The future for Google's Blogger ?

I started my foray into blogging about eight months ago. Since then I've been completely hooked. I can see how blogging will be a huge force in the near future, and that we are only at the beginning of the growth curve in terms of what the future of content on the web will represent.

Soon after I started blogging, I became fascinated with the whole SEO (Search Engine Optimization) world. I wanted to know how I could get my blog to rank highly in the search engines. While pouring over SEO information, I also had a ton of other stuff to learn about the process of blogging, so I let some things slide and I didn't heed one of the basic principles of efficient SEO.

One of the key pieces of advice that usually comes up regarding how to improve your rankings in the search engines is to drop your free blogging account and get your own domain name and hosting service. As great as the Blogger service has become, it is widely believed that one's blog would rank higher in the search engines immediately using a paid hosting service and a unique domain name.

As I said, I've been blogging for about eight months. Only in the last month has Google even recognized my first blog and so far this has been in only a tiny way. MSN Search has not yet registered any of my four blogs. All these blogs have legitimate original content and I haven't tried any 'black hat' tricks on any of them - not even 'grey hat' for that matter.

So, now I find I am devoting a good twelve hours minimum each week to blogging. I'm highly motivated to make a success of this exciting endeavor. So, it seems logical that I should drop everything else and sign up for a domain name and hosting service and start over, this time much more professionally.

So why am I still with Blogspot.com? After all, for less than $10 measly dollars a month I could have my own domain name and web hosting service.

I think a lot of people must be in the same quandary as me right now. Maybe over a million people? Doesn't Google's Blogger have at least five million blogs right now?

Their market share of the entire blogging market is thought to be somewhere between thirty and forty percent.

The main reason I haven't switched is because I have become so invested in Blogger. I understand everything about it now (though it took me a long time to learn the hard way) and I have all my content up there. I'm even doing well in Yahoo's index for two of my blogs.

I'm intimidated with the thought of what I would have to re-learn if I was to get my own domain name and would have to learn another brand of blogging software. I realize these packages may be just as simple as Blogger but I've no guarantee that my blogging will be much more visible as a result of a big investment in my time to switch, move everything and confront all the unknowns.

Blogging has such a huge appeal primarily because it's doable by the majority who have always wanted a web site but didn't know the first thing about setting one up. This is also what makes it such an amazingly 'sticky' product. Once people get going with one blogging package, they become attached to it and it's hard to get them to move to a competitor.

But the motivation to move off Blogger has become stronger for me with each week. I can only imagine the countless benefits I'm missing out on with my free blogging service.

However, then the big idea occurred to me. Google is a very smart company.

Is it possible they may be developing this kind of add-on fee-based service to be available to their Blogspot accounts in the very near future?

If this is indeed the case, I would jump on it right away. To be able to stay with good old Blogger, but also have my own domain name and all the advantages of a web hosting service would be heaven. I'd be thrilled to pay $15 bucks a month for the rest of my life - easy!

Now assume Google may have one million bloggers who feel the same way I do. That kind of market share could vault it immediately into one of the largest web hosting companies in the world.

If the average person then paid $12 monthly for the services, we're looking at a respectable additional $150 million per year to their coffers. And given that blogging seems to be enjoying the highest growth of almost any industry niche right now (is it not over 100% per year with the latest indications from Technorati?) this new division of the Google empire could be worth one billion dollars per year - possibly in less than three years!

Maybe this also explains the current Google interest in power line internet access?

Anyway, that is the long story for why I have not yet left Blogspot.com.

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The above images are "Calling All Butterflies" by Patrick Coffaro
and "A line of telephone poles traveling over golden grassland" by George Grall