Last month, I switched from Blogger to WordPress. At the time, I was just doing what my other, better, blogger friends had done. Lemming it up, you know. I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am that I went off that cliff though, it’s been great. WordPress is far superior to Blogger, and here’s why:
Search Engine Optimization
I know nothing about SEO. I just know that Google seems to like WordPress better than Blogger. My search “hits” are way more targeted to the demographic I want. On blogger, most of the hits to my search string were about ninjas and cats. I kid you not. Now I’m getting hits targeted towards autism, Down syndrome, and the other things that make up the bulk of my blog. This is huge. A person coming here for a picture of a ninja cat comes once and then never returns. A person coming here to learn about special needs parents will likely stay longer, subscribe, and come back.
The Plugins
The plugins are amazing. I used to waste SO MUCH TIME fidgeting with the look of my blog, the widgets, etc, and if you know anything about html- one tiny mistake will wreck EVERYTHING. Unless you want to mess with HTML, you’re stuck with a lame handful of widgets on Blogger, some of which don’t work at all (like when I couldn’t get my “followers” tab back up). There are plugins for email subscriptions, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc. In fact, there are over 10,000 of them for WordPress, and they’re easy to install. We are setting up a WordPress blog for Lance and he wants to add a forum. You know what? There’s a plugin for that.
The Themes
The themes are great. You simply load them up, add your widgets and your set. You can have a professional looking blog in no time. Jellyfish Web, the people I used to transfer over hooked me up with Headway Theme, that I absolutely love. It’s fully customizable, and makes my blog look JUST the way I it want to.
Issues With Blogger
Blogger became more and more glitchy for me over time. Feedburner lost ALL of my subscribers, and after I took down my “followers” tab, I could never put it back up. It was frustrating beyond belief. The other problem with blogger is that they own your site. At any time, they could take it down, lock you out, etc. and you have NO recourse. That never happened to me, but I had heard of people losing their ENTIRE blog content out of nowhere and never getting it back. When you go to self hosted, you own everything on your blog.
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If you’re serious about blogging, you should consider making the switch. I’ve known people who moved themselves over. Some did it without problems, some had huge issues and almost burned down their blogs. I’d like to think I’m pretty good with this sort of thing, but losing any of my content scared me to death. So I went with Jellyfish Web Services and was totally happy with them. They transferred me over a weekend (I don’t usually post on weekends) and had everything ready to go bright and early Monday morning.
Cost:
First off, you have to own your domain. Mine was purchased through blogger, who went through Godaddy.com. If you’re anti-nerds kissing hoes, you can get your domain through any other party. I would really super suggest doing it all through one company. I really like Bluehost, and it’s who we did ALL of Lance’s stuff through. Your domain, including as many sub-domains you want is $2.99 a month. Unless you have a server at your house to host your own blog, you’ll need them to host for you. This runs about $5 a month, depending on which package you get. This all will set you up with emails at your domain, make it so you own your own content, etc. If you go through Jellyfish Web, they’ll walk you through all of these steps.
Jellyfish Web’s service to transfer you and get you set up depends on what package you are looking for. They’re listed here: Jelly Fish Web Pricing PackagesI went with the intermediate package because I wanted it all set up for SEO and all of the other stuff I don’t understand. That package is $149. That one also comes with Headway, which saves you $89, and is TOTALLY worth it.
I was pretty sure I could transfer myself, but not having to worry about losing stuff, getting things put where I want them, plus the additional support was totally worth the money to me. I’ve spent too much time on my blog to lose it because I’m too adhd to fully go through all of the necessary steps to do things right. The support through Jellyfish Web was awesome, they even went back and fixed crap that I broke. Plus, they installed a super great spam filter. This far surpasses any spam filter on blogger. EVER. I couldn’t allow basic comments on my other blog because I’d get SO MUCH SPAM. I get NONE now.
So there you have it. The cost for me right now is about $8 a month (bluehost has you pay in advance) and the startup to get moved over. So it’s spendy to get started, but totally TOTALLY worth it if you plan on doing this for reals.
(I was not paid by WordPress or Jellyfish Web for the content of this article. I’ve just been asked a lot why I made the move)
HEY HEY HEY!! I just spoke to Jellyfish Web Services and guess what! They’re offering a discount to my readers:
If you’re a Mostly True Stuff reader we’d love to give you a discount due to your sheer awesomeness by associating with Lexi. If you contact us and order a package by February 28th and mention the promo code SWEATPANTS, you can get 20% off any of our packages. We want to make sure you are comfortable with WordPress so not only do we have a video tutorial series to help you get started, we offer help and troubleshooting with our Intermediate and Advanced packages
If you haven’t already, please SUBSCRIBE to my blog by putting your email in the fancy widget to the side. I lost about 900 subscriptions because of blogger, and I WANT YOU BACK. You’re so pretty.
Lexi Mag 
Soooooooo…. costs? Spill it.
The whole thought scares the heck out of me…and I’m not even sure why! I guess because I have a tiny blog that no one even reads I have just stuck with Blogger. How much is it to self host? How much does it cost to move it over? What if it all disappears or I switch over and have no clue how to make any of it work?! Eeek!
Same here, exaaactly! Please tell us how to and how much!
FINE. I’ll add costs into the post.
WordPress is delightful!!
Could you do that in more of a spreadsheet format? I just ate lunch and I’m really sleepy.
I find it ironic at best and hard to believe at worst that Google owns Blogger but gives WordPress SEO preference.
Part of the difference is because you can set up your own URLs for your posts. An other thing, I think, is the SEO plugins they use. Jessica or Amanda can tell you why better. I just know that instead of getting a lot of random traffic that does me NO good (for reals, I was getting 50-100 hits A DAY for “ninja cats” I wouldn’t get that in all of the searches for Down syndrome and autism that brought people to my blog. I’m getting traffic more specific to my niche. People who will come back. That is really REALLY nice.
I’ve considered moving for a really long time…I just haven’t been able to figure out a reason good enough to move me. Sprocket was WP, and Childswork is WP…so I’m at least familiar with the dashboard set up, which I like, but widgets and stuff (which I wasn’t really allowed to monkey with) seemed really HARD to install. I don’t know.
Widgets are super easy to install. Very simple. The only difficult thing is making sure you know enough html that you can add outside stuff like badges and buttons. The most difficult thing about WordPress is making sure everything you use is compatible since it isn’t all from the same place. So you do have to be careful about what you install and finding a theme that fits your needs.
Google has a history of not caring much about their content that doesn’t make them tons of money. Most people on Blogger don’t pay and don’t have ads. So their support isn’t stellar, kinda like the way they’ve stopped helping Feedburner, a huge service that they just don’t care about. Ah, Google.
Dumb question time… do you want more followers to make your blog more attractive for advertising?? I only ask because I am suppose to be managing mu hubby’s office blog/site, and I hate it. I blog for fun and to sort of keep a family history that I can print yearly. So trying to get followers for his office is killing me 😉 and… it is on WordPress and for the life of me I can’t get the links to work properly. Ugh. Not impressed so far 🙂
It does make you look more attractive to advertising if you have a lot of followers, but mostly, it allows people to keep coming back to your site when you post. So if I write something, people who subscribe will get an email notification. Facebook is okay, too, for that sort of thing, but only about a quarter of the people who “like” your page see your posts unless you pay to promote them. If I knew the magic formula for getting followers, I’d let you know. But I do not.
Kristin, if you have a question about setting up links, feel free to ask it on the Jellyfish facebook page and we’ll see if we can answer it for you. WordPress has a learning curve, but it really does get easier.
http://facebook.com/jellyfishweb
I LOVE wordpress and made this change myself a few years ago. I am not html literate AT ALL and wp is so easy for me! At the time I used a different service (Jellyfish didn’t exist yet) but I’m happy to report they are setting up my brand new site geared towards special needs families in orange county, CA. WoooHoooo!
All I’ve got is … YAY! It’s about damn time! WooT!
I just contacted them about making the move. My biggest concern is I absolutely love my background and layout and don’t want to lose it!! When they say “similar”….how similar can they make it??
I switched, too, and thanks to you, I also hired Jellyfish Web to do the move for me. I’m still trying to customize my blog the way I want it, but I’m happy with the move, so thanks 🙂
That’s pretty awesome places give discounts just for knowing you. Will you work on Q’doba please?
I switched from Blogger to WordPress with cms2cms tool a few months ago http://www.cms2cms.com/blog/import-blogger-into-wordpress-unbeaten-solution/ . I am so satisfied with the result. I’m getting lot of traffic, started to earn money running a blog…so i honestly recommend you wordpress! i really happy with the transfer!
Hi Lexi–Would you please e-mail me as soon as you can? We have an unusual problem with my daughter and wordpress, I’d actually call it an emergency given her situation. (she’s bi-polar) I’ll explain when you contact me. I don’t know anything about this blogging stuff but I’m real good at e-mail. Thanks so much, Lisa Thompson in Mesa, AZ.
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