Blogging Tip Series
Blogging Tip – Be prepared for change. I was working with a client who had their WordPress blog hacked. It was a mess actually. Luckily though with some troubleshooting, it was restored later that day. Once it was restored, my client wished to move her WordPress blog back over to Blogger where she was previously at, no less than 6 months ago. She did give WordPress a fair try but discovered that it just wasn’t a good fit for her. The hacking was the last straw so to speak, so a migrating we will go! I didn’t have very much experience migrating a WordPress blog back to the Blogger platform so I knew it was going to be a challenge. But a challenge I knew I was able to conquer with a little research and determination!
A challenge. That is putting it mildly! There was one problem after the other and not being very well skilled in this task, I wanted to make sure I took my time and researched everything. To my dissatisfaction, there is very little out there on how to migrate WordPress to Blogger, but a massive amount of information to do the vice versa! So, what do we do? Between the client and I, we worked together and by the grace of God, she is back up and running on Blogger and has said good-bye to WordPress forever.
So what’s the big blogging tip for this week?
Know what you are comfortable with and stick with it! I would suggest to all those using the Blogger platform to test out the WordPress hosted platform before switching your entire blog back and forth. By testing out the WordPress hosted blog you get a general idea of what it would be like to have a “self-hosted” blog. It allows you to see how to create a blog post, how to upload images, how to create themes and edit them. It gives you the ability to give WordPress a test run before actually committing to a self-hosted blog. Once you have made a decision, you can always delete your WordPress hosted blog, or you can just leave it there for testing purposes. That choice is yours.
It has been said that having a self-hosted blog is the way to go once you outgrow Blogger and for some, that is true. For others, WordPress just doesn’t work for them. Yes, WordPress has a learning curve to it. While it works for some, it may not work for others. It’s all in the comfort and where you see your blog going that is going to make a difference. I’ll say though a lot of companies will set you up with WordPress, a framework, a pretty child theme, plugins that you may or may not like, and then once it’s installed, they’re gone. I am not personally one for frameworks. I always have said that you can customize just about any free or paid for theme without having a huge framework. Many may disagree, but for me, I do not agree with setting up a WordPress blog fully packed with a framework that has a bunch of “stuff” that you just don’t need when you’re first starting out. Even some long-time bloggers don’t use a framework. It’s again, a matter of preference.
I will help you get your WordPress blog set up and should you choose to use a framework and child theme {though it isn’t mandatory}, we will not leave you high and dry. We will make sure you understand the ins and outs of your framework, the different uses and various plugins that are a benefit to have for your blog. We don’t want to bombard you with an over-packed blog that you have no idea how to operate.
So tell me. Have you switched from WordPress to Blogger only to realize you hate working with the self-hosted platform? Or vice-versa?
Fantastic blog! Do you have any recommendations for aspiring writers?
I’m hoping to start my own site soon but I’m a little lost on everything.
Would you recommend starting with a free platform like WordPress
or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m totally
overwhelmed .. Any tips? Many thanks!
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