A few months ago Blogger.com got on my last nerve and I decide to finally do something about it and switch to Wordpress. I decided to go with Wordpress.com a first to make sure I liked it and then I’d either switch to Wordpress.org (on my own host) or search for a different service I liked.
The first step was setting up a Wordpress.com account – which was simple. I then found that I could import from Blogger to Wordpress.com, so I had to make a few changes. I had to move my blog from my hosting service to Blogger which was also simple (took about 30 seconds) and then import to the new service. Perhaps because I didn’t understand Wordpress.com, I didn’t like it – not to mention the fact that I wanted to be on my own domain again, so I decided to jump in headfirst to Wordpress.org – the version of Wordpress that allows you to host it yourself, work with html, etc.
The first thing I did was set up a test blog. With the .org version of Wordpress, you’re on your own. If you stuff something up, there’s no safety net to magically fix it for you, you have to figure it out yourself (and I knew I’d make several errors). After doing that, I scrolled through the different six different ‘themes’ (templates) available, but didn’t see anything that I liked, so viewed some of the ones that can be downloaded and then uploaded to my host, and found the one I currently use. I also had to figure out what I wanted. One sidebar or two? Right or left? The usual choices when choosing a template.
Then I uploaded it to the test blog and fooled around it for a bit to learn more about WP. I imported some posts, fooled around with the dimensions, etc (making several mistakes along the way). After importing a few posts, I saw that the template I had chosen only showed the first few lines of the posts and that people had to click ‘Read full post’ to be able to see all of it. I didn’t really care for it then (and am not sure if I do now), but decided that I liked the template enough to keep it (eventually I’ll take the time to learn how to make my own). That meant that I had to make my sidebar shorter.
Adding info to my sidebar was simple – I just viewed the source code of my old Blogger account and cut and pasted it into Wordpress. Simple.
Sort of.
Since my old sidebar was so long, I had to shorten it, so I made a page called ‘Links’ and stuck a lot of it over there. I’m still not satisfied with it, but won’t be able to fix it until I get internet access at home (it’s a rainy Sunday project).
Being somewhat satisfied with the test blog, I decided to set it up on my domain before I lost too many readers and was up and running soon afterwards. I hadn’t finished importing posts from Blogger, but at least it was something.
Importing my past posts was more of a chore than I had thought it would be. WP imports only 50 at a time, and afterwards you have to click on Continue. However, sometimes it stopped responding and I had o sign out and in again to continue. Somewhat annoying. Also, only after importing did I realise that my photos from my old blog were not imported.
After the basics are done then it’s just a matter of learning where everything is on the program, finding about other features, etc. I quite like being able to timestamp a post to be published on a future date (as you might have noticed).
Overall, I’m quite satisfied and glad I finally switched. I haven’t had any problems posting or uploading pics to Wordpress, and encourage others to switch away from Blogger too.
Posted by: J
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