned blogging platforms – WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Blogger.
Category #1 – Account Settings:
In order for our blog to be unique, we must be able to customize our account settings. Fortunately, WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Blogger all offer this option. To change your account settings in WordPress.com and Tumblr, head over to your “Dashboard”; and to do so in Blogger, head over to your “Home” page.
Category #2 – Customizable Themes:
How can you make your blog unique to your business and or personal interests? You can do so by customizing an existing theme. Even though all three blogging platforms offer free themes, the features within the themes are limited. If you would like to acquire more features within the theme, you need to purchase a premium theme or know a bit of CSS and HTML coding.
Category #3 – Creating New Menus:
Do you consider yourself an organized individual? If you answered ‘Yes’, you’re on the path the success. Organization is KEY to a successful blog and it is a very essential part of your website layout. If we don’t add a navigation menu towards the top or on the left of the website, your visitors may become very frustrated; therefore, those visitors may never return to your site for fear of becoming frustrated again. If you have chosen WordPress.com as your blogging platform, use “Pages”, “Tags”, “Categories”, or “External Links” in your Navigation Menu. On Tumblr, you can create new “Pages” within the theme itself. On Blogger, you can add pages to your Menu Bar via the default menu or through HTML coding.
Category #4 – Creating New Posts:
You can showcase your personality, your writing style, and your interests through a new post. To create a new post on your WordPress.com or Blogger blog, click on “New Post”; and, on Tumblr, you can create a new blog or “Reblog” someone else’s post. The aforementioned Tumblr post could be a portion of text, a quote, a chat session, an audio, or a video.
Category #5 – Adding Tags:
Search Engines feed off of tags within a post. In some cases, tags help the reader find what he or she may be looking for. To add tags within WordPress.com, Tumblr, Blogger, just scroll down to the widget entitled “Tags”, and plug in your tags there. This is another way to organize your blog entries.
For more categories, please click on Page #2.
Category #6 – Customizable Coding:
The tech-savvy individuals out there prefer to alter the coding. And fortunately for said individuals, all three blogging platforms allow coding customization. On WordPress.com, you can alter the HTML, CSS, PHP, or JavaScript code. On Tumblr, you can only customize the HTML portion; and on Blogger, you can customize HTML and CSS.
Category #7 – Plugins & Widgets:
Plugins are available on WordPress.com; but are not available on Tumblr and Blogger. Widgets are available on WordPress.com and Blogger, but not on Tumblr.
Category #8 – Multi-User:
Can more than one person log into your blog? Both WordPress.com and Blogger offer a multi-user functionality, but Tumblr does not.
Category #9 – Mobile-Friendly:
Are these three blogging platforms available on Apple products and Android devices? Yes, WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Blogger are all mobile friendly; therefore, you can blog whenever and wherever you choose.
Category #10 – Comments:
Whenever we create a blog, we expect to see engagement from our audience. Your visitors or consumers will be able to leave comments on all three platforms. On WordPress.com, you can use the default commenting system or download plugins (i.e. Disqus comments or Livefyre comments). Tumblr does not offer a default commenting system; however, you can enable Disqus comments if you prefer. And finally, Blogger only offers a default commenting system at the moment.
For your convenience – we have drawn a diagram, comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Blogger. Take a look at the diagram below: