How to start your WordPress E-commerce website like a Pro?

If you are running a brick and mortar business then there can’t be a better time to build an E-commerce website for your business. In today’s digital world having an online presence for your business is a must if you really wants to get ahead on your competitors. Although there are many options but an E-commerce website is best if it is designed by the world’s most popular content management system WordPress. A WordPress based E-commerce website has lots of features and is capable of doing many functions and is easy to use. You can also easily manage your WordPress based E-commerce site.

You can also contact a WordPress development company if you want to develop your initial WordPress site from experts and later on want to install the required plugin to enable your WordPress website ready for e-commerce. Now we will discuss about how to start your E-commerce business on WordPress yourself.

Developing your Own Online Store with WordPress

Now we will provide you about some of the steps that will help you understand the steps you need to take in order to build your own online store.

- Get a Domain Name and Web Hosting

For building a website the first thing you need is a domain name and a web hosting service provider. You should select a hosting service provider after doing thorough research. You should choose a domain name which reflects the nature of your online business. Domain name is the first thing which your customer will notice about your online business hence it should be unique. We recommend choosing a hosting service which provides you best and quality services.

- Install WordPress in your Hosting Account for Free

Most of the web hosting service providers provide WordPress as it is free to download, install and use. You just need to go to the cPanel of the service provider and install WordPress in your hosting account. This will give you authority and power to manage everything on your website right from here.

- Install the WooCommerce Plugin for Free

After installing the WordPress in your hosting account now you can access the WordPress dashboard directly from the cPanel of your hosting account. WooCommerce plugin has made the life easier for the WordPress developer who wish to make an E-commerce website based on WordPress. WooCommerce has lots of functions that will help you to make online store function rich. To install WooCommerce plugin just visit the WordPress plugin directory and simply download it and install it.

- Do Settings for your Store Locale

The next important thing is to do settings for your Store locale. In this step you need to give all the details about your store location, currency and measuring parameters which you will prefer to use in your E-commerce website.

- Add the Taxes and Payment Methods

You need to understand the tax system of your country and follow it and do the appropriate settings in your E-commerce website. After that comes the most important thing i.e. The payment method. WooCommerce provides you two type of payments i.e PayPal and Stripe. PayPal is the most popular payment platform hence it is highly recommended. However you can use Stripe payment method also which is equally good.

- Add your Products which you want to sell on your E-commerce site

Now in this step you  need to add your products which you want to show to the public at your E-commerce site. Just go to the WooCommerce option in the WordPress dashboard and select “Add Products”. After that fill out the information like product name, description and the product data section which have the options like pricing and taxes, stock level, cost of shipping, product attributes etc. After this you have to add the product category, tags, image etc.

After you have done, just click on the publish button at the bottom of  the page.

Conclusion

We have just discussed the steps which are needed to be followed if you want to get a proper and user friendly WordPress E-commerce online store. In today’s competitive environment having a WooCommerce powered WordPress E-commerce website will definitely give you a competitive advantage in your business and you can easily build and run your E-commerce business like a professional.

Benefits of having a mobile friendly WordPress site

Internet is changing very fast. Internet users access internet in many ways. Tablets, laptops, watches, gaming devices and mobile devices are getting more and more popular as a way to access your website. Therefore having a website that is optimized for mobile devices has become extremely important to smoothly run your business.

Google has already updated its algorithm which boosts mobile search ranking for websites that are mobile friendly. Hence it is a good idea to convert HTML to WordPress to make your website mobile friendly.

Mobile device usage has crossed the figure for desktop usage.

Just look at the recent figures of research reports:-

• 60% of internet users now access internet from mobile devices
• 67% of users use a service or make a purchase from a mobile friendly site.
• 57% of users won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile website.

As the popularity and usage of hand-held devices is increasing day by day, more and more companies are now adopting mobile-friendly design. Also the mobile marketing has also become important today.

• 55% of all searches come from mobile devices.
• 71% of marketers think mobile marketing is core to their business.
• 68% of companies have combined mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy.

Hence you must convert your website to mobile-friendly one. If you want to develop a website then you should go for WordPress website development as it will be a responsive website and will be mobile-optimized as well. Here we will discuss some of the benefits of a mobile friendly website:-

Mobile friendly site takes less time to load

When a user browse a regular desktop website on a mobile then it will load very slowly because it is not optimized for mobile devices. While a mobile optimized site is built with mobile screen dimensions and browsers parameters therefore it will take much lesser time to load as compared to desktop website.

Customers spends more time on site

If a user accesses the desktop site on a mobile device, he may leave the site within few seconds due to bad browsing experience. While if your site is mobile-friendly, user will easily navigate through the content and will use your site for longer duration and therefore higher chances of converting them into real customers.

Excellent user experience

Mobile websites are specially designed to look and perform well on mobile devices hence they deliver best experience to users. Also they have better navigation control and mobile specific features like Click-to-Call. Hence a mobile friendly site makes it easy for customers to contact you.

Improved Search Engine Ranking

Google has updated its algorithm and now gives higher ranking to mobile friendly websites. Hence if your website is not mobile friendly, users will not be able to visit your website on mobile devices easily and more often.

As now you must have understood the important of having mobile friendly website hence you should optimize your WordPress site for mobile devices. You can hire WordPress developer for this job as he can better understand how to mobile optimize your WordPress website. You can also make your website mobile friendly by selecting a WordPress theme, activating it via WordPress dashboard. Then your website will automatically be converted into mobile-friendly. Also you can install certain WordPress plugins to make your WordPress site mobile friendly.

Is it good to outsource the WordPress theme and plugin development?

WordPress is a part of web development sphere since 2003 and within just 14 years, WordPress has been able to take up 35% of the market share. At present, WordPress is powering a numerous number of websites and blogs, which are live on the World Wide Web. The primary reason behind the insane popularity of WordPress is its simple interface, robust backend codes, plugins, and themes which offer a myriad range of customization options to the users.

The WordPress directory contains a good amount of plugins and templates that allow users to modify their site as per their needs & requirements. With WordPress, you would get an endless number of customization options. The WordPress plugin development is currently one of the most popular services in the web development sector. The initial setup of WordPress is also quite simple and you don’t have to do much to install it.

The setup process of WordPress requires no technical expertise; even a person with no knowledge of coding & web development can also install WP on his computer. Once the person is acquainted with its interface, he can quickly tweak any setting or functionality present in its interface. You can get familiar with WordPress within 2-3 days. You can change page displays, add new pages, add/remove content and modify menu structure in few minutes.

All you need to do is to search for WordPress web development services provider who will help you in this whole process. Compared to other content management systems available in the market, WordPress is the best one, to begin with. If everything is so easy in WordPress, then why there’s a need to outsource the WP development projects?

The primary reason to send your WP projects to an offshore company is that you are not able to find a skilled developer at your native place or don’t have prior knowledge to the WordPress, then it becomes essential to facilitate services of specialists who are capable of handling all sorts of WP development projects.
 

WordPress Theme Development:

The Theme determines how the website will appear to the users. WordPress template package consists of controls, design structure and the overall look & feel of the site. At present, there are thousands of free themes available in the WordPress directory which enable users to make their portal accessible visually appealing.

WordPress Plugin Development:

Plugins are short codes which enable users to add an extra set of functionality in their WordPress powered website. With the help of these plugins, you can add features such as security, SEO, mobile compatibility and much more. Just like themes, you can also opt for custom plugin development services offered by any famous WordPress development or customization agency.

Summing Up
Before you roll out your project to any offshore WordPress development agency, make sure your conduct a complete background check. Ensure that you hire someone who not only possesses 4-5 years of industry experience but also has latest tools & techniques which enable them to offer best in class services that too in a short span of time.

A Dummies Guide For PSD To WordPress Conversion

The process of converting PSD files to WordPress codes takes a certain level of skills and vision. Lack of the knowledge or experience may lead to rendering the website futile. For getting the desired results, a developer needs to be well-versed with any of the markup languages such as HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript or PHP.



Turning PSD to WordPress theme requires an experienced developer to follow a tried and tested process with the help of which the conversion becomes easier. As a user who wants to know what the conversion is, here are some key aspects that you should know.

What is a PSD file?

A Photoshop Document is termed as PSD. It is a file format in which the Adobe Photoshop files are saved. PSD files are migrated to the desired format, such as WordPress in this case, with the help of related tools and software. This is the reason why such files are called open files. These are easy to edit and flexible to use with web designing tools.

WordPress At A Glance

WordPress is a popular open source content management system. The platform features an elementary level of management which is ideal for non-programmers and beginners. Within a few mouse clicks, you can create an amazing website without any hassle. The CMS is written in PHP, which makes it highly scalable.

Also read this : How Does WordPress Benefit A Business?


How Is a PSD Based Website Converted To WordPress?

Slicing The PSD files

PSD files are decrypted into pieces. This is because a single image is large in the size and takes a lot of time to load on the devices of the users. This also calls for integrating different behaviors according to the segments. So, slicing the PSD images becomes necessary.

Hand-Coding HTML & CSS Programs

This is the main step involved in the entire PSD to WordPress conversion process. Here, the web pages are created and the sliced images assembled in the same way as in the original PSD designs.

Breaking HTML Files Into WordPress Theme Files

In the third step, the HTML markups are converted as per the WordPress theme structure. WordPress automatically stores a predefined set of files which a developer can use at a later stage to create web pages.

Adding WordPress Functions And Tags

In the next step, the web developers convert the PHP files into the desired WordPress theme files. This includes adding the necessary tags into the files. Often the developers refer to the online WordPress documentation as the reference for information to add the required functionality.

Featuring Custom Functionalities

Till now, the WordPress theme has been configured and ready to go. Here, the developer adds all the necessary functionalities to give a unique look and experience to the website visitors.

Conclusion

With the WordPress CMS being a trending web tool, there are many reliable conversion services which provide WordPress based solutions at cost-effective prices. So, it is always advised to pick an experienced firm who can provide you with the desired results.

What is Landing Page and How to build it for WP website?

It has become crucial to establish a strong web presence in this highly competitive business era. Well, doing so can be a bit challenging and a daunting proposition, especially for the startups which usually are low on budget. Even supposing that you have found some great techniques to create a solid online identity, but you still might lack time to follow each technique. Wouldn't it be better if you just concentrate on a single effective way to attract target audience? You can do so, by creating a gorgeous & functional landing page of your website.

What is a Landing Page and Why You Should get One?

A landing page is, basically a single web page which is built to achieve some particular objective like increasing the click-through rate, notifying users about a future product launch, getting user details etc. You can hire Wordpress developer who will provide you with a functional landing page as per your business requirement. Keep this thing in mind that not all web pages could be turned into landing pages. 

How to create a landing page in WordPress CMS?

1. Using Page Template to manually build a landing page

This is a highly recommended way to create a feature-rich and functional landing page. The main benefit of opting for the manual process is that it allows users to construct a tailored page as per the business needs. Irrespective of the WP template you picked for your landing page, you can create a custom page template and place it inside your selected theme. In other words, you can make a customized landing page using a blank template. For this purpose, you need to have expertise in CSS and designing.

2. Using a pre-made Landing Page Theme

The best way to build a landing page is by deploying a pre-built WP theme which is available on the web. At present, the internet is full of so many WordPress ready-to-use themes, which are specifically designed for creating landing pages. These templates come loaded with features such as effective CTA's, attractive sliders and several other great options that allow users to create beautiful landing pages in no time.

Here are some single page WordPress themes suited for building landing pages :

Appster : A lean Minimal App Landing Page for WordPress

Scalia Multi : Suitable for Concept Business, Shop, One-Page, Blog Theme

3. Use a Plugin

Another obvious way to quickly develop a landing page is to make use of a reliable plugin. You can open up the WordPress Directory and search for a suitable plugin which will help you in this process. If you are looking out for an easy way to build landing pages quickly and not much concerned about optimizing the code, then you can use the plugins for accomplishing your objective. At present, there are tonnes of free plugins available in the official WP Directory, and here are some of them which you can use:

• OptimizePress 2.0
• LeadPages
• Thrive Landing Pages

Summing Up

In this article, you will read about three different steps through which you can make a landing page for your business.

Use plugins to remove the Author & Date info from WP posts

By default, most of the WordPress themes will display a set of metadata on the blog posts published in the past. This usually includes at least the author name and the date on which the post was published. This information is useful for the readers but sometimes there are certain instances where the blogger might want to delete or update this information.

In this article, you would be reading about how Wordpress theme development can sort out this process. There are two different ways which would help you in this situation: Using a dedicated plugin or doing it manually by tweaking by your current theme files. If you don't have much technical know-how, hire a skilled & knowledgeable WordPress developer who will help you accomplish this process.

How to remove Author & Date information using a Plugin

If your theme doesn't have a Divi's functionality, you can take help of the plugin. The following two plugins which will assist you in this task. Both these offer slightly different functionality, so you can choose the one that best suits your needs.

1. WP Meta and Date Remover

This plugin enables you to remove both the author and date information from all the of the posts that too in one go. Once the plugin is installed & activated, all the meta info is automatically removed. It uses two methods to remove the data: hiding it from the front-end by using CSS and then removing it from the backend via PHP.

Key features:

Gets installed quickly and easy to setup.

Hides information from both the front & back ends.

Price: FREE

2. WP Old Post Date Remover

The plugin is specifically designed to remove date information only. This plugin comes in handy if you have lots of evergreen content or a website which is not updated regularly. If you like to keep the date only on the newer posts, you can choose the number of days you want the date to be displayed for.

Key Features:

Easy to install & quick to set up

Comes with an option to display the date on newer posts.

Price: FREE

How to Remove Author and Date Information Manually

1. Add CSS Using Jetpack

If you install Jetpack, then you can gain access to the Custom CSS tab where you can add the relevant code. But first, you need to activate the tab present in the Jetpack “Settings” screen. In your dashboard, select Jetpack, choose “Settings”. This would result in opening a new screen where you have to select “Appearance” tab and the scroll down to the Custom CSS button.

2. Delete Code From Your Theme’s Files

Another option is to delete the lines entirely from your theme files. While making the edits to your theme files, using the child theme and backing up your site prior to making changes. It's also good to ask your theme author which files contain the author and date information.

Summing Up

The above-mentioned points will help you in removing the Author and date information from the existing blog posts.

How Does WordPress Benefit A Business?

With dominating more than half of the digital market share, WordPress is undeniably the leading CMS today. The platform lets you create an attractive and highly functional portal which is loaded with all the modern features. The SEO driven elements of WordPress allow the developers to create websites which ensure higher revenues and organic traffic on the website.

WordPress is a well-known CMS for its performance-oriented features. The platform is continually gaining recognition for business website development. Companies are looking to hire WordPress developer who possess expertise at creating custom WordPress solutions. Developing exclusive themes and  plugins is becoming popular these days, given their efficiency and ease of usage.

Hiring a dedicated team of developers from certified web development firms ensures that a business achieves splendid services. Where a business website needs to come up clean in terms of proficiency and reliability, it is important that only professional should be relied on. Being involved with the WordPress sphere on a daily basis, these developers make use of the latest tools and techniques for rendering an amazing web portal.

The skilled and professional WordPress website development companies let their clients manage their business website with ease. The developed is focused on addressing the target audience in mind, hence ensuring the highest ROI.

These companies deliver services which are in sync with the needs of the customers, while keeping website management simple. The WordPress developers keep themselves updated with the latest trends of the market and deliver websites which are bug-free and performs phenomenally well once they go live.

You should always consider the WordPress development services who have a record of delivering services of greatest quality and have helped businesses increase their productivity. Getting in touch with WordPress professionals will offer the following advantages:

All-In-One Services

Hiring dedicated WordPress services ensures a complete solution. The project includes website development, support, maintenance, responsive, theme development, customization and much more.

Web Customization

Although WordPress provides features to perform some basic customization, a skilled developer is always needed to tame this robust technology. Tweaking the WordPress platform as per the needs of the business requires specialized knowledge of the CMS and it becomes crucial to hire a developer for it. It is the duty of the developer to perform various tasks which includes development, integration, extension and support for the website.

Tested Methodologies

Hiring the professional WordPress services isn't just for creating a website. Once the website has been finally launched, it must be able to index higher in the search engine rankings. These services assist you to make the most out of the CMS by ensuring that the site ranks well on the leading web browsers.

Apart from a higher online visibility, the website is also able to achieve features like W3C compliance, crisp content and SEO optimized keywords for making it easier for the search engine crawlers to index the website.

Can A Custom WordPress Plugin Really Make A Difference?

A custom plugin ensures that a WordPress website is able to achieve great results. An ideal custom made plugin is the one that displays improvement in the website’s performance. These plugins ensure that the marketing campaigns, as well as other processes of boosting sales, are a success. From website management to enhancing the user experience, custom plugins have a lot to offer.

To have an edge over your competition, WordPress plugin development is a powerful tool. These plugins are made to ensure that the website helps the business in achieving its goals. Custom WordPress plugins are highly beneficial in creating opportunities for sales.

Let us take an example of a custom live chat plugin. This plugin allows a business to engage with the customers and answer their queries in real time. The visitors would always to hear it from an actual person over a bot. Adding similar custom plugins as a part of your customer support service is an effective way of creating a strong relationship with your customers.

WordPress is a competitive content management system and its potential can be enhanced with the custom plugins. These plugins are helpful especially for the non technical person. It allows the users to perform even the complex of tasks such as changing the overall appearance, creating email forms etc. in a matter of few clicks. These plugins are used by small to large scale business websites as they enhance the data integration and ensures that the website maintains the integrity of the brand.

Plugins allow you to feature social media buttons on your website. This allows your readers to share the web content over various social media channels. Since the main idea behind running a website is to share the information as well as market the products, these custom plugins are quite functional.

When it comes to online marketing, you cannot ignore the impact of social media in drawing more sales. This is where custom plugins help you to install social sharing buttons and expand your audience.

Custom WordPress plugins have made it possible to install world-class security features in a website. The plugins are developed on the grounds of data collected over the years. Unlike the free plugins, the source code of the plugin is classified, making it impossible for the intruders to hack into the database of the WordPress website. This ensures a business that their data is protected at all times and they deliver a secure web experience.

WordPress features a great number of plugins to boost the SEO of the website. The CMS provides a plethora of plugins for an effective and comprehensive website optimization.

SEO is an essential tool for marketing used by websites today. It is one of the reliable ways of drawing more organic traffic to a website. And thankfully, custom WordPress plugin ensures that this goal is achieved by the business.

Tips To Make The Most Out Of Offshore WP Development

Offshore developers are becoming the choicest options when it comes to premium development at lower costs. As these firms are able to provide competitive results in lesser time & money investment, it creates opportunities for the entrepreneurs and startups to hire them. To survive the brutal race over the web, it is feasible to get assisted by the offshore developers.

In this article, we will discuss how you can lead the offshore WordPress website development company and avail the desired results. Below mentioned are some of the basic yet effective ways to make the most of offshore development services and developers.

Interact In Person

You should always try to make the offshore developers feel that they are active participants with your company. They must feel the urge to work with you. This can be made possible by interacting with them personally about the development project.

If your discussion is restricted to just the sales person of the offshore company, you may miss on the important details of the contract. Directly reaching out the developers will let you convey about the results you are looking for. It will give you a better picture of their plans and development routines.

Pen Down The Parameters

When you are assured that the deal has been finalized and you are ready to sign the contract, it is time to lay the parameters of the desired product. If you want to build a product for a particular occasion, you may not need development of any further versions. All these decisions must be made with the development as well as the sales team together. This will help you to get rid of any discrepancy in the final hour.

Negotiate With Them

Negotiate well with your offshore development company. This will make them realize that they are being paid well. Ask the developers about ways to keeping the costs to the minimum with better and cheap alternates for development. This will ensure that all the investment in terms of time, as well as money, is channelized in the right direction and you are able to get the results within the deadline.

Offer Equity To The Offshore Company  

This is a common trend followed by startups and small businesses to save a certain amount of payment for the in-house developers. When you hire an offshore WordPress website development company on a regular basis make sure that they are adding to the productivity of your company.

In such a case, offering them with equity is a good choice. By giving equity to the offshore developers, you make them realize that they are a part of your business and this makes them more dedicated.

List of best responsive Menu plugins for WP-based sites

The navigation menus serve as an essential component of the successful website. In simple words, they help the visitors to move around. These menus help in improving the “flow” of your portal and encourages them to stay on the site for a longer time period. More time a visitor will spend on your site, the better will be chances of converting it into loyal customers. More than this, the navigation menus are an integral part of your site's overall design- they are displayed on the every unique page.

One thing that you should keep in mind is that a visually impressive navigation menu can make an average website look great. All this can be possible if you choose a reliable developer who offers superb WordPress plugin development services. Building and styling these menus should not be taken lightly from both an aesthetic or a navigational perspective. Fortunately, there are tonnes of menu plugins available in the WordPress directory.

In this article, you will read about five best responsive menu plugins for WordPress (including both free and premium plugins).

1. UberMenu (Paid- $19)

Let's start with the most powerful menu plugin of all- the UberMenu. With over 60,000+ downloads, this plugin is insanely popular among developers and users. Currently, the UberMenu ranks in third place on the leaderboard of best menu plugins. With this piece of script, you can build some of the most beautiful menus for your site. It offers incredibly simple interface which allows users to add an unlimited level of sub-menus for visitors.

2. Max Mega Menu (Freeware)

The “Mega Menu” functionality is quite advanced, meaning you will only find them in the premium plugins. However, if you have the right search skills, then it's possible to find it for free. The Mega Max Menu is an excellent menu plugin available at the official WordPress plugin repository. With the plugin installed and activated, your existing WordPress menus are automatically upgraded to mega menus.

3. Superfly (Paid- $22)

If you prefer vertical menus over the horizontal ones, then Superfly plugin is just made for you. It doubles up the fantastic space saver and allows you to utilize the full dimensions of the screen. This can be achieved by hiding the menu behind the toggle button in the top corner. When clicked, the menu slides into view, leaving visitors free to browse through your portal. Moreover, you can also choose to permanently anchor the menu to the side of the screen.

4. Responsive Menu (Freeware)

If you have zero budget for web development and want to add vertical menus in your portal then Responsive Menu will be best for you. With this script, you can build great-looking vertical menus and the best part is you can download all these free of charge from the official WP plugin directory.

In addition to this, the Responsive Menu also ships out an impressive amount of modifications, which cover all the usual customizations such as fonts, size, alignment, color, images etc. You can also upload custom backgrounds, logos, and icons, letting you add a personal touch to your menus.

5. Hero Menu (Paid- $19)

This is another plugin which will help you build mega menus. The Hero Menu plugin boasts loads of versatility & tonnes of customization options, meaning it allow users to create nearly endless menu designs. Moreover, Hero Menu also includes 250+ free icons, plus you can also customize your menu with over 650 Google fonts and infinite colors. And those who lack in designing skills, they will come across 60 stunning color pre-sets, build by the team of highly-skilled graphic designers.

A Custom WP Theme Accounts For Uniqueness

Every business aims to having a unique and innovative website, a custom WordPress development is the way to go. With the never-ending options for modification, the content management system takes the web development in a different dimension. The main aspect of such wonderful optimization is the custom themes, which makes a website stand out of the crowd. If you are wondering what a custom theme is capable of and why you should consider it, read along and you will know of it.

With the help of WordPress theme customization, templates and widgets are hand picked to create one of a kind and majestic designs. The customization enables the developers to modify fonts, widgets, graphics, logo and much more. There are a lot of alluring advantages that makes theme customization the ultimate choice for business owners to get a scalable website.

Web templates or themes, which the WordPress content management features are categorized into two main classes: free and premium. Both of the themes are available for the general public to download. Then there are the custom themes, which are tailor-made by hiring WordPress developers of lending out the theme development to offshore development firms. These themes are specifically hand-coded to suit the needs of a particular business.

Templates ready for WordPress theme customization are developed either by freelance developers or full time WordPress development agencies around the world. For the customization to be perfect and rewarding, the hired WordPress theme developer should know the CMS from the inside out and the latest technologies used in it like PHP, CSS, and JavaScript. The custom template must be compatible with the plugins and widgets used on the website.

If you are looking for a theme that ensures a unique feel to the visitors of the website and doesn't resemble any other website on the internet, a custom theme is the only option. Custom designs, which speaks for the motive of the business keeps the user engaged and give them a comfortable space. Moreover, an easy to customize theme gives more control over the appearance of the WordPress website. It allows you to focus on adding or removing the features on the website, which is hectic on free or premium themes.

Just like any other web development, there are certain factors that determine the cost to get a custom theme. The main factor is the level of complexity or specifications of the theme. Other factors include the time to development and extra services required prior to development.

These factors measure the cost for the theme development. Although, buying a premium theme may be cheaper than getting a developer create a custom theme. But in the long run, a custom theme proves to be a wise business investment.

Which one is the best: WordPress vs Blogger

WordPress and Blogger are the two major platforms which can support media & text heavy blogs. They both offer a plethora of features and functionalities that sometimes confuse the new bloggers. Although these two offer eye-catching designs, but the best blogging platform for novice bloggers might not be the best one of the advanced bloggers. Another deciding factor you need bear in mind is the purpose of building a blog.

In this article, you read a comparison of WordPress and Blogger services as well as the list of features that are divided into pros and cons.

WordPress

Created just a year before Google acquired Blogger, WordPress has proven to be the real game changer. With its services such as HTML to WordPress conversion, features, tools and functionalities, WP serves as a perfect platform for blogging and web development. Its simplistic style was welcoming for the users who wished their photos & written content get promoted in right manner. The WP is an open-source tech and is based on the codes of PHP & MySQL.

Pros

Being a self-hosted blog, the users get more control over the appearance, functionality and content that they want to publish on the blog. Moreover, the users also get their own domain name that seriously looks more professional than a blogspot.com sub-domain which you can get from Blogger.

Cons

The technical requirements to setup a self-hosted WP blog is a little more advanced than those of the Blogger. Along with that, you need to pay for the hosting but this comes in quite cheap as low as $3 per month.

Blogger

Since tech giant Google owns the Blogger, the company offers several Google's built-in features such as Adsense, Analytics and Adwords, which makes it extremely useful for the novice bloggers. Originally started in the year 1999, Blogger was the first one in the web sphere to launch a user-friendly interface that helped in boosting collection of blogs on the internet. The Blogger didn't change much and they specialize in an interface that is easy to use for bloggers.

Pros

Blogger's first advantage is that its free which is good especially for amateur bloggers who don't expect much traffic at first. It is easy to use and offers a step by step instructions. Blogger definitely delivers a user-friendly interface with widgets which are easy to customise and master. Besides, Blogger also hosts a broad spectrum of free templates so the users can modify the appearance as per the viewer's experience and can build a visual presence that keeps their brand consistent & reliable.

Cons

While Blogger offers many basic features, but for the advanced level bloggers, these functionalities seem to be useless. Several professionals complain about losing their template customization. While the simple interface is attractive to novice players but it is not good for everyone. Several other things such as post editing options and minimal comments options are also missing for this portal.

Conclusion

It completely depends on your requirements based on this you will choose the portal for your blogging and web development needs.

Top 4 WordPress Plugins For Footnotes

Footnotes are defined as attributes or notes which are placed at the bottom of a page. These are used to acknowledge the content on the page. The WordPress footnotes plugins are wonderful tools which can be used by business professionals effectively add footnotes to the WordPress site.

These footnotes can be a plain text or media that appears on the bottom of the WordPress website. All of the plugins used by WordPress developer are easy to customize and are affordable. You can add any kind of content in the footnotes to help the viewers about the information on the page.

1. CM Footnotes

The footnotes plugin by Creative Minds is a highly advanced plugin which can be customized from the scratch. The plugin enables to add any type of desired texts to your website. You can add footnotes, citations, end notes, bibliography and any kind of media. Footnotes can be added to any page or post as well as customize them according to the requirements. The plugin is ideal for developers who want to have unique and customized footnotes on their website.

2. Easy Footnotes

The easy footnotes plugin is one of the most popular plugin among WordPress developer as it is easy to install and work with. Viewers just have to click on a footnote and they can easily view the data. This way, they don’t have to scroll to the bottom of the blog or article. When the user adds a shortcode, a footnote can be placed at the bottom of the page. Every footnote is assigned an individual icon, which can be clicked to automatically get the user on a certain word.

3. Inline Footnotes

The Inline Footnotes plugin is easy to use and perfect for new WordPress users. People can use a shortcode to add relevant footnotes to post or web pages. The Inline Footnotes plugin can be viewed in the text itself, so users need not scroll to the bottom of the page. A number appears along with the word and users can see the information there itself.

4. WP NoteUp
WP NoteUp is a premium plugin which allows the admin to add footnotes while modifying the WordPress pages. The website admin can add notes, images or any kind of media to any page or post. Moreover, one can customize the style and layout of the footnote. The plugin is ideal for people who want to add footnotes when they are editing pages or creating new posts.

Conclusion

Apart from the mentioned above, there are many other footnote plugins available. The key is to find the one that goes well with the website. There are some plugins which have simple shortcodes, and some that enables the viewer to view the content without scrolling down the page.