Friday, May 13, 2016

Blogger or Wordpress

Greetings to The Fortyfive Nation (all eight of you, anyway)!  I have a global question that I would like to throw out there and see what the feedback is.

Do I stay with Blogger?  Or do I go to Wordpress?

I have been with Blogger since I started blogging in 2005.  Overall the interface is okay and I have had very little to complaint about - except the fact that Blogger is owned by Google, which I sort of do have problems with.

If you have ever had or held a blog, you know the rather daunting task when you are considering creating a new one - let alone updating and migrating the one that you have maintained for any number of years.  It is a pain, I imagine - just updating the links to other people's sites alone is going to be a pain.

But still, I am at the point where I wonder if it is the right thing to do.  Certainly my friend Otis has said his wife's new blog (Saturated In Seattle) has gotten a great deal more traffic since she moved over there.

Thoughts?  Opinions?  Experiences?

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:33 AM

    You don't strike me as a person worried about traffic as much as being concerned more about a consistent small group of loyal readers. WordPress always seemed complicated to me although others seemed happy with it.

    WordPress may not be owned by Google, but don't fool yourself and think that they are much different.

    You've already "committed" to blogger along time ago. Don't fix what "ain't" broken.

    You've always mentioned the hassle in changing over...... aren't you more about a simplistic way of life?

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    1. Fair enough, and you are right to as the question.

      I should not be interested in traffic per se as I write mostly as an exercise for myself. The sirens of popularity are always calling out though, wondering "What if?". I need to firmly escort them off the premises.

      And fair enough about Wordpress and Google. I suppose it would be different if Blogger had actively tried to start shutting things down (which, to my knowledge, it has not).

      The interface is certainly friendly enough (unlike Weebly, which is incredibly non-intuitive and has no export blog function), so much so that even I can use it.

      Simplicity is what I am trying to get to, that is certainly true enough. Thanks for calling me back to myself.

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  2. I don't like wordpress, it looks very clinical, blogger is a lot more comfy and personal like opening a book rather than a wordpress document, I follow so few wordpress blogs as they just don't have that welcoming feel to them.

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    1. Thanks Dawn. I do not really follow a lot of WordPress blogs in general, but I am not really sure why that is. Maybe just not a conscious decision.

      Thank you for your input!

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  3. Anonymous8:55 AM

    As one who moved from Blogger to WordPress, I will say it was a *daunting* task!

    WordPress initially is more complicated than Blogger. To be fair, I didn't actually watch the tutorials they provide. I just fumbled around with it for a couple hours and got it.

    I moved to WordPress for a couple of reasons. First, the support is unmatched. Not only do I have someone at my fingertips immediately to help me solve a problem, but they also offer classes on writing--for free. They're not all awesome, but I have gained tidbits here and there.

    I like the interaction with other bloggers and the feedback they provide about my blog. Although they are not my target audience, perspective still counts for something.

    It is true my traffic has picked up significantly. I think its because WordPress has a "Reader" and blogs are shared on that for other WordPress readers to find, in addition to the share buttons that connect to all your social media. If you ever see a post my FB page, I did not manually post it, WordPress did that for me. I opted for this when I created my profile. The "tags" bring people to the blog as well. In my profile, I created lists tags I would be interested to read. So, if one of my tags is "Christianity", my "Reader" suggestions will be based on that tag. I choose if I want to read it. It's a neat extra---time consuming because there are a lot of amazing writers in our world!

    I also switched because I liked their themes. There are hundreds!!! I know in the grand scheme of writing, our page design is not the main point, but athletics do count for something. I had a LOT to choose from and if I had been techy, I could have created my own.

    I will say, the connections I have made with other WordPress bloggers there have greatly surpassed any connections I had on Blogger. There seems to be this sense of community, rather than flying solo. People can "Like" a post, "follow", and/or comment on a post.

    I can only attribute the increased traffic to being in a different community---a community that seems to want to encourage writers. I am not writing all that differently from when I was using blogger.

    I sound completely biased. I guess I am, but I will say it was a real struggle---HUGE at the beginning. I only moved some of my posts over---the ones from this year---because it was so time consuming. I know there is a way to sync everything from one to another, but I feared losing everything, so I just left it.

    I'm not sure any of this made sense or if it helps you at all, but there are my thoughts nonetheless!

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    1. Thanks. I do appreciate it a great deal. It is very helpful to evaluate it. The migration worries me a bit though.

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  4. I'm with Anonymous, above. If it ain't broke ...

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    1. True, Reverend Paul. Maybe a project if I have a great deal of time and nothing to do - which, as this will never be true, will never happen...

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Comments are welcome (and necessary, for good conversation). If you could take the time to be kind and not practice profanity, it would be appreciated. Thanks for posting!