the blog has moved! check out the new site at:
http://lollipopscards.com
if you haven't been getting lollipops in your feed or a reader be sure
to subscribe from the new site :)
here are the top reasons i made the move.
and the reasons why you may not want to make the move...
if you don't have it or or don't know how to code it you can get it from a plugin.
need an image slider? get a plugin. need an instagram widget? there's a plugin for it!
forever i wanted to move over to Wordpress just for the recipe plugin from ziplist!
search engine optimization... + meta keywords. i couldn't find anywhere in blogger to put keywords. in Wordpress there are many places to put keywords, for the site, for each post, and for photos and media! getting found on the interwebs. this can be important, but not always.
genesis framework with studiopress has such beautiful themes with incredible SEO and it's quickloading. i have wanted it for quite a while now. it's pretty hard to beat!
your possibilities are much more unlimited with Wordpress than any other platform. from design to widgets to typography - you have many, many more possibilities with Wordpress.
i started playing around with other beautiful fonts that weren't default blogger fonts and i would get FOUT. "flash of unstylized text" as the page is loading! how unbecoming. i used several fixes and codes that were supposed to correct this to no avail. i use typekit on Wordpress now and am super happy with the choices and results :)
you may want to stay with blogger for:
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comments - moderation and import
watching the spam that rolls in and making sure the comment is spam through Wordpress. blogger somehow kept that out and unseen. also i have 6000+ comments on intense debate and have no way of importing those comments from my blogger blog using intense debate to Wordpress. they say they are working on an importer, but don't know when it will be done. i even tried a work around of importing my comments from intense debate to diqus then to Wordpress. nope. disqus doesn't import to Wordpress either. something to think about before signing up with third party comment hosting.
emails, comments, crap. on Wordpress you must have a few tools and plugins to keep spam out of your comments. but i still get spam in my email associated with this domain. on blogger it was just easier. blogger/gmail kept spam out of my inbox and i didn't have to see all that gross stuff.
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complexities of Wordpress
with those unlimited possiblities comes more complexities. there is configuring of widgets and plugins that sometimes are difficult and eyecrossing. i have had to skip a few of these as they are tougher than simple coding!
at blogger hosting your site is free, photos and storage space is free. your site could cost a total of $10/year for a custom domain name. at Wordpress good hosting is about $89/year plus domain name.
from layout to gadgets everything is pretty easy to configure. you can make a nice blogger site in a couple of hours.
i realize that this discussion can bring up a lot of questions,
so go for it. i would love to answer your questions :)
what platform are you blogging on? what are it's pros and cons?
so the blog has moved over to Wordpress at:
http://lollipopscards.com
if you haven't been getting lollipops in your feed or a reader be sure
to subscribe from the new site :)
xoxo,
krystina
