It has been a month and a half since I made the switch from Blogger to WordPress, and I continue to get questions about how I have enjoyed the switch. I wanted to give myself some time to get used to the ins and outs of WordPress before giving my opinions on the differences between the two. The first few weeks I had a little bit of culture shock as I acclimated to the new territory here at WordPress, but I’m happy to say that I am starting to feel quite at home here.
Things I love about WordPress:
• Plugins: When I was contemplating making the switch from Blogger to WordPress, I did some research. I read about other people’s experiences making the change, and over and over again, I heard about the plugins. I wasn’t quite sure what the big deal was. And then I switched to WP and experienced plugins myself. If any of you have ever used Photoshop, a plugin is to a blog what an action is to Photoshop. It’s hard to describe it’s usefulness to someone who hasn’t experienced it themselves. Plugins not only have the ability to add cool gadgets and things to your blog, but they can add useful features, like statistics, faster page loads, and SEO. All of this is accessible through the WordPress Dashboard.
I was happy to find out that the “follow feature” (Google Friends Connect) is available for WordPress as well. I easily added it as a widget to my sidebar. (hint, hint)
• The Dashboard: The WordPress dashboard is a beautiful thing. There are more options available within the dashboard here than there were in Blogger, and I simply like having more options. It’s also organized logically. It just makes sense to me.
Here’s what my dashboard looks like when I am writing a new post:
• Posting: As you can see in the previous picture of me writing this very post, the WordPress Add New Post has a boatload of options right at your fingertips. I love the fact that I can customize my workspace. I can make the area where I’m typing my post as big as I want (I just drag the corner down until I like the size), and I can move the other option boxes around (see publish, post tags, and categories to the right) so that the features I use most are accessible to me. Another one of my favorite features in WordPress is the ability to publish immediately. In Blogger, when I would start a new post, Blogger would remember the date and time that the post was started. If I took two days to finish a post and forgot to change the post time, the post would publish as of two days previous. When blog readers are looking for the most recently updated posts to read, having an older date on a post is not a good thing. The system here seems more logical and writer-friendly.
• The Look: I admit it. I like the way WordPress blogs look. There are hundreds of Blogger blogs that I love the look of, but it seems that WordPress blogs, on an average, just look better to me. Personal preference. I love WordPress themes (especially The Thesis Theme), and although I love themes that cost lots of money MORE, I do enjoy my free theme as well.
• The Peace-of-Mind: In the past, I watched friends with blogs set up on another free platform wake up to find their content gone. Just GONE. While I don’t think Blogger is going anywhere, and it is certainly a safe platform to use, it did worry me that my content was not really my own. I like the comfort of having my own little spot on the web that is mine.
Things not to love about WordPress:
• I miss my Blogger blogroll. I ended up making a new Blogger blog just to have a blogroll. It’s a good compromise, but I miss having the updates right in front of me. I’m blaming my recent deplorable blog-reading habits on the blogroll situation.
• WordPress is not as easy to pick up. I knew Blogger inside out, and I could figure out the html coding to tweak things I didn’t like or needed to change. Apparently, WordPress is going to take a little more brain power. It’s coming….slowly. Thank goodness for my wonderful (and patient) WordPress mentor, Paulo (WebHostMatters on twitter) who set me up and continues to be available to help me when I can’t figure something out on my own. He’s been a God-send.
• The switch to WordPress caused me to lose over 1000 feedburner subscribers. It’s heartbreaking, but I’ve gotten over it. It doesn’t happen to everyone, but it happens often enough to make a person nervous. It’s going to take some effort to get my subscribers (and page rank) back up. The fact is, I made the decision to go ahead and make the change to WordPress after running into some snags after buying my own domain at foodfunfamily.com. I went from a page rank of 4 to zero, and then back up to a 2 after a month. I figured it would be better to get the growing pains over with at once rather than wait until I’d fixed all of the problems from the first switch.
• It’s not free. Luckily, I was able to pay for 2 years of hosting up front and Paulo helped me transition my blog over for free, so I am not feeling a constant tug at my wallet. However, there’s something about knowing that if I want to keep this blog up, I am going to have to maintain a fee every once in a while. Thank goodness it is not that expensive.
Was it necessary to make the switch? No. Am I happy that I made the switch? Yes.
Where is your blog, and what do you love about your platform?
© 2010 – 2012, Food Fun Family. All rights reserved.
thanks for share!
This article came up on google because I ws searching for a way to post a blog roll on my wordpress blg too. I knot this is an old post, but did you ever find an answer or plugin for a blogroll like blogger? I want to reciprocate the link with my other blog friends!
Hi Lolli. I think the smackdown between blogging platforms will always be. When I first started blogging, not long ago (approx. 6-8 months), I started out with WordPress. In addition to the struggle of just finding your voice and your niche in the blogosphere, I had a horrible time actually keeping my blog up and running. I kept on getting these strange virus errors every time I’d log into my account to post. I even changed themes, but had no results. I asked for assistance, but nobody could understand why this was happening? Fed up with the whole bit, I decided to use Blogger, for the simple fact of Google product integrations. And since, then I’ve also had success with my personal blog on TypePad. I enjoy the simplicity of both platforms compared to Typepad, but, I do miss the variety of beautiful, styled themes of WordPress. Blogging is like life. Full of trade-offs. ;]
.-= AndreaVLewis´s last blog ..Want to become a #Brazen Careerist? #FF Follow Friday =-.
There are numerous plugins that will allow you to ‘follow’ someone’s WP blog, even ones that will make it easy to Tweet about individual posts.
As for the Blogroll, all you need to do is add the Links to one of the sidebars, or add the Friendconnect, Facebook, MyBlogLog or other plugin to get those to show too.
.-= Mark MKWeb Hultgren´s last blog ..List Building Report =-.
Great Post and explanations!
I started out with Blogger, WordPress.org (Not self-hosted) and as I gathered more knowledge about WordPress I came to realize that it has to be the easiest system there is to customize and automate.
That was back in 2005 and since then I have built close to 250 domains running WordPress. Yes, I do have a couple that use Joomla and even some Perl and PHP sites for running memberships and affiliate programs.
Since then, I have gathered almost everything I can find on customizing WP and even tried my hand at building some themes and plugins.
With the huge selection of plugins that are available (both FREE and Paid) you can turn WP into almost any type of website that you want.
I have seen memberships, ecommerce, video sites like You-Tube, and complete Content Management Systems (CMS) and more all running on WP.
Once you get the hang of PHP, it is fairly easy to tweak your site to do pretty much just what you want. Here is a site that I just modified this morning running WordPress and some customized plugins – https://2getsales.com
Let me know what you think of the layout and content?
.-= Mark MKWeb Hultgren´s last blog ..List Building Report =-.
i also think that wordpress blogs look better. something about the grass being greener maybe since i’m on blogger. i’ve been considering making the move but really don’t even know where to begin.
.-= melissa stover´s last blog ..Zooming =-.
Thanks for sharing your insight! I am on Blogger, but I like the look of WordPress blogs. I just don’t know if I am ready to make the jump over. I have edited my blog to keep a clean design because I think less is more. Baby steps :-)
.-= Lisa @ This Mommy Works´s last blog ..Cutie Pa Tutus: A review of the cutest tutu you’ve ever seen! =-.
I have been on wordpress for about seven months and really love it. Although I lost subscribers I have gained them back slowly but surely and my stats improved as well. I still have to rely on my WP guru, Erica, for anything difficult though.
.-= Melissa Multitasking Mama´s last blog ..Friendships and Relationships =-.
Hey, Safire! Hope all is quiet at your house now. :) Would you respond back to me if you get this message? I just switched my commenting system (yes, again) and I am trying to make sure people are getting my responses.
See you in the morning!
I was way impressed when you showed it to me the other day. I’m going to make the switch one day!
PS-Well, your post made me think that I could help. It was one of the first
that actually explained the good and the bad about WP. And didn’t just say
that you liked the plugins (which means nothing to me). Right now, I am
back to undecided.
This was great, very informative. I just can’t decide what to do. I was all set on staying with Blogger after talking to someone and then I read your post and now I think that I want to go to WordPress. I just don’t know. My blog on Blogger was just handed to me and I ran with it, I wish that someone would just decide that I am going to switch and hand me the reigns. *sigh*
Excellent post! I feel the exact same way. I didn't know you could make the screen bigger by dragging though. I also lost my page rank and a cool 1000 followers. Oh well, water under the bridge. :) Now I have a handy dandy tabber pager thingy. :)
I love the ability to make the post box bigger. That was one thing that always drove me crazy in blogger.
PS–Will you let me know if you get this reply? I just changed back to WP comments, and was SOOO happy to see my comments from Disqus changed over with it. I installed the Thread Comment plugin you recommended, and I want to make sure it’s working!
Thanks!!
No problem! I got my hosting through Paulo's site (see the post for
the link) and I went with Just Host. It was just over $50 per year.
I've been thinking about making the switch for a while now……my biggest question at this point is who to pick for hosting? Would you be willing to say who you are using? I have looked at a bunch of different hosting services, but I'm just not sure what features are more important than others.
I love that I switched to WP! I loved it so much that I do it now for other people! Great way to describe the plugins.
I too miss my Blogroll and, like you, I truly read less of the blogs I loved before WP because of it. It's true. I have to remember to open my goodle reader. Horrible.
Thanks! I think that decision is really based on preference and where
you want to go with your blog. No, it's not necessary, but YES, it
would be easier to do before you had spent the time to build up your
blog.
What to do what to do is the question. LOL I really like the look of WordPress but it is a little bit more difficult to master coding wise. I can code a Blogger blog like no one's business and I do it for my customers but I found more and more people are going to WordPress for the stability of it. Thank you so much for your post.
I looked into that plugin as well (I even downloaded it), but the
problem was having to enter all of the blog addresses. I ended up
saying forget it! :)
TERRIFIC post! You don't need to change? i mean I see why one would need to but you actually dont have to? I've only been blogging since for a little while so i dont think im there yet. But someone told me to change NOW before you get a whole bunch of readers…
i don't know. I barely get the HTML stuff now. If I change will it be too hard to learn?
HMM. GREAT post though! Very informative!
I love wordpress to! I admit I haven't used blogger as much. I do have blogs there but I haven't done much with them, I found it to cumbersome to use. I had a look at some blog roll plugins. I think WP Social Blogroll would be what your looking for. This is a link to the plug in on WP https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feed-readin…
It displays the last post on each blog the same way as blogger does. :-)
I love WordPress and all the options I have. WordPress for Dummies is a wonderful guide and even the most technology challenged person will be able to figure out most problems with this book. I have to agree that Hostgator.com has been awesome to deal with.
I know–I am planning on taking Disqus down tomorrow when my big
giveaway is over. It's been finicky this last week. :)
PS My first comment went through as the wordpress comment form loaded, and then the disqus form loaded…just something else you might want to look into.
I still am sticking with blogger. It is easy to use for my busy brain and it's free. Glad you are happy with your switch.
I was happy to find out that you can add the follow/friends connect
feature to WP blogs, too. In fact, I think I'll add that mention to
the post!
I think your cons are what's really keeping me from switching. Also, I like the “follow” feature that blogger allows and the google friend connect. So, for now, I'm staying with blogger :)
Thank you for this! It's the first post I've read about wordpress vs blogger. I'm thinking of making the switch myself. This was helpful!
Thanks for the info. Web Host Gator seems really awesome!
Also, FYI, I use firefox and your “blogroll” link at the top is being covered by the posts. Maybe it’s my resolution.
I’m getting more and more convinced to switch…and the fact that there is a good free template helps a lot!
This post is very timely for me as I am contemplating making the switch. However, I don’t think I’m that technologically savvy to do so. Am skeered!