Have you ever fallen in love with something unexpected? Not?someone, but something? That’s exactly how I feel about WordPress. When I switched almost a year ago, I did it not knowing half of the things I know now and did it out of obligation to keep up with the next best thing?for bloggers. Almost a year later, I?have a serious love affair with WordPress. When I sit down to plan out post ideas, WordPress topics are the easiest for me to come up with. Maybe it’s my desire to help other bloggers or maybe it’s just my love of blog design. Whatever the reason, I decided it was time to find a way to help bloggers overcome the fear of switching to an unknown platform and also provide a resource for those who may already be using WordPress but don’t feel like they have it completely figured out. Over the next six weeks, I’ll be taking a look at WordPress basics and hopefully providing some insight into making the transition from Blogger (or Squarespace) to WordPress easier and less overwhelming.
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It’s pretty easy to find lots of resources out there that tell you why you should switch to WordPress. But sometimes, I think as bloggers, we want all of the facts up front. Instead of sitting here and telling you why you should switch to WordPress, I think it’s better and helpful to just simply read what the?differences?between WordPress and Blogger are and hopefully those will help guide your choice.
Ownership
The biggest difference you’ll hear talked about in reference to Blogger and WordPress is the issue of ownership. When people refer to WordPress, they’re most likely referring to a self-hosted WordPress blog. What does that mean? Self-hosting means you have purchased hosting (for example, mine is from Bluehost*) or in other words, you’ve purchased essentially a locker that stores all of your sites files and information. When you use a site like Blogger or WordPress.com for your blog, you’re basically borrowing a locker from a larger company (Google and WordPress in this case). Because you’re borrowing space, technically anything you put into it belongs to the person who owns the locker. This is why people talk a lot about owning your content in reference to WordPress.
Permalinks
Another big difference I’ve noticed over time is in reference to permalinks. If you aren’t sure what a permalink is, it’s basically the specific URL for each post you write. If you have a Blogger blog, look at one of your recent posts. Here’s what you’ll see:?yourdomain.com/2015/08/your-post-title.html.?This is the default permalink structure for Blogger and as far as I know, it can’t be adjusted. However, with WordPress (self-hosted or regular) you are able to choose between a few different options. So when I switched to WordPress, I dropped the date structure and most importantly the .html at the end of each permalink. Concise permalinks are better for SEO and more visually pleasing in general.
HTML/CSS Coding
With both platforms, you have the option to edit your own coding. For some reason, it seems that people are more likely to experiment with Blogger HTML than WordPress CSS, and the WordPress version seems to scare a lot more people. But the good news is that there are options for getting your hands messy with coding on either platform. Blogger’s coding found within the template is HTML based whereas WordPress is run off of themes that allow you to edit the CSS coding.
Both are options you can learn with some time and patience and both give you the flexibility to make slight design changes without having to redo an entire blog design. If you’re the type of person who just needs to try something to figure it out, I highly recommend not trying out a new editing trick with your LIVE WordPress site. CSS is a bit finicky and if you forget a symbol, you can potentially break your site from the front end (it’s still completely in tact on the back end and is fixable). I’ll be writing an entire post on HTML in reference to WordPress in this series, so be sure to come back for that!
Widgets/Plugins
WordPress and Blogger both have options when it comes to plugins or widgets for added features on your blog. The main difference is that there are thousands of plugins and only a handful of preset widgets on Blogger. This makes it difficult for those with little HTML knowledge to be able to add in their own widget that may not be a preset one found on Blogger. With WordPress, there is literally a plugin for everything which makes it a bit easier to add in your own unique features.
Labels vs. Tags/Categories
Blogger only allows for adding labels to posts, which are essentially the same thing as?tags on WordPress. WordPress allows for two variations of categorization within each post, a category and a tag. Each post may have one or two categories (overall themes to the post- a blog should have 5-7 of these they stick to) and an unlimited amount of tags. Tags allow for a more concentrated way of searching through similar posts, for example searching through all posts tagged with “WordPress” will give you a more refined list of posts than searching through my “blogging” category that may have posts that are not tagged with WordPress.
Investment
This is where the biggest difference between the two platforms is found.?Running a Blogger blog can be 100% free, if you wanted it to be. I don’t recommend doing it 100% freely (meaning without purchasing things like a domain name, logo, or blog design), but it is possible. Self-hosted WordPress sites will never be free, but that isn’t a reason to run away from them. One benefit to a free blog is that there is no reason you can’t quit blogging at any time. You can also quit any time with WordPress, but you will likely lose out on money you’ve already paid for your hosting.
Blogger templates and designs that are premade or custom made tend to be cheaper than WordPress ones. Why? WordPress has a lot more customization possibility within its coding so adding in fun features often takes more time and therefore requires more of an investment.
Updates
Self-hosted WordPress blogs require semi-regular updates to the theme, plugins, or WordPress in general. These are such simple updates to make that they almost aren’t worth mentioning, but they do pose a difference between WordPress and Blogger that is important to a lot of people. On Blogger you’ll never have to update anything unless it is by choice (like switching your blog design or logo).
Primarily these are the biggest differences between the two platforms. When reading those, there may not be a definite or easy choice for you, but hopefully learning more through the coming weeks will help you decide which blogging platform is best for you!
What are the biggest differences that you see between Blogger and WordPress?
If you have specific topics or questions about WordPress, please leave them in the comments so I can try to cover it during this series!
CATCH UP ON THE REST OF THE SERIES
Erica @ WhimsicalSeptember says
I’m making the switch September 15th and I CANNOT WAIT!! 7.5 years of blogger and I’m done! Ha!
Madison says
Yay! I’m so excited for you. Are you transferring everything yourself? You’ll LOVE it. Especially if you’re at the point of being done with Blogger. I’ll have some posts later in this series about navigating the WP dashboard and things like that which should really help you 🙂
Elizabeth Mayberry says
I am switching in September too! AHAH
Gina Alyse says
Such an informative post! Definitely something that would have helped me make the switch! I love WordPress! I want to spend some more quality time investing in my design and coding skills with it whenever my time frees up! I just love playing around with it and seeing the possibilities!
Madison says
I hope it helps others in the future too! You’ll love designing and coding in WP once you get some more practice on it 🙂 Let me know if you have questions!
Laura Jean Gilleland says
Yes! Thank you, Madison! As you know, I am so pumped for this series. You are super helpful! Question, in regards to the updates, are those minor changes things that most people can do themselves or would non-designer bloggers have to hire a designer to make the updates?
Madison says
They are definitely minor! You basically just see a little notification bubble next to “updates” on your Dashboard that tells you there’s an update needed. Plugins also have to be updated, but it’s the same thing. Once you’ve done it one time, it’s so simple to do!
Ashlee @ Sparkles by Ashlee says
This is such a great post and I look forward to reading the rest of this series! Even though I’m content on my current platform, these are great posts I can read for future references and they’ll help others too!
– Ashlee Mae
Madison says
Thanks Ashlee 🙂 I definitely don’t think anyone should switch before they feel confident and ready, but like I mentioned, I’m hoping this series will help people feel more confident!
Ashlee @ Sparkles by Ashlee says
It will. 🙂
Morgan says
You are slowly convincing me to switch… I have been thinking about it for almost a year but must admit the whole migrating my blog to wordpress terrifies me as well the coding! I can’t wait for more posts on this series!!
Madison says
Do it, do it… 😉 Really though, I hope that after this series you will have more confidence!
Kristy says
This is great, Madison! I’ve definitely been on the fence about switching. I almost switched in May, but the costs made me wait. I’m really hoping to make the transfer in September/October. I love the added features in WP, like more power in SEO. Thanks for this, and I can’t wait to learn more!
Kristy says
P.S. I heard from a person who does switches that keeping Disqus and all previous comments in the migration would make it impossible to drop the date in the permalink. Is that true? I see that you have Disqus and have dropped the date.
Madison says
The cost is definitely a factor. But when you look at it as an investment or even just as paying for a hobby of yours, it’s well worth it, in my opinion! I hope you can make the transfer and I’d definitely love to help if you need it!
In reference to Disqus, that’s not true. You DO have to take an additional step to basically tell Disqus how you changed your permalinks so they know which thread of comments belongs with which post. It does take some time to populate, but it is possible.
Sabra says
I’ve gone back and forth on this a million times! Will you be doing any posts on the differences in designing for WordPress? I enjoy designing my blog myself and would love if I could continue to do so when I switch!
Madison says
I won’t be doing the differences, per say, but I will be sharing some insight into coding on WordPress 🙂 I will say I think there are very few people who regret switching in the end.
Elizabeth Mayberry says
Okay, so I am switching. I just love all the posts you write on it!! haha
Madison says
I’m DYING to see your new site! Who are you working with?
Alyssa Guttendorf says
This so timely… I’m working on making the switch to WordPress in the next month! Do you have any tips on how to back-publish previous posts? Is there are way to “back-date” them? Or will they all just end up being “published’ on the day I re-enter them? Any insight would be great!
Madison says
If you export your posts and use an importer to import them, you won’t have to change the dates at all. It will automatically post at the time that it was originally posted. Does that make sense?
Alyssa Guttendorf says
Oh definitely… I didn’t even know that existed! I will do some research into how that works. Thanks!
Nina @ Hugs and Lattes says
I JUST switched last week and it is exciting but also a little scary. I like wordpress already, though! And maybe you have a post/could answer my question – I need to install google analytics, but I already have the tracking code for my old blogger site & not my new wordpress site (which hasn’t gone live just quite yet.) I tried installing the tracking code, but I think I did it in the wrong end! When you mentioned coding & breaking the site, I thought, OH NO what if I do this?! Do you know of any good tutorials for installing google analytics?
Madison says
Yay! I’m glad you already love it 🙂
I like this tutorial for installing it: http://blogambitions.com/set-up-google-analytics/
Just make sure you remove whatever tracking code you already added so that you don’t have it installed twice. I like using the Google Analytics for WP plugin because then you can see your analytics on your dashboard which is really nice!
Brianna Palos says
I am so excited about this! As a complete newbie to the blogging world, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated. I’m hoping this series will give me the tools I need to take my blog to the next level!
Madison says
I hope so too, Brianna! 🙂 I’m looking forward to it hopefully helping a lot of people. If/when you do decide to switch, I’d love to work with you! Let me know.
Julie Hood says
The mobile sites are different–it seems like yours looks a lot like your actual site, but my blogger mobile site options are way more limited. I love how clearly you explained the differences!
Madison says
Yes, that’s a very good point. Blogger sites are NOT mobile responsive. They have a “mobile version” but it looks totally different than the regular site and basically has none of the design elements from the blog design- which is why most people just opt out of the mobile version. WordPress (and Genesis specifically) is way more mobile friendly.
Paris says
Great information! I started with wordpress and have been very happy with it!
Madison says
I’m jealous, Paris! I wish I had 🙂
Rachel @ STCL says
I made the switch to WP a couple months ago and am really happy! There’s definitely a learning curve, but it’s been great so far!
Madison says
I agree about the learning curve but hopefully you’ve found that it was worth it 🙂
Ramona C says
I chose to go with WordPress years ago after having a Blogger blog. I liked the design templates better and enjoyed the ease of WP. At the time, I started with a WP.com account. I switched to self-hosted at the beginning of 2014. It’s almost time for a redesign. This winter or early next spring, things could look a lot different on the site.
I agree with what you say about the difference. This is a great post.
Madison says
Let me know if you’re looking for someone to do your redesign 🙂 I love doing them! Self-hosted is definitely the way to go!!
Linda @ themurphmans says
Just catching up on your blog and love this series. So many useful tips!! But I have a question… what can you say to the person (me! ha) who is on WordPress already, but not self-hosted? I feel like there are so many posts out there encouraging the leap from Blogger to WordPress, but I’m in a slightly different boat. Right now, I feel comfortable not having to take care of hosting details (are there even any? am I making these “details” up?) and I feel like it’s not worth spending the money to self-host if I’m just blogging for fun (but I do have a custom theme, etc so maybe it’s similar in cost?). On the other hand, I would LOVE to use plugins and all the other greats tools that could help me grow my blog, even if I’m not looking to monetize it. What is your opinion/experience on this?