Customize Your Blogger Blog

Using Blogger doesn't mean that you have to have a boring, cookie cutter blog. There are a couple of really easy ways to customize the design of your Blogger blog.

Customize your Blogger Blog in 3 Easy Steps

Remove the Navbar:  The Navbar is the tool "glued" to the top of every blogger blog. But it's really easy to remove, and instantly makes your blog look more professional. Erin, from the blog Patricia's Daughter, has a great tutorial to remove the navbar (and a gorgeous blog design, to boot!)

Change the Favicon: Every website has a favicon associated with it.  Gmail's is a little envelope. Google's is a lower case "g." All blogger blogs automatically have a funny little "B" on an orange background.  You can see the favicon on the left side of your tabs.  Just like removing the navbar, changing your favicon personalizes and professionalizes your blog.

Sidebar Gadgets Without Titles: Have you ever wanted to upload a graphic to your sidebar without a title above it? Blogger won't let you publish a gadget without a title, unless you know this easy trick.

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Why Blogger? (Instead of Wordpress)

Because I said so. (Just kidding! Sort of.)

I’ve been using Blogger for a long time.  And I’ve also been using Wordpress for a long time.  And I like Blogger better.  Way better.

Here’s why:

It’s free.  Wordpress.com is also free.  But there are many more options for customization on Blogger than Wordpress.com. And blogs on Wordpress.com cannot be monetized, although blogs on Blogger can.

Wordpress.org is very customizable, but it is not free. And the customization is so tricky, most people hire a designer to do it, which is also not free. Wordpress bloggers often hire people to do updates to their site as well.

Unlimited traffic. Google hosts your blog and doesn’t limit the amount of traffic your blog can handle.  Third party hosts (which you have to use when you use Wordpress.org) can do just that.  A viral post can actually shut your site down.  So when you have the potential for the most traffic, people may not see your site at all!

It doesn’t require plug-ins.  To add something to your wordpress site, you have to download a 3^rd party plug-in.  This slows your site and opens it up to viruses.  I often hear wordpress users complain that they downloaded a new plug-in and it “broke” their site. No Bueno.

Blogger uses “gadgets” instead of plug-ins. These are basically snippets of html code that can be inserted in different areas of your blog, to do much the same thing that wordpress’s plug-ins do, without the security issues.

Google’s got your back.  Blogger is a Google platform.  And nobody hacks Google.  In the blogging groups I’m in, I’ve seen Wordpress sites get hacked (and shut down!) over and over.

You own your content.  Sigh.  If you google “Blogger vs. Wordpress” you’ll see people say that on Wordpress, you own your content.  You own it on Blogger, too.  You can check out Blogger’s Terms of Service agreement to see for yourself

I’m not the only one who loves blogger.  Here are a few BIG name blogs on Blogger:

Fresh Eggs Daily (300,000 monthly pageviews)

Thrifty Decor Chick (2.3 MILLION pageviews/month)
I Heart Organizing ( 2.7 MILLION pageviews/month and still  on .blogspot.com
Skinnytaste (3 million unique visitors per month)
Organizing Made Fun (600,000 pageviews/month)

And a few other articles that tout the benefits of Blogger.

You Don’t Have to Move to Wordpress

7 Reasons Why Blogger is Better than Wordpress

10 Reasons Blogger is Better than Wordpress

Why You Should Use Blogger

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