QUESTION: Should you consider publishing a business blog with Blogger on Blogger's own server? That is, should your blog URL look like [yourblogname].blogspot.com?

ANSWER: The prevailing wisdom says you shouldn't, for two reasons:

1) To have "blogspot" in your URL does not look cool. It's not professional. Serious companies have their own names and servers. To publish on Blogger server immediately stamps you as an amateur.

2)  Blogger is owned by Google. Anything you publish on a Google server is owned by Google. Google can cancel your Blogger blog anytime it wants. You publish totally at Google's pleasure. In the final analysis, you cannot claim any intellectual property rights to anything you publish either since the fine print gives all those rights to Google when you click and accept the Blogger's terms of service.

The first point is true. A perception becomes a reality when it's shared by enough number of people.

But the second point is a MYTH. Google can refuse to publish what you submit but does not own the Intellectual Property Rights of whatever it publishes.

Here is what Blogger Service Agreement exactly says (http://www.blogger.com/terms.g):

"Your Intellectual Property Rights. Google claims no ownership or control over any Content submitted, posted or displayed by you on or through Google services. You or a third party licensor, as appropriate, retain all patent, trademark and copyright to any Content you submit, post or display on or through Google services and you are responsible for protecting those rights, as appropriate. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through Google services which are intended to be available to the members of the public, you grant Google a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce, publish and distribute such Content on Google services for the purpose of displaying and distributing Google services. Google furthermore reserves the right to refuse to accept, post, display or transmit any Content in its sole discretion."

THE COUNTER-CASE: Having cleared up that myth, allow me now to play the devil's advocate here and present a counter-case for using Blogger.

1)  The first and most obvious reason: Blogger is free. That would save you at least $100 a year in terms of hosting cost. And if you'd like to operate 10 or 20 blogs, the total hosting cost can put a sizable dent in your limited budget. Since it sometimes takes years for a blog to build up enough following and turn a profit, you may end up investing thousands of dollars in your self-hosted blog before seeing any positive results. With Blogger, if a blog does not work, you just shut it down and all you lose is your "sweat equity," i.e., all the time you've invested to create the content. But you'll never lose any actual cash.

Blogger's Layout Control Panel is a study in simplicity...

2)  Some of the blogs hosted by Blogger do build up serious traffic because ultimately what matters is the content you publish and not where you publish it.

Imagine you are trying to solve a problem. You need an answer to a question to solve your problem. And you find that answer on a web site. Do you care whether that site is a blog or not, or whether it's published on a Blogger server or not? Of course not. All you care is the relevance and reliability of the information. And that's why some Blogger blogs have built up terrific following despite the fact that they have that dreaded "BlogSpot" in their URL.

Here are some free Blogger blogs with the kind of traffic that would be the envy of any self-hosted web site out there (rankings are as of August 12, 2009 and subject to change):

gregmankiw.blogspot.com/  -- Alexa rank: 64, 715 (classic Blogger template)
fakesteve.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 65, 876 (off the shelf template)
gorillavsbear.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 81,383
strobist.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 32,970
shakespearessister.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 113,886  (with tabs)
xiaxue.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 32,152 (radical template makeover)
althouse.blogspot.com -- Alexa rank: 60,875
orangette.blogspot.com  -- Alexa rank: 203,559
ikeahacker.blogspot.com  -- Alexa rank: 64,125
bibliodyssey.blogspot.com  -- Alexa rank: 231,904
myoldkyhome.blogspot.com  -- Alexa rank: 175,444
desiretoinspire.blogspot.com  -- Alexa rank: 108,641

For a comprehensive list of Blogger blogs with high ranking you can visit http://www.bloggerbuster.com/2008/05/top-50-blogger-powered-blogs.html

3)  Once your Blogger blog takes root and develops serious traffic, you can always shift it to your own server and publish it with your own URL (domain name) by using Blogger or some other blog software. Note that you do NOT need to publish on the Blogger server in order to use the free Blogger blogging software. Many web hosting companies give you the option to publish with Blogger software but under your own domain name. That way you own your content 100% while Google "lends" you its software through a single-user license.

4)  Blogger has some terrific functionalities that you can add to your blog by simply clicking and inserting a "gadget" into your layout panel. (See the screenshot on left for a very limited selection of these gadgets.)

Some outdated information on the Internet still claim that Blogger does not have any categories. That's not true anymore. Not only Blogger allows you to display your topics by categories (called "Labels"), but it also allows you to schedule your posts (you can publish at any future date and time you like).

You can publish Google videos, slide shows and polls by just dragging them into your Layout panel. You can of course publish AdSense ads as well.

5)  Blogger updates its software automatically, without you even being aware of it. In effect Blogger serves as your free webmaster 24-7. And of course Blogger is also available 24-7 from any computer in the world since it's a total online service. Did you know that you can even create a post on your Blogger blog through email and cell phone?

6)  Blogger allows you to publish any HTML/Javascript code you like, which makes it possible to publish Amazon or any other affiliation ads, for example. You can publish lists, Google AdSense code, links, RSS subscriptions both to the posts and comments. The list of free functionalities offered by Blogger grows steadily.

7)  One important thing you can do through Blogger's HTML/Javascript code widget is to publish your own subscription form to build up an in-house mail list. You can publish an autoresponder form (like Aweber) to keep your readers engaged with your free Blogger blog.

8)  You can change a Blogger template in so many ways that it may actually end up unrecognizable as a Blogger template.

You can for example eliminate all dates so that your posts look like topical posts instead of calendar posts. Just check out this blog to see the extent to which your basic (and frankly, boring) Blogger template can be modified: xiaxue.blogspot.com

The more you modify your Blogger template, the less "amateurish" it will look.

Most of the stigma attached to using the Blogger is due to the same worn-out templates that Blogger is offering since god knows when. Once you get rid of the too-familiar looks of a Blogger template, people may not even notice that you're publishing on Blogger -- especially if you have your own domain name forwarded to Blogger.

Here is my new tea blog as a modest example of how you can modify a basic Blogger template: http://www.wonderfultea.com By just looking at the domain name you would perhaps not be able to tell that it's hosted on Blogspot.

CONCLUSION:

If you have some terrific content that you'd like to share with your readers and customers, I'd say give Blogger a try and see what happens.

Explore the many functionalities offered by Blogger and get a realistic sense of your readership. And when you get some traction and people start to read and follow your site, then you can always shift to your own server and direct your readers to visit you at the new site.

Many people do that. I did the same before hosting my own site devoted to technical communication. It started and remained as a Blogger blog for a few years before I shifted to my own host and my own domain. Some blogging software like WordPress, for example, actually allow you to transfer all your posts from Blogger's server to the new server. I tried it and it worked without a hitch.

For all those reasons I think you should consider testing the waters by launching a Blogger blog today for your small business and see what happens. In times like these we all need well-developed marketing tools to get our message out there to as many people as possible by investing as few resources as possible. Despite its limitations and drawbacks, I think a Blogger blog fits the bill pretty well.

P.S. on WordPress – "Why not follow the same "incubation strategy" with WordPress?" you may ask. For a very good reason:

Yes, WordPress allows you to host your blog for free on the WP server, just like Blogger, but with a huge difference: WP will not allow you to run any third-party ads, affiliation links and make money.

The free WP server offers a closed interface that will not allow you to insert any commercial Javascript code. WP does not provide any "widgets" for that. If you add Google AdSense Javascript inside a sidebar Text widget, for example, WP will not display anything. WP does not allow you to mess around under the hood, so to speak. Blogger does and I hope it'll stay that way.

Visit http://www.technicalcommunicationcenter.com to take advantage of the writing tips and tutorials available for your small business.