Blogger vs WordPress: Which is Better for You?

There are two big-name services in the world of blogging: Blogger vs WordPress. No matter where you go on the internet looking for advice, these two names are nearly impossible to avoid because they play such an important role within the online content community.<br /><br />If you're just starting out a new blog, or making some major changes to your current layout, you'll most likely be faced with the decision to choose between Blogger vs WordPress. Both are stellar services that are going to make your life as a blogger much easier, but ultimately, your decision must come down to one. So don't cross over, let's walk this path together and ensure that you don't get lost in the wonder world of web, looking for answers.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger vs wordpress" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvUGzMPDekamyDotwQjpPt3V9C5X4ma-bSEwjad6XrRzQ7Xg4FM1jzuBGzpCTkivAHFrQKMYI_IOyTCSdhBgsv7H6luxQN9MtXB3prhYFT_NifMlSesNjvph67PBt9wk4DD7CPygm-iU0X/s320/blogger-vs-wordpress.png" title="Blogger vs WordPress: Which is Better for You?" /></div><br /><h4>Before we start!</h4>WordPress as you might have noticed, comes in two different flavors, wordpress.org and wordpress.com. Seemingly same, but practically, not. Like in Blogger vs WordPress, hosting at wordpress.com is like renting a corporate apartment where the corporate is responsible for maintenance and facilitation of your place. While hosting at wordpress.org is similar to buying your own apartment, where you are responsible for your place's security, maintenance and many others.<br /><br />So, wherever in this post you see the word 'WordPress'; know that it refers to <a href="https://wordpress.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wordpress.org</a>.<br /><br /><h3>User-Friendliness</h3>WordPress is a clear front-runner in the blogging and web design community in terms of how many people actually use the platform. The founder of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, provided eye-opening statistics that around 18.9% of the entire Internet runs on WordPress. Compared to a 2012 study done by Blogging.org, of all the actual blogs on the Internet, WordPress makes up 43%, Blogger 35%, and the remaining blogs are Tumblr or other less known services.<br /><br />However, just because something is used more often than another, it doesn't mean it's easier to use. The problem with WordPress is that it wasn't designed for beginners who just want to take up blogging as a side hobby. In order to set up your own WordPress blog, you have to have some previous knowledge of things like hosting, bandwidth, HTML and SEO practices. There are WordPress services out there that will help set up your site and get you online, but WordPress itself comes as a set of files that you are expected to download and configure to your own site.<br /><br />Some hosting companies have made the idea of using WordPress a little bit easier with things like one-click downloads; but it's still a pretty steep learning curve for new bloggers to overcome. You also have to deal with paying for the costs of hosting your site and acquiring the domain name. If you opt to use one of the many WordPress services instead of setting it up yourself, you'll be stuck with a URL such as 'yourwebsite.wordpress.com', which takes away from the professional image you may be trying to portray.<br /><br />Blogger is entirely based on Google and makes setting up a blog a breeze. With Blogger vs WordPress all you need to get started is to sign up for the service using your Google account, or make a new account like you would if you were setting up an email account. From there, Blogger takes responsibility for all your files, backing up the systems and the details associated with operating a content site like a database. Blogger is so much easier in terms of walking you through the steps, providing you with everything you need to be successful and it's at little-to-no cost to you.<br /><br /><h3>Design & Customizability</h3>Hosting at WordPress means stepping into the Disney world. With hundreds of featured rich-customizable design templates, you would find yourself literally lost in the WordPress arena, ensuring that your site looks unique, catchy and simply marvelous to visitors. The wide array of WordPress templates include customized designs for nearly every walk of life including fashion, entertainment, music, health, kitchen, etc.<br /><br />Blogger templates, some would say, are not responsive; but let me tell you a secret. With a little search online, you can find hundreds of free, highly customizable, responsive Blogger templates that you can easily integrate into your blog, so that you, and your site visitors stay in touch with your blog through their handsets. For WordPress, however, you don't need to wander around. By default, it has rich and responsive native designs, making WordPress ideal for mobile bloggers.<br /><br />Both platforms will allow you to make modifications to the theme and features of the site if you have experience or feel comfortable to use HTML and CSS. They also both provide helpful post areas for when you go to submit new content. These post areas will also include HTML and some basic functions to change the font style and the size of your text.<br /><br />One design feature between the two that may tip the scale toward Blogger in the Blogger vs WordPress discussion is that Blogger is integrated with other Google services like Google Picasa. Picasa is a photo sharing site that will allow you to share all your personal photos, or the photos that you plan on using within your posts. These can then be accessed via the text editor when you are submitting content and can be easily included with the content.<br /><br /><h3>Gadgets, Widgets & Plugins</h3>Talking of plugins, WordPress provides you with thousands of easy to integrate plugins from security to multimedia, enabling you to add any feature or functionality in your site, in a couple easy steps. Users of this platform have submitted thousands of independent plugins that you can install for just about anything you would need, from SEO to E-commerce. There are so many interesting plugins available, that blog owners often make the mistake of cluttering their site with too many and distracting their readers from the content.<br /><br />Blogger may not have as many plugins or widgets as WordPress, it does have enough to provide you with what you need. Blogger's simplicity in many ways provides it with an edge over WordPress because you are able to focus most of your time in producing great content, instead of seeing how many bells and whistles you can add on the site.<br /><br /><h3>The SEO Question</h3>Not every person that starts a blog is looking to make money off the content; some people just like to write for the sake of writing. Whatever your goals are for starting the blog, search engine optimization - or SEO for short - is a key strategy in growing your readership, so others might enjoy what you have to share.<br /><br />Over 1 quadrillion searches are performed via Google each year. The goal of most SEO producers is to implement strategies that can appease Google so that their content will be ranked higher up in search query results. Blogger is a service created by Google, so it's obvious that they added their own formulas to the service to ensure that those blogs are doing what they need to do to be found.<br /><br />Sticking to Blogger means Google would optimize your blog itself from a SEO perspective. All you need to do is check / uncheck a couple of options from your dashboard and Google will start crawling your site with just a click of a button. WordPress takes a hands-on approach that will require you to know a little bit more to modify your website design and content to meet these standards.<br /><br /><h2>And the Blogger vs WordPress Winner Is…</h2>In terms of Blogger vs WordPress, both services might be worth trying out, but ultimately Blogger comes out as a winner in all four categories discussed above. For new or returning bloggers, it is a fantastic service that makes it easy to focus on what you love, regardless of all the add-ons and fancy additions of WordPress. Blogger's simplicity is perhaps one of it's greatest advantages and provides bloggers of all experience levels a chance to succeed.

Blogger vs WordPress: Which is Better for You?

There are two big-name services in the world of blogging: Blogger vs WordPress. No matter where you go on the internet looking for advice, t...

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How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger

Our web today is a wonderful place. It's increasingly become a knowledge hub for strollers around the globe. And you know what the best part is? It does not have a religion, race or color, that's where perhaps its strength lies in. Point being, no matter what you are after, from details of products to how to use them, from fruit varieties to language origins, from how to hack Facebook account to how to set up a custom domain name in Blogger. Each and everything is there, in abundance and easily available. Now I know you are here to understand how you can setup/host your custom domain on your Blogger account. So let's get on with it, without further delay.<br /><div class="ssmainhide" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger custom domain, godaddy" border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDJ63aIVGCZodsChHQAnHmBEn3Rs5DSNHheFSULzE7qvjTE5mHUTmKlPxVCjNaf38JCaevYwk9nfPJygZgZE4Tn3gSFrcg9baaVFIniT6Zz61DvytxmdlH0m0Hzh-iT9aGQHcApn0H6Te/s1600/blogger-custom-domain-with-godaddy.png" title="Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger with Godaddy" width="320" /></div><br /><h3>Before we start</h3>It's important that you realize, it isn't difficult to add a custom domain into your blogger account. If you are a blogger, it's perfect if you already own your own blog, it shows your passion and love for blogging and provides you with freedom to move from one platform to another, when and if you need. Also from users perspective, it's much easier for them to remember and visit your blog at customized address like <i>myblog.com</i> than <i>myblog.blogspot.com</i>.<br /><br />One of the best things about Blogger is that it does not push you to host your site with blogger. It is entirely your own choice to choose from either of two hosting plans 'hosting on BlogSpot' with address myblog.blogspot.com, or going with a custom domain with address myblog.com.<br /><br /><h3>Some Popular Web Hosting Sites:</h3>If you don't already have purchased yourself a custom domain, these are the places that you should be looking for to get one: <ul><li>EasyDNS</li><li>1and1</li><li>GoDaddy.com</li><li>Yahoo! Small Business</li><li>No-IP</li><li>ix web hosting</li></ul>So now if you have bought yourself a domain, from either of these you would have an IP address and a name. Let's assume our is 'mynewdomain'.com.<br /><br />Well, it's time to start adding a custom domain to your blogger account.<br /><br /><h3>Remember:</h3>Here we are using setup for <a href="http://godaddy.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GoDaddy.com</a>, the most popular domain name provider. For custom domains from other sites, the steps are almost same, so don't vanish.<br /><br /><h2>Setting Up Blogger Custom Domain</h2>Step 1. Login to your Blogger account at <a href="http://www.blogger.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.blogger.com</a>.<br /><br />Step 2. Click on your blog and then go to "Settings", choose "Basic".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger custom domain" border="0" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTGKOkeUDdj0fHMEHQbHlFfUXEkGjbLbd8EpQiIY_GKWl3m8keFPUgNGTVWRpc4i9-Q6E67SIbBPQpHNV1ReB-wMDw0GR5BL2GO0KXNt5Uk6PGrTYKY5gLpzUCBMIutj2F_t8mTgJODH-h/s1600/set-up-custom-domain-in-blogger-or-third-party-url.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 1" width="640" /></div><br />Step 3. Under "Publishing" section, click "+ Setup a 3rd party URL for your blog".<br /><br />Step 4. Under "Third-party domain settings" next to "http://" type your domain that you just purchased and make sure that you don't forget to add the "www" prefix to the domain name.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="set up custom domain in blogger" border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifsvdtncdXDH3WVcOdoEE94Nqonjxhdnle_0VSlNWU0NBGNN79-WEAzon-JsE8pG2x1rDN7WIj9yJAFQp8X9aBbawagkwmUNwu3ua-kPWxY9yHF0_SlVsh9qHiQEdvm8zbRdPW3UrxAaJI/s1600/set-up-custom-domain-in-blogger.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 2" width="640" /></div><br />Step 5. Click "View settings instructions" to get the blogger's official instructions. On the Blogger instruction page, choose the "On a top-level domain (www.example.com)" option.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="custom domain in blogger" border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBIQ4-wBzTuP-JhhpgkkyvI34YmHiw4TRedsn5DLlK6w-a6MSy_9Zm5t3wv9ooT_9GQYZGbE6AJpvnV0eQcp_YNpkkIMNqqG4hlwZswQHvjeRtV3i-NG8rC2Gs8WV_Y4IjRL1ALbaiFrXA/s1600/on-a-top-level-domain-blogger.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 3" width="640" /></div><br />Step 6. Under the point 9 of instructions, 4 IP addresses will be given, copy and save all 4 of them.<br /><br />Step 7. Go back to your Blogger Settings and press Save. It won't get saved and an error will appear saying 'We have not been able to verify your authority to this domain. Error 32.'<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="setting up blogger custom domain " border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgqKPfWU3MOBhHmVuraZ2j1jTHaeBsaMZpCOosW509X2QW3WDSH3QhDY2a4KTfMFp9fLrkK4WCjaLFuK9SQEWpt3GlUney39WCt76kVvt0BtferX42D7-ywZKJD5XGUF-FYDeOTgPdTYva/s1600/setting-up-blogger-custom-domain.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 4" width="640" /></div><br />Step 8. Under the error, you will see two fields "Name, Label or Host Field" and "Destination, target, or Points To" field. Copy data of both rows from these fields.<br /><br />Step 9. Now log in to your <a href="http://godaddy.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GoDaddy.com</a> account and click on "My account" on the upper right corner > select "Manage my Domains".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="godaddy manage domains" border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_DPEINI436KwCW6xLFM6E56dev6BqeFzwUpvRfmnojhFnMYd9ceUOjUYMrmdjU4bXN1Arni-fQeu94Pw55LLkY6IuYi0crMTRmMoxOnEfIx2j3J5T2ZT-7ZN7RtL6IcQRgGMmPrSGQ6s/s1600/godaddy-manage-my-domains-blogger.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 5" width="640" /></div><br />Step 10. Here you should see your purchased domain name > just click on your domain name.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="godaddy domains" border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI2pqYSNjXfZ3j8hRWOKsbgV6oxnQq6iX7MCNcxXOfovQKmrxPbY359aB_qoGwUgML3cJ-2DFIBqqUft76q_I1izIKmG-ynIWBKOfmK2GuA9tCGDQuDKd1JfZ5KDEWyiO1cZSDwryKVI7S/s1600/godaddy-domains.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 6" width="640" /></div><br />Step 11. Click on the "DNS Zone File" tab next to Settings and choose "Use Classic DNS Manager".<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="use classic dns manager" border="0" height="78" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI7_3PjMIPYfXioMVxj5Qg6bh7r_l83VwHbyRLeVWNZBZ47lbUT5F9rOLNkQVaZfMW6kT19Ln4Qi1TLpTEELGTTCo-rmXBoqEy9EWbQ6a-GQERiKnw42r4Dtvibiql_a3C7TpCl9rV0hYU/s1600/use-classic-dns-manager.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 7" width="640" /></div><br />Step 12. Next, click the "Edit" button to edit your DNS Zone File.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger custom domain" border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRiySxIykn82TUHbws_yPb8VrOEkpmMicdPe36komnrlpO-Bo9BeDNpMksmABHWY1GWcv-SKJiSl_mpPZ8Pudj-PZs5oUsEICEvc3J9s-HjmUCNftD-sjGAh-iNHzYHAC1Z1vDj-VSuxKE/s1600/DNS-zone-file.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 8" width="640" /></div><br />Step 13. Under the "CNAME (Alias)" menu, click "Quick Add" button at the bottom of the screen (see image 1 in the below screnshoot).<br /><br />Step 14. In the Edit box that now appeared, enter "www" in the first box and "ghs.google.com" in the second.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger custom domain" border="0" height="344" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNMpSDchFrb-iJgPLg5DHH5jg9dsvgw7Ls378u0M6-4EAinb2kDPpG-5qOYpvGC8W9cvvLui1dqWIM_yeE1ejQLUVChwSb4aSNu0tdb-R9IeGYoLPGtoEh_yM3fzlWi-f-Pdqbt4o1RnAe/s1600/custom-domain-quick-add-blogger.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 9" width="640" /></div><br />Step 15. Click "Quick Add" again and enter details from second row of the data we saved in step 8.<br /><br />Step 16. Under the "A (Host)" menu, again choose Quick Add (see the below image).<br /><br />Step 17. Host will be @ and the "Points to" value should be the one provided by Google IPs, saved in step 6 above. These are the Google IPs that you should get: <br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">216.239.32.21<br />216.239.34.21<br />216.239.36.21<br />216.239.38.21</blockquote>Step 18. Add all 4 of them one by one and delete old host as you won't need it anymore.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="custom domain in blogger" border="0" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp5WZaPTzEtZ8u6uTABEn_tOPQgbf46snId1kBRwF_hZda_iR91pm7fADexqPxk6GNQp9mcnwjQ8r1uXCr5iqF2I-XmzFUEZg0glh2ylIK0E7f_daBLw9NDWKdNWDqsVl2tXWVx32Dpl16/s1600/set-up-custom-domain-in-blogger.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 10" width="640" /></div><br />Step 19. At the top of the page, click on the "Save Zone File" button to save your setings.<br /><br />Step 20. Now go back to Blogger and try to save settings again. The registration process takes 24-48 hours, so don't worry if you get an error again. Come again later to Blogger after 24-48 hours, repeat step 2 to 4, press Save and the error should be gone.<br /><br />Step 21. After your URL starts working, click on the "Edit" link next to domain name on setting page.<br /><br />Step 22. Check the "Redirect... to..." checkbox below your site address to ensure that even if the visitors will miss out the www part, they will still be able to reach your site.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img alt="blogger custom domain" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEd0pzPWSEVJOzsQTRbZDkNlW5Bc5YXGJKPqYfkx8LjiPeCg9O8koHNJ0w_wL9Xf-5N_NB0DDXJdMVkKQxn0WRuzKq3wvX-Wm_xbYbC4CzEWIU-8rVPn_Ri-Zc0c1I3d1Yv15ojnlnBJ1/s1600/blogger-custom-domain.png" title="How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger 11" /></div><br />Step 23. And that's it. Enjoy your new URL!<br /><br />So this was easy, right? Only a handful of steps and we have successfully completed our mission of adding our custom domain in our blogger account. In case you haven't yet, stay patient wait for 2 days and try again. Or repeat steps 1-22, and make sure you don't miss any. Otherwise your new URL is ready and all set to roam around the wonderful world of web.

How To Set Up a Custom Domain in Blogger

Our web today is a wonderful place. It's increasingly become a knowledge hub for strollers around the globe. And you know what the best ...

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