If you leave the safe confines of your feed reader and are actually reading this on my blog, you will notice a complete overhaul.
You may scroll down and see the comments have a reply option. THEY THREAD.
You may notice the slide show on the front page, of latest posts.
You might be so inclined as to notice how much more visual the homepage is.
My old header image is gone. I am not entirely sure if I am going to replace it.
Making The Switch Taught Me Some Lessons
- Make google your BFF. I would not have been able to do this, and would have lost subscribers and followers if not for these websites: Mama Blogga; Digital Inspiration.
- I wound up breaking mySQL database. Yup, I accidentally changed the password, so wordpress couldn’t access and function. I spent about 30 minutes cussing up a storm on Twitter. DON’T CHANGE YOUR SQL DATABASE.
- Plugins are pretty awesome.
- If you don’t know anything about wordpress themes or coding, get a theme that is customizable, so you can change some things without opening up the php editor. (Please don’t ask me to explain further, google can help you better than I)
Why Did I Make The Switch?
- I wanted threaded comments. I am positive threaded comments encourage conversation and interaction.
- I like the different things you can do with the layout. I may not have  a full grasp yet, but I do really like that I have a slide show of my latest posts.
- SEO optimization. Traffic to my posts matters to me. When I post about a book, I want to get as much traffic to that post as possible. SEO optimization basically means your website is search engine optimized. You can google that, for more information. WordPress really lends itself to SEO.
- I loathe capcha. There is no capcha on wordpress.
- I want to podcast. Now I have a place where I can upload my casts without paying for server space. (FYI my blog is self-hosted)
- She’s Got The Look. Cue cheesy 80s music. Really, though, I think wordpress has a much cleaner look than blogger.
I encourage you to leave the confines of your feed reader, and take a look around here. I am quite proud of the home page. Yes, the design is in it’s early stages, of course there is room for improvement. I’m just very excited that I have a new place to exude awesome.
Latest posts by April (Books&Wine) (see all)
- A Christmas To Remember by Beverly Jenkins | Book Review - December 5, 2024
- Make The Season Bright by Ashley Herring Blake | Audiobook Review - December 4, 2024
- Christmas at Corgi Cove by Annie England Noblin | Book Review - December 3, 2024
Welcome to wordpress! I haven’t worked with blogger, so I can’t compare the two, but I’ve been quite happy in my little wordpress corner of the internet.
The new site looks great!
Thanks Alita! I’m getting to know wordpress. Besides the few bumps I’ve had, It’s been great!
I hope to be following you soon! As soon as I can get all my bugs and kinks worked out!
Well if you know someone who knows CSS you are already like 10 steps ahead of me!
This layout already looks fabulous. Very sleek and professional. Also, I love your ‘about’ section. (Prufrock is my favourite poem too.) I’m not sure I’m brave enough to ever attempt the switch to wordpress, but I’m tempted.
Thanks! Isn’t Prufrock just fabulous? ‘Let us go then, you and I” ahhhh I love it.
I was tempted by wordpress for a very long time, then finally went for it.
Congrats on the move, and great theme 🙂 WordPress doesn’t have Captcha (thank goodness), but I’d recommend adding the Akismet plugin if you haven’t already. It catches almost all of my spam (and I receive quite a bit indeed).
I did just add Akismet and Stats after taking half an hour to figure out how to get an API key!
Welcome to WordPress! I love WordPress even though I’m using a free site and not a self-hosted one so I have more limited features. Yes, threaded comments are great! I like replying to people’s comments on my blog.
But wait, I think you lost me. I didn’t get this entry in my feed reader. I’ll try following you again using the RSS link in your current site but I just wanted to let you know in case you lost other followers too.
Welcome to WordPress as well! 🙂 Glad you made the switch — I’ve been using WordPress for a long time now (can’t remember when I last used Blogger!) and I love how simple it is. 🙂 I love the functionalities and the easy to modify themes and the plugins! WordPress really rocks my socks. 😀
You did a great job!!
Thanks! And I really appreciate all of your help 🙂
I always feel a deep love connection with people who have left blogger and moved to WP. Heh. It doesn’t mention this on my book blog, but in the little “About me” blurb on my personal blog it says “and I’m pretty sure WordPress hates me”. This is because when I made the switch from free hosted sites to self-hosted I might accidentally have killed mySLQ database a bunch of times. *cough* pHp and I do not get along so well, but in the 5 years I have been using it we’re learning to coast along with mutual mild affection for each other.
Anyhow, I love WP. Just saying.
Also… why are you no longer showing up in my google reader? Hmm. If I hadn’t seen a tweet from you and wondered “Hey, why’s she been so quiet” I wouldn’t have realized I need to resubscribe because you’ve vanished.
Us awesome accessorizers needs to stick together!
Why hello pretty new blog set up here, and welcome to WordPress! Having switched from Blogger way back in my early days, I like seeing others make the switch too – I feel it validates my decision!!!! I hope you really enjoy WordPress!
I recently changed from TypePad to a self-hosted WordPress Blog and it was an amazing change. At first WordPress was quite intimidating, but now that I’m learning some CSS, etc., the freedom and creativity are endless. Good luck. I like the new look.
LOVE wordpress so I am excited for you. I have not made the leap to self hosted yet… I want to but I am afraid. Really. I am 🙂