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It’s two years since I moved from Blogger to WordPress and my views have changed from what I first wrote about the experience.
Recap
I used Blogger for 13 years and with an aftermarket template I had a WordPress look with home page slider images and proper menus but there remained a few things that frustrated me.
I setup WordPress on Amazon (AWS) and found using Linux tedious and having no support from AWS difficult so I switched to a managed install on Namecheap. (no affiliation)
What changed
Initially it was a lot to learn but that was on AWS, it’s much less with a managed install, they do the setup and manage the server for you, all you need do is configure your blog. Regarding that if you buy a nice theme much of the setup is again done for you and with support from the theme designer things are running quickly.
So while I previously posted it was difficult much of that was choosing AWS and relying on Google for how to do things which directed me to useless WordPress ‘guides’ actually just selling hosting that seemingly fill every page of Google search results.
The biggest problem I reported previously was text formatting issues when transferring the blog however I was using a 3rd party editor, other people don’t report that issue, if you posted using the inbuilt editor you probably will not have same problem.
Without that and minus the time I was on AWS the rest of the move was not so difficult. There is a lot of new things compared to Blogger but you don’t need to learn all right away or perfect your blogs design before going live. I spent weeks trying to get it just right only to change most of it later again anyway.
Hosting cost was another factor I pondered but now realize limiting my blogging over a few dollars a month was penny pinching. It’s a habit of mine, I did the same delaying to register a domain and some cyber squatter grabbed the .com hence I use .net and .blog – however now days we mostly arrive at sites via search so the extension is not as important.
The blogging is better
The unexpected discovery has been how much I enjoy tweaking the design and features of the blog. With Blogger you are mostly hands off and posting in a set format but with WordPress everything can be customized.
With that I’ve been able to offer better access. 60% of visitors are now on phones so improving the mobile experience was important. Additionally I have created various ways to access my archive of ride reports and reviews, a weak point for sites using Blogger.
Primarily my blog is a travel diary with no commercial aspirations and Blogger did that well enough but the professional display from WordPress is enjoyable. Nobody might be interested in my old rides still it pleases me to have everything displayed properly instead of downsized older photos on Blogger.
WordPress is not maintenance free unlike Blogger which is still a great platform. Much better than only posting your ride to Facebook. Social media doesn’t let you be creative or provide a diary and high quality photo album. I once wrote how the travel I did before my blog is lost. Things posted to social media are also soon lost and with the algorithms may not even be seen by who you expect.
Performance wise my blog saw an sharp increase in visitors and readership expanded to new countries the first year after moving to WordPress. It has good SEO and I think your site has a far better chance on WordPress than Blogger – but content is king.
More important is just enjoying your blogging. If chasing numbers then best join everyone spamming video to YouTube. I’ll be staying here. I prefer to try do something semi intelligent than produce drivel for simple minds.
With travel still a long way off if you are a moto blogger looking for something to do now might be a good time to renovate Blogger or make the move to WordPress. If you need any help feel free to ask.
