Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Collar City Brownstone has MOVED to WordPress

Happy Tuesday!,

 I am still working on the switch from Blogger to WordPress but my Blogger site is not where you will find me anymore from here on in.  Please try to put up with me for just a few more days.  I am using a WordPress customized template called Pinboard and on my homepage the posts are overlapping.  I am still trying to get it worked out with WordPress support.  The new blog site URL is without the www in front of the name so it is http://collarcitybrownstone.com/

The old address with the www in it I will set to auto direct to the new URL as soon as I don't need to come on the old Blogger page anymore.  This account will never be deleted however because all the photos are linked to Picasa.  If I delete this Blogger blog the links will be broken.  If there is some way around that please let me know.  If I am never going to use this site again so it makes no sense to have it active.  I would prefer to delete it eventually.   

If you are "following" me from Bloglovin you don't have to do anything.  Bloglovin with update your feed.  

You can also subscribe directly from the new site at WordPress.  The link is above.

What do I think of WordPress so far?   There is a learning curve, but I do love it and I am glad that I made the switch.  You don't necessarily need to know HTML but it does help.  I know how to design websites so I think that is helping me to not tear my hair out.

It was very easy to bring over all of my blog posts and all of your comments into the new WordPress site.  However, all of my tags went into categories and the posts have no tags.  I am still going through every single post I ever wrote to tag and categorize them correctly for search engine optimization purposes.  The task is labor intensive but important.  

Blogger makes it easier to resize photos.  I have not gotten the hang of that yet in WordPress.  I am still familiarizing myself with the WordPress dashboard.  I still have to "master" to Pinboard temnplate as well, but that will come over time.  

I love the Pinboard template and it is FREE.  There are literally thousands of free WordPress templates so you do not have to buy one.  Out of the thousands of free templates, surely you can find one that you like in case you are thinking of switching.   The spell and grammar checks in WordPress is far superior to the one in Blogger.  As I am going through my posts I cannot tell you how many misspelled words Blogger missed.  Even after you try to go over your own writing you do miss so much.  Or sometimes you mean to write wander, but you write wonder instead.  Well, in WordPress that stuff is highlighted more efficiently.  This post is probably full of writing errors, so please forgive me.  If you are on Blogger try to find a really powerful plugin that catches spelling and grammar errors.  It is so worth it.       

An IMPORTANT word of advice is that if you do think you will end up making the switch, do it before your blog gets even bigger.  The more posts and pictures you have the bigger the switch project will be.  I can understand why some people pay professionals to do it for them.  I had over 500 blog posts and many, many, many, many pictures.  Besides going through all the posts to re-tag, categorize, fix spelling and grammar, I also have to fix many of the photos in the posts.  For example there are huge spaces between photos and also the text paragraphs.   I am also fixing the links on the new pages because right now they are taking you back here....LOL   It is an easy fix, but takes up time.

Overall,  self hosting WordPress.org is a lot more robust and I like that a lot.  If you are not interested in having a robust blog than Blogger or WordPress.com is for you.  You can still have a very professional and beautiful blog with Blogger and WordPress.com.  Remember that with Blogger, you don't own your content

I will always hold a special place in my heart for Blogger since it is where I started out.  I will never be a WordPress person who talks bad about Blogger as I have heard many do.  It turned me off a lot while I was blogging on here.  So I promise not to become "one of them".

I hope that you will come on over to my new URL at WordPress.  I also have a personal Pinterest page and a Facecook page for Collar City Brownstone.  You can find the buttons for those on the right hand side of the header.  You can also join me on GoodReads.

 Well, that's all folks.  This is probably my last blog post here on Blogger.  I will see you in my new neighborhood!

Love and Hugs,

Xenia
Collar City Brownstone