As you’ve probably noticed in the past couple of weeks, I’ve broadened my blog a bit, writing about more than spirituality and Law of Attraction.  Today’s entry is no different.  Today I’m writing about my blog platform choice:

I’ve been blogging since 2007 and have written two different blogs that I’ve put to sleep since settling on Wisdom and Life.  I’ve been a power user of Google since its inception, and because of this, I made the decision to use blogspot/blogger, Google’s own blog platform when I began my blogging experience.

Blogspot worked for me well as I was simply dipping my feet in the vast ocean of blogs.  Once I settled on my long term blog:
Wisdom and Life and began to gather readers, subscribers and commenters, I realized I was outgrowing Blogspot and I needed something more substantial, more professional.  What finally pushed me to migrate was one of my original readers, Mary L. experienced difficulty leaving comments via blogspot, so I set up a WordPress account and wrote a dummy blog.  I emailed the entry to Mary and she had none of the challenges commenting at WordPress.

I still procrastinated.  Wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to learn a new platform.  I know!  I know!  Kinda silly hearing that from someone who has been in the tech field my entire career.  I’ll call it what it was, I’ll lay down the truth, I won’t hide behind a veil.

It was called laziness, pure and simple!

I continued using blogger for at least another six months, while my WordPress account lay dormant, cast aside, unused.  So what FINALLY persuaded me to migrate?

Blogger crashed for about three days.  I couldn’t get into my dashboard.  That was extremely frustrating for me.  That’s what pushed me to move.  It’s true that WordPress has a steeper learning curve than does blogger.  But that just proves my point  (in my opinion) that blogs created using WordPress look more professional.  There are far more options available on WordPress for customizing your blog.  That’s one of the first things I noticed upon moving to that platform.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend someone just starting out blogging to begin with WordPress.  My opinion is to get your feet wet first, as I did.  Start out with a simpler platform.  Once you think you’re in it for the long term you can create a WordPress account and migrate as I did.  And there is no reason to fear losing your content at blogger or whatever platform you start using first.  It’s very easy to import/export all of your content from your original platform to WordPress.

Another advantage to my using WordPress is that I have a close friend who hosts my photography site at his hosting company.  Andrew Kaplan at Walden Pond Design uses WordPress to create his websites.  One of the sites he created he left to me to update when updates need to be done.  Had I not migrated from blogger I would have no clue how to use WordPress.

I believe anyone who is all in with blogging should give deep consideration to using WordPress as their go to platform.  If you’re writing blogs for enjoyment and have no real need to learn a new platform, if you’re happy with your existing platform, if you don’t want to learn a new technology then by all means stay with what you’re comfortable with.

As I tell my tech clients (the few that I have now) everything comes down to personal choice.  I never want to tell someone to do something then have them sorry they did it and come back to me and say:
But you told me to do this!

I made the move to WordPressdotcom a few years ago and I’m now considering moving both of my blogs:
–Wisdom and Life
–Scranton Page Turner
to WordPressdotorg.

Only because there are more options still, available by self hosting.

I’m simply offering an opinion based on my own experience.  What anyone does with that opinion is their choice.  The other thing I can say is you can have both worlds if you do as I did.  While continuing to use your existing platform, you can always create a WordPress account and play with it while writing your blogs on your existing platform.  That way IF you decide to migrate you’ll have acquired real world experience at WordPress.  You won’t be coming in cold.

I’ll be the first to say that I’m far from an expert in WordPress, but I can find my way around the platform fairly easily.  I don’t know all the answers.  I can tell you, however that I’m very happy with my decision to move from my original platform.

I can give advice on migrating.
I can answer some basic questions and if I don’t know the answer to more challenging questions I can find someone who does know the answer.

As I said last Friday in:
Sharing, Re-Sharing and Circles:
Now that I learned my lesson it is time for me to share my own experience with everyone else so you can learn from my experience and get up and running sooner than I did.

Most of us are willing to help.  You only have to release the fear of asking.

Be Happy!  Be Well!  Be Positive!
Blessings to you.
—
Chris