Why I would choose Blogger rather than WordPress

Blogger Vs WordPress - Every Bloggers Battle. One may find Blogger Vs WordPress posts on many different blogs and forums but today I am going to post why I would stick with blogger and never go for WordPress. I know many bloggers will disagree with my post but this post may open their eyes. Just have a look at all the below points.

Expenses

The first point and rather the most important for a new blogger is expenses and the money he is going to spend on his blog. We all know Blogger is completely free. There is no charge for hosting or the sub-domain.
If you go for WordPress you have to pay for Hosting + Domain which may cost you around $100 which you can save on Blogger. Other than that a WordPress user may have to buy additional plugins, Security services and premium theme for his blog. That would cost you around $100 more.

Installation

WordPress says that it has 5 minute installation but is that so?? I don't think so. A WordPress user has to edit .htaccess file, choosing whether to keep www or not and inform the same to Google Webmaster Tool, protect important files, Change the permalink settings, making wp-config.php more secure and better and a hell lot of things.
But when it comes to blogger it is hardly a matter of seconds. Choose the subdomain, blog title and start posting. Thats it. Blogger has everything simplified making user experience better.

Customization

Blogger has a Template Designer in which you can easily set the width of columns, change header style, background, colors and many different things. Bloggers post editor is simplified too. The layout in blogger helps you to add Widgets very easily. The new and improved template editor helps you to customize every bit of your template with the help of CSS and HTML which is extremely easy.
Newbies as well as Intermediates would find customization in WordPress a bit difficult. The edit theme option requires you to know php which I would regard as a bit tough than CSS and HTML

Themes

No doubt WordPress has more themes than Blogger but are all of them free to use ? The answer is No. WordPress themes which are of good quality are sold at high rates whereas 99.9% of the Blogger Templates are free of cost. As I have already mentioned Blogger templates are easy to edit and customize but the same does not applies for WordPress.
When it comes to quality WordPress themes are really good but it is not difficult for a Blogger template designer to convert that WordPress theme into a Blogger Template.

Migrating

Suppose you sell your WordPress blog so in order to complete the process you would need to change Nameservers of the domain and changing hosting server and lots of other time consuming steps. During the process your blog may have to be down for sometime too. This may be real pain for one.
In blogger all blogs are hosted by Google so you can't migrate your blog but you can do something more simpler and easier i.e. changing accounts. You add another person as an admin and remove your self. You are done, it was as simple as ABC.

Google Services

Blogger is a Google product so it would be clear that it will be enjoying a better status than WordPress in front of Google. Google also has a better Adsense support for Blogger blogs. You have 1 click Ads installation for Adsense. Other than that Blogger blogs get SEO benefits too and all the blogs are Pre-SEO optimized. You can easily embed Youtube videos etc. in blogger.
WordPress on the other hand has no relation with blogger and does not get all the above benefits. It has to rely on costly plugins for SEO and other things.

Updates

Basically WordPress updates itself to remove bugs. Updates for adding new features have been seen very rarely. If I am not wrong WordPress is its 3.6 version but still it does not have much difference compared to its initial version.
Blogger Team on the other hand is working really hard on the platform. We have seen the updated version of blogger with a better UI. The dynamic blogger templates were introduced just a few years back. The Official Contact Form, Template Editor, Google+ Comments, Permalinks, Robots etc. are just some of the recent updates by Blogger.

Security

All WordPress bloggers would be knowing about the recent botnet attacks that affected 30 million blogs. Brute-force password-guessing attacks occurred in WordPress blogs and many bloggers who had a weak password got their blog hacked. This was a serious issue.
Blogger on the other hand is one of the most safe blogging platform. Google one of the largest internet giant runs it. There servers are never down and uptime is 100% If one wants to hack a blogger account he would have to hack the persons google account. So first he would have to find the assigned email ID of that particular blog and then try to break one the most secure systems. If the 2 step verification is on, then Mr. Hacker better luck next time. No doubt blogger is much more safer and secure than WordPress.

Conclusion : 

WordPress is really a very good platform which has numerous options, plugins and themes but there is someone else in the same industry which I will portray as the "Real Blogging Boss".  Blogger was started much before (1999) than WordPress (2003) and today it has way more blogs hosted on it than WordPress or any other platform and it surely rocks the online industry.
Last but not the least I am a proud blogger user and if you use blogger you should be too.

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Social Share Unlocker Popup for Blogger

Today I am going to show how you can add Social Share Unlocker Popup for Blogger. After adding the code in your blog, you will see a one time popup which will require you to either Like, Google +1 or Follow you to see the contents of the blog. The timer can be adjusted according to your needs by default it is 60 seconds. You can also make the blog closeable and add a cross button by tweaking the settings. This box works on jQuery and also looks elegant.

This widget will be very effective in increasing your social counter and spreading your blog. Overall the CSS has been nicely coded to make the design look beautiful. You can see the live demo of this plugin by clicking the below button.

Live Demo

Once you have seen the demo we can proceed with the tutorial on how you can add Social Share Unlocker Popup to your blogger blog.

Step 1 : Adding the code

Firstly go to Blog Title → Template → Edit HTML and search for the code </body> and paste the below given code just above it.

<script type='text/javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
        TITLEKN='Blog';FBKN='AllBloggerTricks';TWITTERKN='AllBloggerTrick';URLKN='http://www.allbloggertricks.com/';
//]]>
</script>
<link href='https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76401970/All%20Blogger%20Tricks/abt-unlocker-popup.css' rel='stylesheet'/>
<script src='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.6.1/jquery.min.js'/>
<script src='https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1'/>
<script src='http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script src='https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76401970/All%20Blogger%20Tricks/abt-unlocker-popup.js' type='text/javascript'/>
<script language='javascript'>
//<![CDATA[
$(document).ready(function(){                          
        $().KN3IN1({
            timeout: 60,
            wait: 0,
            closeable: false        });
});
//]]>
</script>

After adding the code follow Step 2 for the settings.

Step 2 : Settings

Change the text in blue with your username of Facebook and Twitter. Change the URL to the one in which you want to get Google +1.

Change 60 with your desired no. of seconds you want the popup to appear.
Change  false to true if you want the popup to be closeable and add a cross button in the popup.

After configuring the code save the template. You are done now. Now you can gain more social shares whenever a new and unique visitors visits your blog by adding this Social Share Unlocker Popup for Blogger plugin. 

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Random Post Button Widget for Blogger

Today I am going to show you how you can add Random Post button to Blogger on clicking which you will be redirected to any random page on your blog. The widget works on JavaScript while the button is made of CSS.

This widget uses simple JavaScript and looks elegant. On clicking the button it fetches a post from the blogs feed and redirect the user to that particular page.

This widget may be really helpful to increase your blog's pageviews. Moreover the button has 3D effect which you can see by clicking the button in the below demo.

Live Demo

Once you have seen the demo you can add this cool widget to your blogs by two methods -
1. One Click Installation
2. Manually Adding the Code

One Click Installation

For adding this search bar to your blog just click the below button.

After clicking the button you will be redirected to Blogger.com and your widget would be added.

Manually Adding the Code

If you think that you need to make some changes in the code or the above button is not working for you then you may use this method.

Go to Blog Title → Layout → Add Widget → HTML/JavaScript. Paste the below code.

<style>
#abt-random{position:relative;color:rgba(255,255,255,1);text-decoration:none;background-color:rgba(219,87,5,1);font-family:'Yanone Kaffeesatz';font-weight:700;font-size:20px;display:block;-webkit-border-radius:8px;-moz-border-radius:8px;border-radius:8px;-webkit-box-shadow:0 9px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 9px 25px rgba(0,0,0,.7);-moz-box-shadow:0 9px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 9px 25px rgba(0,0,0,.7);box-shadow:0 9px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 9px 25px rgba(0,0,0,.7);margin-bottom:10px;margin-top:10px;width:160px;text-align:center;-webkit-transition:all .1s ease;-moz-transition:all .1s ease;-ms-transition:all .1s ease;-o-transition:all .1s ease;transition:all .1s ease;padding:4px}
#abt-random:active{-webkit-box-shadow:0 3px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.9);-moz-box-shadow:0 3px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.9);box-shadow:0 3px 0 rgba(219,31,5,1), 0 3px 6px rgba(0,0,0,.9);position:relative;top:6px}
#abt-random a{color: #fff;}
</style>

<center><div id="abt-random"></div></center>
<script type="text/javascript">
function showLucky(root){ var feed = root.feed; var entries = feed.entry || []; var entry = feed.entry[0]; for (var j = 0; j < entry.link.length; ++j){if (entry.link[j].rel == 'alternate'){window.location = entry.link[j].href;}}} function fetchLuck(luck){ script = document.createElement('script'); script.src = '/feeds/posts/summary?start-index='+luck+'&max-results=1&alt=json-in-script&callback=showLucky'; script.type = 'text/javascript'; document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script); } function feelingLucky(root){ var feed = root.feed; var total = parseInt(feed.openSearch$totalResults.$t,10); var luckyNumber = Math.floor(Math.random()*total);luckyNumber++; a = document.createElement('a'); a.href = '#random'; a.rel = luckyNumber; a.onclick = function(){fetchLuck(this.rel);}; a.innerHTML = 'Random Post'; document.getElementById('abt-random').appendChild(a); } </script><script src="/feeds/posts/summary?max-results=0&alt=json-in-script&callback=feelingLucky">
</script>

After adding the code save the widget and finally save the template. You are done now. Now you and your visitors can see and use this Random Post Button Widget for Blogger.

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Official Contact Form Widget released for Blogger

As +Prayag Verma of Stylifyyourblog.com wrote on his post on 02 April 2013 that blogger is working on Contact Form. He found out CSS codes for Contact form from the bundle css file which is by default in every blog. That Contact form is released now. Just prior to Google I/O 2013 all Google products are really working hard to improve their services and the same goes for blogger.

You don't have much options to edit this form. If you know basics of CSS you may use inline CSS in your blog to edit it. Whenever someone sends you a message through this from it will directly go in your email which is linked with Blogger.

How to add this widget to Blogger

Adding this widget is quite easy. Just follow the below steps to add it.

1. Go to Blogger.com → Blog Title → Layout → Add Widget
2.  From the tabs menu click on More Gadgets.
3. Now click on Contact Form and finally Give your desired heading to it
4. Save the widget and lastly save the Template

Thats it. Now whenever a visitor wants to contact you he can do the same by just press a single button moreover you can see the messages in your email box. Now there would be no need of 123forms and Foxyforms. This contact form is in its initial stage and we may see further development on it.

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