Graphic created at Wordle.net
I just move this blog from the free, shared blogging software at WordPress.com to self-managed WordPress.org. I still have other blogs running on WordPress.com and Google’s Blogger.com, which is also shared and free. Those considering new blogs are asking me, why did you move this blog, and what is the difference between these alternatives?
WordPress.org’s Flexibility and Enhancements
I moved from WordPress.com (where you can quickly log in, pick a standard template, and start posting for free) to WordPress.org (where you have to download, configure and pay small fees to host) for its increased flexibility.
The shared WordPress.com platform does not permit add-ins called “plugins.“ These offer customized display and distribution of content, statistics-gathering and more. Some examples are plugins that make it easier to find your content in search, create contact forms, filter blog spam, add affiliate links and create ways to interact with readers.
WordPress.org’s Design Capabilities
In addition, WordPress.org permits additional design flexibly. (Don’t tell anyone, but I care about words and ideas, not design. Nevertheless, I do plan to make some modest design enhancements shortly.) This design flexibility also allows for better search engine optimization, which means more people find your blog.
Get More Traffic. An SEO Guide to WordPress WPBlogger.com’s quick overview of permalinks, titles, categories, tags, pagination, etc.
WordPress.com allows you to create static pages as well as posts, which means your blog can function as a website. But WordPress.org is content-management software, and it can be used to create a website or even an e-commerce site.
Create an eCommerce Website with WordPress in Under 5 Minutes Video from WordPress.tv
Beyond a Blog: Running a Full Website Using WordPress.org ProBlogger.com explains
WordPress.org’s Options for Ads and Monetization
Yet another reason I moved is because I plan to experiment with ads and other monetization strategies. The shared WordPress.com software does not permit ads. Google’s Blogger.com is fully integrated with Adsense ads, but does not facilitate monetization. TypePad does permit ads.
What I’m Missing from WordPress.com
Life isn’t perfect over at WordPress.org. I now have to worry about software updates, for example. I got a notice this morning that my anti-spam software Akismet couldn’t access the internet. It took only a couple minutes to resolve, but I did not have to think about these things at WordPress.com.
What I REALLY miss is the immediate feedback of WordPress.com traffic statistics. I loved logging in morning, noon and night to see how much traffic a new post was getting, or where today’s referrals were coming from. And what links readers clicked in the last couple hours.
Now I’m running Google Analytics on the new blogs, but I only see yesterday’s stats. Maybe there’s a plugin for more, but I’m so new, I haven’t found it yet.
Blogger.com Alternatives
Google’s blogger.com is also free and relatively easy to use, like WordPress.com. Unlike the latter, however, Blogger does permit ads. In fact, assuming you have an Adsense account, you can integrate its ads simply by logging in and selecting an ad display pattern. Google indexes the content in the following days/weeks and soon displays related ads.
Just to test it, I installed Adsense on a old blog, VisualSelling.blogspot.com. You will notice that the blog displays ads related to presentation training, without my doing anything at all. I can even block ads from competitors.
TypePad.com Alternatives
TypePad compares their software to Blogger and WordPress.com in a table at this link. (I have never run a TypePad blog.) At this writing, TypePad costs $4.95 a month, but offers a full range of features and email support. With Blogger and WordPress.com, you resolve problems and get advice by reading and posting in forums.
Business Blogging Software Compared
According to the stats above from Compete.com, Blogger leads WordPress.com and TypePad among the lower-tech options. But the business-strength version is WordPress.org. In a May 2009 poll of readers of the popular blog Problogger, 43% used WordPress.org versus 29% on Blogger and 13% on WordPress.com. If you’re blogging for a business bigger than yourself, you may want to start with WordPress.org
Like many bloggers, I started blogging as a personal experiment, learning about this on behalf of the nonprofit SCORE Chicago‘s small business clients. I didn’t know if I’d like it, and wasn’t committed long term. So I started on WordPress.com and Blogger.
If you aren’t sure of your (or your company’s) staying power, my advice is start on WordPress.com (but use your own URL, not WordPress.) It’s easier to move from it to WordPress.org than from Blogger. Set a date in six months, and move to WordPress.org if you are able to blog regularly and are seeing results.
Your Advice to Small Business?
Bloggers, what’s your preferred platform? What blogging software would you advise a small business to start with? Please leave me a comment.
Related Posts
WordPress or Blogger? Which is More SEO Compatible? Tim Grice, SEOWizz.net
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Peg, I am in the middle of moving from WP.com to WP.org. However, I am stalled in the middle of the move by second thoughts. Initially, I wanted to move because of the extra features and I would rather have email at my own domain rather thank Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail, etc. However, during the move I have encountered a couple not so small issues:
1. You definitely need some programming skills (specifically CSS skills) to set it up correctly. If you do not have these skills, you will need someone that has them. I am hosted on DreamHost and although they seem to have friendly and responsive support, their job is not programming. You are on your own for that.
2. With WP.com, you have a choice of 15-20 most popular widgets. With WP.org you have almost 6,000 plug-in and over 40 million other downloads. Finding the right plug-in or download is not an easy task. I find I install one thing and it does not turn out to do what I had hoped it would do and then I need help uninstalling and trying something else.
3. I have enjoyed high traffic (600 views/day) on WP.com. In using Google Alerts, I find I am picked up well throughout the WP.com community (probably through categories and tags) and a lot of the WP.com pages that have my post summaries listed are showing up in Google. I am afraid what will happen to my traffic if I move. Since you have already made the move, I would be interested in hearing what your experience with traffic has been.
BTW, you can have the very same blog stats for WP.org as you enjoyed in WP.com by installing a plug-in called “WordPress.com Stats” and entering your API from WP.com. (You owe me! )
A side note to bloggers: For those concerned about copyright infringement of your blog (or website) content and the harm in SEO from duplicate content by the offenders, there is a new LinkedIn group “The Blog Zone” (linkedin.com/groups?gid=2045776) that is trying to do something about it. The more members, the more power, ideas and info available.
Peg,
As usual you’re informative, brief and to the point.
Mike, even though I’ll be offline for awhile due to other business interests, I’m going to join the new LinkedIn group. Thanks for the heads up.
Molly
Mike,
Thanks for sharing your concerns and problems with Wordpress.org vs Wordpress.com.
1. I made the move with hosting on Godaddy, and I have nothing but good things to say about their help and support in this process. I too had to install the template several times, correct errors.
2. I don’t know CSS. To make the transition easier, I purchased the well-respected Thesis template for Wordpress.org, with its built in SEO features. Figured this would get me started without going through a zillion plugins, but keep my options open in the future.
3. I just moved a couple weeks ago. I fully expected traffic to drop, as my RSS reader find me and sign up again, as the search engines reindex the blog posts, and as I change as many referral links as I can remember. That said, one of my old posts got tweeted by a pro and I had 643 pageviews on my 4th day. Normal traffic is now one third of what it was on my old blog, but I expect this to increase. As I said, one of the reasons I moved was to take advantage of more SEO and viral capabilities on .org.
Thanks a million for the stats plugin reference. I do owe you.
Peg
Hey Peg, you’re doing great. I went through the same thing and didn’t have to know a thing about CSS. For stats, I also use a plug-in feedjit.com and love it. Tells me who, when, how…traffic to site in real time.
The most miserable thing I had to go through was changing the links to previous posts. Then I found a search and replace plugin.
This is extremely helpful info!!! Especially since you guys are offering it for free!! Very good listing. Everything is true. Thanx.
Regarding the comment about copyright infringement:
An easy way to see if anyone has pilfered your content is to copy and paste your article into google search and see if every word matches up (they will be in bold in the search results).
Google limits search queries to 32 words, so just test different 32-word chunks of your articles.
Hello,
I just moved two of my wp.com blogs to wp.org. It was an effort uut worth it. I only wish I had started out blogging on my own domain(s) from the beginning. ;-)
My question now is do you or a reader know how I go about changing my existing feedburner information? Currently all is status quo because my wp.com is being redirected to the wp.org domain to buy me some time. But I need to change the feed permanently in feedburner and (1) can’t find out how to do it on the site and (2) don’t want to loose my current readers/subscriptions.
I have been able to find many articles online about making the initial move but none have spoken to this particular after-the-move issue. Looking for assistance please.
Thanks for reading.
@Peggy Duncan,
I would love to hear more about the search and replace plug-in please!
Between the two blogs I moved weeks ago I am STILL going though every single one of close to 1000 posts to correct links et al in each one. I have been doing some every evening when I get home from work and this is really tedious . I am open to any and all of the shortcuts that I can get.
Thanks for reading.
SonDan,
I wish I had a good answer on this. As I shut down the old blog, I did a post inviting people to subscribe to my new feed. Then a month later, I did another post which listed posts on the new blog, trying to tempt subscribers, and again invited them to add my new feed.
http://scorechicago.wordpress.com/2009/08/04/web-2-0-posts-you-may-have-missed-on-my-new-blogs/
I also created a forwarding link from each old post to the new post location, link by link.
I find this link on Feedburner about redirects, but I don’t believe this actually transfer the old subscribers.
https://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78464&cbid=-1qhpgzs905fdj&src=cb&lev=answer
As I read this, people coming to the old blog are sent to the new one.
But what we want is for the list of subscribers be transferred to the new blog, or at minimum, posts from the new one to be sent to old subscribers. It occurs to me that Feedburner probably does not facilitate this because bloggers would take subscriber lists from one blog and add them to lots of other blogs that readers did not subscribe to.
Peg
Son Dan,
I just went to the Plugins link, clicked Add New, and then did a search for “Search and Replace.” 4 different plugins came up with that feature. You might want to try those. I think Peggy was talking about the first one, called simply Search and Replace.
Peg
Hello,
I just moved two of my wp.com blogs to wp.org. It was an effort uut worth it. I only wish I had started out blogging on my own domain(s) from the beginning. ;-)
My question now is do you or a reader know how I go about changing my existing feedburner information? Currently all is status quo because my wp.com is being redirected to the wp.org domain to buy me some time. But I need to change the feed permanently in feedburner and (1) can't find out how to do it on the site and (2) don't want to loose my current readers/subscriptions.
I have been able to find many articles online about making the initial move but none have spoken to this particular after-the-move issue. Looking for assistance please.
Thanks for reading….
I totally agree with your review. This is extremely helpful info!!! Especially since you guys are offering it for free!! Very good listing. Everything is true. Thanks for sharing.