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| Google Purchased Blogger In 2003 |
I was originally going to write this article on why web designers and developers should consider using Blogger to create websites but kept returning to the fact it is so useful as a Content Management System that I decided to focus on that as the main point of the article instead.
Any web designer or developer who regularly deals with clients will tell you that working and designing with most (if not all) C.M.S. (Content Management System) systems is awkward, annoying and just not worth the hassle a lot of the time. Yet clients will often ask to be able to update the website themselves at a later date so, unless they take a course in web design, a C.M.S. is needed. So we, as web designers, find ourselves between a rock and a hard place!
I feel Blogger can be the solution to this issue. And here are the 10 reasons why...
FREE TO USE:
It's free, and is therefore cheaper than every Content Management System on the Market.
FREE HOSTING INCLUDED:
RUN BY GOOGLE:
DOMAIN NAME INTEGRATION:
EASY TO LEARN AND USE:
TEMPLATES:
EASY CODING:
LOADS OF WIDGETS:
RESOURCES:
EASY FOR THE CLIENT:
FREE HOSTING INCLUDED:
This alone will save you or your client approx €50 a year.
RUN BY GOOGLE:
It is part of the Google family so you are guaranteed a quality and reliable service as well as the knowledge that it should index very well - and they do! So Search Engine Optimization ( S.E.O.) is easier too.
DOMAIN NAME INTEGRATION:
You can purchase a domain name through Blogger which the old .blogspot address will redirect to and which search engines will use to index the site, meaning it appears as a fully fledged professional website and not a run of the mill Blog.
EASY TO LEARN AND USE:
It's easy to learn and easy to use. It took me about 30 mins to get up to speed with all the features of Blogger (there are many); I could not say the same for any other C.M.S. I have used.
TEMPLATES:
There are a wide selection of templates built in to help get you started as well as thousands available for free online from very talented and generous web designers.
EASY CODING:
But if you don't like templates you can still edit the site H.T.M.L. and C.S.S. code directly to create a unique and original design or just to tweak an existing template. You don't have to work with other types of code such as .xml or .aspx like with other Content Management Systems.
LOADS OF WIDGETS:
There are a wide selection of widgets like site search, follow by e-mail and Ad-sense that can simply be dragged and dropped into the site layout and still be customized to suit the sites colour scheme or style.
RESOURCES:
There are lots of websites (too numerous to list) and a very useful help section that offer advice and tips on how to get the most out of the Blogger system especially for unique customization.
EASY FOR THE CLIENT:
Most Importantly it will be easy for the client to update the pages after you have designed them as they offer a 'compose' method as well as a 'html' method for editing. The 'compose' method is very similar to editing a word document as well as allowing the insertion of videos, images and links with relative ease. So if the client has basic computer skills then they should be fine.