If you commented over the last week, I’ve just finished replying to all the comments. Apologies for the delay – it’s been a huge week of learning WordPress for me.
I have a test blog up and running and it looks fantastic – no, you’ll have to wait till I launch it ya’all! WordPress is much simpler than I expected and after just one day of playing with it I’m feeling very comfortable – and about ready to flick the switch over to the new blog. I’m going to take some time to play with it. I’d say next Monday will be the moving day.
Let me now admit how terrified I have been about this process. Several times over the last few days the voice in my head has been screaming “RUN AWAY run away! Stay with Blogspot, don’t switch to WordPress. You’re not smart enough. You don’t have the technical knowledge for this”. Well that’s a load of baloney. I am smart enough, I do have the technical knowledge. It turns out all my fears were simply because I did not know how things worked – and now that I do, I can honestly say WordPress is simpler and easier to use than Blogger is.
I did not know how easy it was to modify templates – it is a snap. Just yesterday I was considering paying some big money to get my own unique template built. I completely believe you have to invest in your blog and I’m happy to pay for something that is great and that I was happy with and would never want to change. However I can take a good looking template and switch the colors, change the graphics, just tweak it to suit myself.
I was worried about plugins. I was worried about security. I was worried about a lot of things. Now, I have faith in myself that I can deal with whatever happens. Confidence is a great feeling.
Back in a few hours with a CD review. ;)
I’m glad you are finding WordPress easier. I thought you would like it. Thanks for posting those links that Lucia wrote – I’m sure those will come in handy for many others who are thinking of transferring over.
Glad it’s working for you.
I may just be up to making the switch eventually. And thanks for those links, I’m sure they’ll come in handy!
I’m also thinking of moving to WordPress from Typepad. Is Lucia going to do lessons for this too?
I moved from WordPress to b2evolution after using it for more than 2 years and finding absolutely no improvement from version to version.
As it has become more and more popular, it’s heading the same way as Blogger. In fact, I rate Blogger now higher than WordPress after its new improvements by google.
WordPress might be the most popular blogging platform, but I disagree that it is the best… there are others out there that are better, but just not as well marketed.
Hey, if you ever need some wordpress tips, drop me a mail. I’ve been working with it for years and can hopefully offer you some useful tips.
Teeni – I think I didn’t know how much code I understood until I went to do this. ;)
Kin – the first step to making the switch and I recommend doing it ASAP, is to get your own domain and use it with Blogger. I think I’ve written about that before..
Jen – I’m not sure how different the process is – probably best to send Lucia an email asking if she can go through that too.. ;)
Hari – the major reason I am switching is to be more in control. Blogger is excellent but you can’t use sitemaps, you get stuck with their robots.txt, and you can’t set timed posts. I write my thoughts of the day a week or two in advance and with WP I can set it so they post automatically at 12pm my time. Maybe in a couple of years I’ll be switching to b2evolution myself, if I find the same thing you did. ;)
Jon – Thanks! I may just do that.. :)
Thanks for the comments all!
Snoskred
http://www.snoskred.org
Yes, self-hosting WP blogs are definitely more powerful than Blogger.
But a lot of the more powerful features of WP are hidden in the PHP code for templates, so really, when you use WP, a lot of your user experience depends on which template/theme you use.