I’ve got a bit of a conundrum. My domain registration, and therefore my web hosting, is up for renewal in late February - I got a reminder notice this week.
When Lizzie’s Home first started, it was on Blogger, and I was with them for about a year. I began to get frustrated with the lack of features compared to what I was hearing about Wordpress. Bloggy friends urged me to make the leap, and I did. Talented Hubby (who couldn’t then, and still doesn’t now, fully understand the lure of blogging, LOL) and I made a deal - we would pay for one year of registration and hosting and when the time came to renew, I would work out how to make the blog itself pay for an additional year.
You might already know that Lizzie’s Home does not accept paid advertising. This was a decision I made in the beginning due to personal conviction and honestly? My stats were poor (still are compared to most bloggers I read) and wouldn’t have garnered me much in cash anyway - and so weren’t likely to get me the $85 (AUD) or so needed to renew everything (and for the record, this isn’t for expensive hosting either. It’s the cheapest one I could find - without resorting to the ad-filled free host providers - at $4 US per month). In typical Lizzie fashion, I’ve put off thinking about it again until I needed to. That would be now.
In the time that I’ve been with Wordpress, Blogger has improved its features markedly. There are far more gadgets to choose from now and you can schedule posts, the lack of which, as silly as this sounds, was a big bug-bear for me before. And I’m not Miss Uber Blogger. Not likely to be either. I natter away here and I’m happy with that. It’s perhaps not so important for me, who doesn’t have much of a desire to make blogging a ‘business’, to have the very high customisation level that Wordpress gives.
So. Here’s where I’m at, and I’d like your opinions. These are random thoughts and questions. Decipher at will :P
I can re-examine my ‘no ads’ policy now that the blog is ever-so-slightly more popular than in the first couple of months. It may not help me in time for my 2009 renewal but perhaps the year after that. Not sure how I feel about that. If there was a way I could make the blog self-sustaining without resorting to ads, then I’d do that, but I can’t work out how that could be possible. Ideas?
I could finish that ebook I’ve had on the go for donkey’s years and sell a few copies.
I have a second blog, Binder Basics, which has always been on Blogger. The difference in ease-of-editing between that one and here is HUGE. If I want to change the size of a font in the sidebar on Lizzie’s Home I have to go through a convoluted process of copying the CSS file, altering it, reuploading it through ftp (FileZilla), hoping it works, then viewing the site live. If it didn’t work or just looks wrong, I have to repeat the process. It takes forever. Binder Basics on the other hand, requires just a simple tweak in the ‘Edit HTML’ box, and you can preview it before it goes live. No extra file transfer stuff at all. And HTML just seems easier to me somehow. There’s one file - as opposed to perhaps a dozen with Lizzie’s Home. If I want to change the header on Blogger, its dead easy. If I want to change the font of the main posts on Lizzie’s Home, that’s one file. If I want to change the pictures in the boxes you see to your right, that’s an entirely different file. Plus like ten more. Each requiring the FileZilla treatment. Tedious. Which is probably why you’ve been staring at the same blank boxes for weeks and weeks. Sometimes you just want to get in and get out. Some die-hard Wordpress users will have developed shortcuts or know how to better edit and preview their pages using a specialist web browser (tried that) but if I’m honest with myself, blogging will never be my ‘business’ and every hour spent tweaking along at a snail’s pace is an hour I’m not concentrating on family.
There have been some concerns in Bloggityville in the past about Blogger controlling your content - if Blogger goes belly-up for whatever reason, then your blog (and all your hard work) is toast. Can someone give me some facts about that? It was one of the reasons I switched but even before I did, I had never had a problem with Blogger freezing me out of my blog unless it was for routine maintenance (and so was common to all Blogger blogs, and only for a couple of hours at a time).
The big question - how important is a ’dot com’ to me? It’s nice to have a nice short URL, but if I am otherwise satisfied with the features and ease-of-use of Blogger, is it worth paying $85 (probably more now the Aussie dollar has dropped against the US buck) for what essentially amounts to blog branding? If I’m not actually selling anything here (and so don’t have to make it super-dooper easy for customers to get to me via the shortest possible URL), and most of my readers do so through Google Reader or Bloglines (ie, not typing in the address each time), then how much does a longer URL matter? Is it possible to have a successful blog at Blogger? Are all the big name folk with Wordpress or Typepad and is that what differentiates them as ‘big name’ (because they can customise to the minute detail and create something totally unique)? I’ve seen some awesome Blogger blogs that have been wonderfully set up. To be honest, this is the biggest sticking poing for me - is it worth paying this money simply for a dot com?
Another biggie: How many readers will I lose switching back? I was disheartened to see a 30+ subscriber drop in the last day or two and I’m hoping its a glitch like that one that saw me excited to see the flip side of 100 not too long ago. How many more will leave if I go back to the harder to remember ….blogspot.com?
AND… is it even POSSIBLE to import old posts TO Blogger? I know you can (obviously) import TO Wordpress, but is it possible to reverse it? If I found out it couldn’t be done, then game over, I’m sticking with Wordpress.
As I said, I’ve seen some really beautiful Blogger designs and there’s always the option of hiring a designer down the track a bit if I can’t come up with something cool on my own. In the meantime, as I work my way through the editing process for Binder Basics, I can’t help feeling a bit annoyed that it isn’t that easy for both blogs. Then I look at Lizzie’s Home and LOVE the idea of pages, which you can’t get in Blogger. Clearly, I need someone to rationally discuss the pros and cons with me.
Fire away folks! Thoughts are much appreciated. If a blogger switched URLs on you, how much hassle (re-subscribing to new URL etc) would you go through to keep reading? If its a blog you enjoy, would it bother you much if the URL got longer or wasn’t quite so ‘brand-y’?
* This post originally uploaded to lizzieshome.com. I've since made the plunge back to Blogger and haven't regretted it at all! Well, except when it came to manually transferring alllll my posts from my 'Wordpress year' over, LOL.
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