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Why did I use Blogger?

In December 2007, I decided it was high time to switch from Blogger to Wordpress. Was it because of the long-time debate on which platform was better? No. Wordpress was winning comfortably anyway. Undeniably, Wordpress has many built-in features that are not available within Blogger. However, Blogger continues to expand its widget base, making it quite easy for you to add various features, and if you have a fetish for html or learning it, you could get quite a kick out of getting various, sleeker (almost Wordpress-type) themes, and inserting various codes throughout your template to get some great functionality and SEO optimization for your blog. However, you’ve got to go through lots of work to accomplish this, when in Wordpress all you need to do is login using your API key and upload plugins to your database, activate them, and they do all the work for you.     

I was pretty much okay with Blogger since I was getting decent traffic, and never experienced any catastrophes with it. Besides I was quite busy in late 2007 with my offline life, and was not paying my blog much attention. What got me to change, however, was the fact that Google (who owns Blogger) had decided to block non-Blogger users from having their link shown in the comments section. To me, this was way too dictatorial, monopolistic, and far removed from one of blogging’s core philosophies – sharing link love. Other bloggers have also made the move from Blogger to Wordpress, as a result of this. Google has since reversed their move, and now anyone from any platform can have their links shown in the comments section. But I’m pretty sure that all of those who moved their blogs will not be returning, unless they still have other blogs with Blogger.  

 

Nevertheless, Blogger remains a good place for beginners to start, especially for those who are far from tech savvy. Some bloggers advocate going self-hosted from the start, but to me, it’s very difficult for a novice to start from the advanced level, especially if they’re not tech-savvy or don’t have anyone to help them. So, they may be using a service that offers more, but they can’t make use of the advantage because they’re simply not competent enough to handle the self-hosting process and responsibility for upgrades, uploads, and theme tweaking etc. In the end, they’ll end up frustrated with the technology, demotivated because they feel they can’t handle it, and distracted from writing – and blogs do need content! Darren Rowse of ProBlogger gives some great advice about choosing a blog platform. I always say it’s your preference. Mess around with the platforms, and decide which one suits you best.  

 

Regardless of where you start, I’d recommend that you get your own domain name to map your blogspot.com/ wordpress.com/ typepad.com address to. This is really quite easy, as all you need to do is purchase the name alone, not hosting. Your blog host will handle the mapping you’re your blogspot.com/ wordpress.com/ typepad.com address to your domain for you. Then, when you’re better able to handle yourself, you can move onto self-hosting. You’ll be able to maintain your ranking, regardless of which platform you started on, since the search engines will be following your constant domain name.   

 

Back to my move: Like I said, in late December 2007, I decided to make the switch from Blogger to Wordpress. I’d been toying with the idea before, as was Mani, a fellow Trini blogger, and when I mentioned it to him again, we decided that we’d try to make the move together; he ended up moving faster than I. Now, a word to the wise. When you embark on this venture – switching from Blogger to Wordpress – please ensure that you have someone who has technical expertise to assist you. While it may seem like a pretty simple process, and it is for the technically able, you really have to have a flair for this sort of bonafide technical work, especially if you want to tweak themes etc, and make sure that you’ve set up hosting and databases correctly on your domain name.     

Helpful articles on how to move from Blogger to Wordpress: There are numerous articles out there to help you make the switch, and I recommend that you read these so that you can also inform whoever may be helping you of some of the tasks that they need to do, for example maintaining permalinks, ensuring that search engines don’t punish you for duplicate content, and reciprocating blogger and designer link love.  A simple search in Google, using the search words “move from Blogger to Wordpress” will bring up relevant articles. Lately, I’ve become quite obsessive about reading every single piece of material I can about blogging and social media. As I told fellow Blogger Geoffrey Philp, the Internet has now become my library. On a daily basis, I’ll visit sites like Pro Blogger, David Airey and Blog Herald, to name a few. I even print their articles, reading them at late hours of the night in bed. These have reinforced lessons already learned, and provided me with additional information, as I attempt to take my blog to the next level.

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