5 reasons I’m moving from Blogger to WordPress and how I did it

Visit my new blog at www.coolcatteacher.com.  Here's more about the move...

It is official, I'm moving from Blogger to Wordpress. It has taken almost 4 months but it is as ready as it is going to get. I've powered up the wordpress over at coolcatteacher.com and made the jump from weebly. (nothing against weebly, it is a great place for static sites.)

I thought some of you might want to know why I am moving and also how I did it:

My new blog is on Wordpress using the Get Noticed theme. I've still got some tweaks to do (like the twitter and other icons running across my head on the top right) but it is good enough to make the swap

Why am I moving from Blogger to Wordpress?

First of all, the decision to move is a very hard decision for many reasons. The time it has taken and the learning curve are two big reasons. Plus, it is very easy to really mess up the old site I've spent so much time building.

1. Wordpress has more add ins and flexibility.

I reached the point several years a go that I was having to do a lot of hand coding in HTML on Blogger just to get it do the basics. I even bought 2 different Blogger themes and installed them only to have one break and the other never even work. So, I settled on a standard theme, but I still wasn't pleased with my blogger blog. Images were running off blog post and I found myself fighting at the code level with many posts instead of focusing on good writing. I appreciate all that Google has done with the Blogger platform - it is very stable and has so many great features that are wonderful for beginners. I just got tired of trying to write everything in HTML.

2. I'm concerned about Google's new Terms of Service

Google's new Terms of service   is pretty questionable as it relates to claiming ownership to what you write on your blog. I have a sign by my bed cross stiched by my high school guidance counselor:

"A good name is to be had before great riches."

While it is an easy way to be poor, I guess, it is good advice. With the new terms of service anything written on Google plus (or on the blogger blog as I interpret the TOS) can be used in an advertisement that Google shares using my photo and what I said.

Right now, I'm leaving my content here, but I've imported every post to the new site and if Google makes me take everything down but this post because of some crazy endorsements or something, that is what will happen. To take our faces and "endorsements" and turn them into ads without our consent or fair compensation is over the line and is a slippery slope which Facebook first started when they started showing friends who liked a page. (You can turn off Google's shared endorsements by following these instructions.)

I've been using blogger since 2005. This is a hard move to make, but is one that needed to happen. Moving from blogger to wordpress was challenging but I will show you how I did it.

3. Free can cost you everything: pay for valuable services

Every March, Google pares down on products that don't make them money.  Blogger is free. But there is no such thing is free.

But more importantly, every March, I've started wondering, "when is it going to be Blogger." While it is one of the top blogging platforms - it is free (unless you purchase a domain name) and I have little or no control over outages or problems. There have been times a blog post did extremely well where you might have had trouble getting to the site. Now, I pay for my site and all of that is under my control. Yes, it is costing me money and I'm going to have to hoof it to do some more freelance writing and a tad more advertising, perhaps (not a big fan of ads, just a few).

Free is free. I'm convinced that "free" is an excuse for no customer service and I'm willing to pay for any service I depend upon. I would have paid for Google Reader to stay around as well. But the fact is that if I have a problem on blogger, it is my problem. Google is required to give no customer service and can always argue back "but you're not paying for it - we're giving it to you (wait for it, breathe in) FOR FREE." Gifts don't happen and free doesn't either. Services always cost you something - they always do.

4. Time to move on

I've always resisted the pressure to move "because that is what real bloggers do" just because the traffic on blogspot is so incredibly high. But, there are times you just have to make the move because it is the right thing to do.

5. Coolcatteacher.com won't be blocked in schools like Blogspot

Blogspot blogs are blocked in many schools. Hopefully I can reach more teachers where they are every day instead of having to be read at night or on weekends. That said, many schools depend on the "white list" approach which means someone has to ask for a blog to be read. I'd appreciate if you are one of those people who recommends my blog to others, if you'll check and ask for it to be available at school. Many of you tell me that you do recommend my blog, and for that, I"m very grateful for your trust.

Moving from Blogger to Wordpress in just a few steps

Step A: Purchase domain name and establish ranking in search engines (2-3 years a go)

Read the rest of this post on my new blog at coolcatteacher.com