Blogger or Wordpress

What you get for free

WordPress.com is a commercial venture. It’s a way for the kind souls who have put time, money and a whole load of effort into the open source and free-to-download WordPress blogging engine to make some money back. They do this by making it stupidly simple to set up and maintain a blog, while introducing some rather hefty limitations for experienced users.

A free WordPress.com account offers:

• A blog, which you can turn into a full-on static or hybrid (part blog, part static) website.
• 3GB of free storage for posts and media.
• Publicize, a tool for connecting your blog with social networks.
• Free statistics for tracking visitors.
• Access to hundreds of non-premium themes, many of which can be customised further.
• WordPress.com access from mobile apps for iPhone, iPad, Android and BlackBerry.

WordPress.com designates the following as premium upgrades:

• Custom Design ($30 per blog, per year) adds custom CSS (not PHP editing) and fonts.
• Custom Domains ($13 per domain, per blog, per year) removes the .wordpress.com part of your URL.
• Guided Transfer ($129 one-off payment) for transferring your WordPress.com site to your own web-host for greater independence and freedom.
• Ad-free ($30 per blog, per year) removes any possibility of WordPress.com showing adverts on your blog to non-logged in visitors.
• Premium themes (priced per blog for the lifetime of the blog).
• A redirect ($13 per blog, per year) for redirecting traffic from yourblog.wordpress.com to your new domain.
• Additional space (priced per amount) for storing more posts and media.
• VideoPress ($60 per blog, per year) for uploading, hosting and embedding your own videos on your WordPress.com blog

Conversely, Blogger is not a commercial service. It was acquired by Google in 2003 who have since kept it ticking over, with a few redesigns and some recently-added new templates. The rather ancient Blogger features page (ancient because it explicitly mentions uploading to Google Video and easily accessing iGoogle, two of Google’s many dead projects) promises users access to all features. There are no upgrades, no fees for adding a custom domain, and all the customization options thrown in that Blogger has available.

Included features worth noting are:

• A template designer for customizing your blog’s appearance.
• Free hosting, free Blogger (or Blogspot) sub-domain and option of using a custom domain (either registering through Blogger or using one you already have).
• The ability to add media to your posts, with no quoted maximum storage space.
• Quick access to Google’s advertising schemes.
• Pages static content on your blog.
• Mobile access via iPhone and Android apps, as well as SMS or email blogging.

It would seem that despite WordPress having the plugins and themes markets sewn up, Blogger still offers more for those looking for a free service.

The Sign-Up Process

WordPress.com allows you to register for an account with an email address, username, password and URL. Blogger is a Google service, and just like YouTube, requires a Google account. If you already have a Google account then this makes signing up a painless affair, but if you don’t (highly unlikely, unless you have something against Google), you’ll have to register for the whole package. This also means if you do have a personal Google Account but want to distance yourself from the topic you’re blogging about you’re going to have to create a new account, and also deal with Google’s messy multiple-account management.

Google’s sign-up process doesn’t indicate that you do not need to supply a mobile phone number or an email address, despite asking for one. Conversely WordPress.com only asks to fill out four fields but will also run a check for the URL you enter and try to sell you a premium domain (which costs to register, and requires an account upgrade to use on WordPress.com) as well as pointing out the flaws in the free account you’re about to register.

Managing Your Blog

Both WordPress and Blogger have centralized areas from which to manage your blog empire, which are separate to the settings for the blogs themselves. The two areas are equally attractive and usable, with both services featuring an area to read blogs you follow as well as the various outlets under your control.

On WordPress this takes the form of a deep attractive blue theme with a tabulated layout that allows you to quickly switch between reading, overseeing blogs and managing analytics in addition to a quick post button.

Blogger houses all of this on the one page, with a quick compose button found next to the blog title itself. Beneath this are new posts from the blogs you have chosen to follow on the service. It goes without saying that you can’t follow Blogger blogs on WordPress.com and vice-versa, though it would be nice if we could all get along

In Conclusion,

I'd highly recommend you to use blogger to create your blog, it gives you alot of facilities and comfort and easiness for free. 

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20 Tips Writing a Good Blog Post

 I jotted down some ‘quick tips’. While they are all short I hope that they might spark some ideas – enjoy!

1. Tell your story – it is what makes your content unique
2. Share how you feel – it will take your readers to a deeper place
3. You’ll never please everyone – the sooner you come to peace with this, the better
4. Write about things that matter to you – passion is infectious
5. Inform, Inspire and Interact – aim to do these things every week!
6. Experiment with different styles of writing – it will help you find your voice
7. Mix up the length of your posts – short can be sweet but long can be epic!
8. When an idea strikes – drop everything and capture it!
9. Do everything you can to understand who is reading your blog – it will make you more useful to them
10. Before you publish – ask what you want your reader to do after reading your post – and edit accordingly
11. Become hyper aware of problems – and obsess over writing posts that solve them
12. Put aside time to create quality content – it doesn’t just appear
13. Put aside time to edit and polish your posts – it will take them to the next level
14. Get a life – you’ll be a much more interesting writer if you’ve lived a little
15. Ask your readers questions – it will make them feel like they belong and you’ll learn a lot too!
16. Take your readers on a journey – posts that build from one to another can be powerful
17. Brainstorm regularly – generating ideas for future posts now can save a lot of pain later
18. Not every post needs to go viral – shareable content will help you grow but it may not serve your current readers best
19. Write, Write Write – the more you write, the better you will get
20. Publish selectively – you don’t need to publish everything you write

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How to Post in Different Pages of Blogger

Many of you want to post in different pages of blogger and whenever you post something, it comes in the main homepage and not the required page, so I have the solution to it. Just follow the steps and Enjoy!

Step 1: First of all you need to create a post and add a Label to it. (add the label named to the desired page you want it to go to). For example: I label my post "Video"

Step 2: Now you need to find out that labels web address, which you can do from clicking on the label on your site and copying the web address.

Step 3: Now you have to create a web address page (From blogger pages section click on New page then "web address"

Step 4: Now you have to add the label web address as the web address and name the page whatever you want

Step 5: Enjoy! Any Queries so ask in comments

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How to Use Social Media to Create a Successful Blog

Are you searching for effective ways to grow your online audience while increasing your blog traffic? Social media is an efficient tool for promoting your blog and making it popular among your target audience. Businesses have successfully extended their blog’s reach using social media sites such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterst, Google+, and of course Facebook and 

        9 Tips for Using Social Media to Successfully Promote Your Blog

Let’s take a look at our Top 9 Tips for Promoting Your Blog Using Social Media:

Post to Social Media Profiles Using Feed Tools

Twitterfeed, and various other feed tools give you the ability to publish links to your blog posts on multiple social media sites automatically. If your blog is running on the WordPress platform, you’ll find some really great plug-ins that help you automate this process.

Automate Your Publishing

Imagine how simpler your blogging life would be if you could automate your posts. Well, using tools like HootSuite, SproutSocial and TweetDeck, you can. Simply schedule your posts for the entire day, week or even month ahead. This is a great way for busy business owners to get the word out about new posts quickly and simply. Scheduling allows you to spread your posts out, while simultaneously posting to various social media profiles.

Add Icons on Your Blog for Quick Social Media Sharing, Tweeting and Liking

No matter which blogging platform you use, your sidebar should contain social network icons. Why? These icons allow your readers to quickly connect with you via your social network profiles, with just one click. They also encourage your audience to share, like and tweet about your blog or any of its contents.

Link Your Blog and Social Media Profiles to Each Other

Every single one of your social network profiles should include the URL of your blog. That way, no matter where your audience is connecting to you from, your blog is only a simple click away.

Your Forum Signatures Should Contain the URL of Your Blog

When you post relevant, valuable information, questions or comments in industry-related forums, you increase your web presence. Including a link to your blog in forum signatures helps to create backlinks to your blog, which helps to increase blog traffic.

Comments Made on Other Blog Should Contain Your Blog’s URL

Leaving or responding to comments on other relevant blogs also increases your web presence among your target audience. Add a link to your blog within your comments to create valuable backlinks. This also increases the chances of that audience visiting your blog using a single click.

Utilize the Social Media Widgets and Tools Offered

Most of the popular social media networks offer free widgets and tools to promote user profiles. These can be added to your blog to increase your content’s exposure. Simply log into your social media profiles, access these features, and add them to your blog.

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