The hardest thing when you are a new blogger is that it can feel like you are writing for an audience of one … usually your mum. Because she’s the only one commenting on your blog.

I do tell people to enjoy those early days where it seems no one is reading because it allows you to develop your voice. But I also do understand that it is both hard and demotivating if you feel your words aren’t moving people to respond in the comments.

So here are five relatively easy ways to get that comment love flowing in those early days.

1. Don’t say everything

If your blog post is too long and too comprehensive, then you’ve probably said everything there is to say on the topic and that means there’s nothing left for your readers to say. Other than ‘great post’. And honestly, I hate when that’s all I can say in response to a blog post – so I just won’t say anything at all (but I might share it on twitter or facebook to show my love!)

2. Ask a question

Yes I know – seems so trite sometimes. But quite often I have read a post and I want to leave a comment … but I don’t know what the author wants to hear from me. If they ask a question though, that makes it very easy.

3. Keep the post short and sweet

This is sort of related to number 1 above, but if your post is long and rambling, then I will start skimming. And once I start skimming, I lose the heart of what you are writing. And then if I lose the heart of what you are writing, then I am less likely to leave a comment at the end. Short and sweet is 500ish words. 750 tops.

4. Comment on other blogs

When you leave comments on other blogs, you usually have the option to drop in your blog address too. Some blogs even have ‘Comment Luv’ installed which also lists the title of your most recent post. I have ‘Comment Luv’ on my blogs and I will often click through to the post of someone who has left me a comment and read their post … and then comment on it if I like it.

5. Join in blog hops

There are lots of blog hops that anyone can join in on. For example Jess at Essentially Jess runs the IBOT (I blog on Tuesdays) blog hop. Every Tuesday, anyone who has blogged that day can link up their post at the bottom and generally speaking, all the participating bloggers visit as many of the posts in the blog hop that they can and leave comments. I would say that joining in blog hops is the fastest and most effective way both to get to know other bloggers and of course, get some comment love on your site.

Now I am going to take my life into my hands and list some blog hops … I can’t list them all so if yours is not on the list below, please leave a note about it in the comments!

• That Space in Between runs a ‘Things I know about …’ blog hop roughly every two weeks.
• Danimezza runs the Aussie Curves blog hop
• With Some Grace runs Flog your Blog Friday
• My Little Drummer Boys runs Wordless Wednesdays
• Kate Says Stuff runs Thankful Thursdays
• Tina Gray Dot Me has My Week According to Instagram
• Maxabella Loves has 52 weeks of Grateful over at Village Voices
• And there are many many more! Dorothy from Singular Insanity has compiled a far more comprehensive list here at Digital Parents (you need to register and login to see it)

SOME UPDATES (251112)

Nikki from Styling You makes a really good point about all of the above in the comments of this post that is worth repeating here: “These are the key things to being involved in the blogging community in a meaningful way. When you get involved it flows back to you and your blog.”

THIS is the core of why the above works when it comes to getting comments on your blog. And Nikki’s point leads logically to the next point a few commenters have made and that is:

“Don’t comment purely for the sake of getting comments back.” Just don’t. The point of leaving comments on other people’s blogs is to be a meaningful part of the conversation and for you to play a meaningful role  in the wider blogging community. If you only comment in a self-serving fashion people will be on to you pretty quickly.

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And that’s it folks.

Are you a new blogger? Have you tried any of the above strategies with good success?

If you’re an experienced blogger, do you have any other suggestions?

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Ok so I am a little late to the party here, but finally I have my wrap up post from the ProBlogger Conference held in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. Oz Blog Hosting were proud to be a sponsor of this event and it was a huge buzz to be in a room with 300 other people that ‘speak’ blogging.

It was also a privilege to put one of A Manifesto for Bloggers in the hands of every person in the room but if you missed out (or weren’t there) don’t despair … just drop your details in here and we will mail one out to you

Back to the conference. There was an abundance of amazing content and wonderful speakers over the course of the two days and there have been many wonderful wrap up posts. A full summary of all these posts are here but I particularly liked Rachel’s wrap ups here and here. Given lots of people have done long summaries I thought I would focus instead on my top 9 takeaways (why 9? It’s because Sarah Wilson says people like odd numbers!):

1. From little things big things grow (Darren Rowse)

Darren made the very salient point that at some stage, every single person in the room wrote their very first blog post. And then their blog grew from there. So in essence, even the very biggest blogs were teeny tiny blogs at some stage.

He also said that it’s easy to never get anything done because in your head you feel everything you want to do requires big chunks of time. Darren encouraged everyone in the room to allocate 15 minutes a day to doing something. Because 15 minutes a day adds up to a lot in a year and from that 15 minutes, big things can grow (one of Darren’s e-books was written in 15 minute blocks).

2. Look for sparks and then fan them into flames (Darren Rowse)

Darren says that sometimes the things your readers respond to surprise you … and if your readers respond in a big way to something, then take advantage of that spark and fan it into a flame. For instance, Darren’s e-book “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” started as a series of 30 blog posts. Readers LOVED the series so Darren turned it into what is now a very successful e-book that never loses currency because new people are starting blogging every day.

3. When creating products, look at what problems your readers have (Shayne Tilley)

If you’re looking to create a products for your readers, start with something that addresses the major problems that they have. For example, Christine from Hair Romance created a product that showed her readers how to create different hairstyles. This addressed the problem her readers had in that they were bored with doing their hair the same way every day.

4. When working with brands you are selling your reach and your influence (Nikki Parkinson)

Many bloggers find it hard to value themselves when negotiating with brands. What everyone has to realise is that in promoting brands on your blog, you are giving them access to a loyal readership that knows, like and trusts you. You are also giving that brand credibility. These are two pretty massive things and should be considered when you’re trying to put a value on sponsored posts and giveaways.

5. Collaborate with brands – don’t be dictated to by them (Mrs Woog)

When working with brands, you know what your readers will and won’t respond to. Don’t let a brand tell you how they want a promotion to work – instead suggest to them the way that your readers will best respond to. If they’re not comfortable with your suggestions you may need to walk away.

6. If you’re not sure what your expertise is – pay attention to the questions you are always being asked (Can’t remember who said this one!)

Everyone is an expert in something. If you’re not sure what your expertise is, take note of the questions you get asked the most. This will tell you what your readers consider you to be knowledgeable about.

7. The best time to start was probably last year but failing that, today will do (Chris Guillebeau)

Nothing more to be said here is there? I think this was the most tweeted line of the whole conference. There is always a better time to start than now, but now is all you have so JUST START!

8. Being really passionate and doing interesting stuff puts you in a good place to take advantage of opportunities (Sarah Wilson)

I totally got this line from Sarah because I was able to take advantage of an opportunity for this very reason. I had written a blog post for Kidspot that got picked up by news.com. Off the back of that news.com story I got asked to do two radio interviews on the topic. For one of the interviews the producer asked if I had anything I wanted to promote. I had just released the first chapter of a book that I am publishing one chapter a month so I was delighted to say ‘why yes I DO have something to promote’. Unfortunately I missed the segue to talk about my book in the interview but that’s a story for another day

9. Generosity and kindness go a long way ie what goes around comes around (Sarah Wilson)

Again – this is one that kind of goes without saying doesn’t it? Since I started blogging I have been the recipient of a LOT of kindness and generosity and I think that is what is amazing about blogging – everyone gets behind each other. So don’t be kind to people ‘littler’ than you just because they may be bigger than you, do it because it’s both cool to be kind, and because kindness makes the world go round

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I would like to thank Nikki Parkinson, Darren Rowse, Bianca Wordley and Eden Riley for permitting me to share their wisdom on this Manifesto

Happy Blogging everyone!

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Jarod and Liz are a husband and wife team based in Hobart Australia, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, they can work with you whereever you are!

Whether your website is about your business, your life, your family or something else entirely, they understand that it needs to represent you inside and out.

Jarod and Liz focus on amazing designs coupled with easy to use navigation and commenting systems. Your website will look great AND be functional!

They specialise in (and highly recommend) self-hosted WordPress blogs, but can design for Blogger, Tumblr and wordpress.com blogs as well.

You can find Jarod and Liz here.

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When you’re new to twitter it’s a bit of a scary place. Everything moves at breakneck speed and it’s hard to keep track of what the heck is going on. It took me three shots at twitter to finally ‘get it’ and now I have to say, it’s my favourite social media hangout.

Despite what many people think, twitter is not somewhere people go just share their most inane of thoughts, it is actually all about the conversation. It’s very hard though to get involved in the conversation (and thus get the best out of twitter ) when you’re new to the hood so here is a bit of a gentle progression for getting your head around it all.

1. Start following people

How do you know who to follow? Well to be honest, this is the hardest bit when you’re completely new. I am fairly sure twitter suggests people for you to follow based on your industry or who you’re friends with on facebook so start there. Another way to do it is to think of major thought leaders or influencers in your industry or interest groups and do a search for their name.

2. Observe

At the start, just sit back and observe. When I first started on twitter I used it as a news aggregator more than anything – and what a great news aggregator it was! I followed a lot of marketing experts and spent a lot of time clicking on the links they shared as they led to really interesting articles. I can’t remember the last time I went to Google looking for marketing articles because twitter serves up all the very latest stuff straight to my stream!

3. Follow the people your people are following

Confused? All this means is, check out who your tweeps (twitter peeps) are following, or having conversations with … and then follow them too. The best thing about doing this is that you’ll start to get a handle on how the twitter conversation works because you’ll see whole conversations come up in your stream, rather than just one side.

 4. Observe some more

The more people you follow, the more overwhelming your stream may get but persist. And feel free to be brutal – if someone in your stream is driving you nuts, then unfollow them. While you are observing, take note of who you like most on twitter and what kind of stuff they tweet. Chances are you will like the people who tweet stuff that is interesting to YOU and very little stuff about themselves. This is the major ‘secret’ of twitter and every social network – the people who are most useful to others are the most popular.

5. Join in the conversation

Once you’ve reached some kind of comfort level on twitter, you can join in a conversation. The easiest way to do this is if someone asks a question and you have the answer. You can reply to them and sometimes (not all the time) they will reply back (their reply will appear in your stream, but you can also check your @ Connect tab to see if you’ve missed a reply). Another way to start a conversation is to tell someone you liked the info in a link they’ve shared. A really simple “thanks for that article, it was really interesting” is nice and let’s that person know you appreciate the things they are sharing.

6. See if you can connect with other newbies

When I first stumbled across all the Aussie bloggers on twitter it felt a little bit like high school –  to me it looked like a lot of people clamouring for the attention of those few that were the ‘in-crowd’, and it was hard not to get sucked into clamouring myself. Somehow I managed to connect with my own little newbie crowd and it was nice to know that if I engaged them in conversation, they would be sure to answer back.

7. Start to share

Once you’re comfortable on twitter you can start to share stuff yourself. I can’t stress this enough – BE USEFUL. I am a writer. I follow and am followed by a lot of fellow writers. If I come across a great article on writing, I share it because I know my writer tweeps are going to like it. Sharing great stuff is what opens the doors for other people to start conversations with you.

The sort of final word

As I mentioned at the top of this piece – twitter is my absolute favourite social media place to hang out bar none. I have made wonderful new friends there and it has allowed me to connect with lots of people who share similar interests to me – people I simply would never come into contact with otherwise. It has also allowed me to connect with thought leaders in my industry and once again, this is just not something I’d be able to do in the real world (being a massive introvert and all).

So as scary as twitter appears, it is well worth persisting with and once you’ve cracked it, I can guarantee you too will become an addict

Some things to note

1. Don’t feel obliged to follow everyone that follows you. Only follow people you think have something of interest to offer you
2. Keep an eye on your @ mentions (these are accessed by clicking on the @ Connect tab at the top of the twitter browsers) as these show you when people are trying to have a conversation with you.
3. When you are tweeting, it’s not about you or your business, it is about being useful to the people that follow you. If you come across an article or a quote or a resource that would be of interest to the people following you, share it.
4. When you are joining in a conversation, it really needs to be a conversation going on right now, not one that started one or more hours ago.
5. Don’t be offended if you reply to someone and they don’t reply to you. For the most part, they are not being rude, they just might have got a million replies to their question and can’t answer everyone.
6. If someone you don’t know sends you a DM with a link in it, don’t click on the link! It is probably something spammy or phishy. Even if someone you DO know sends you a DM with a link in it, think twice before clicking.
7. You can also set up your twitter settings to email you whenever someone @ mentions you or sends you a Direct Message (DM). This is handy if you’re not on there all the time and might miss being included in a conversation.

Want to connect with me on twitter? You can find me at @kellyexeter.

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My brother has recently started blogging and I have been helping him get everything set up. While doing all of this I thought to myself how cool it would be to find out what advice seasoned bloggers would give their newbie selves. So I put the callout to my networks and got some absolute pearls of wisdom. This is everything I love about the Australian blogging community – they are so lovely and supportive!

So without further ado here are 33 amazing tips for new bloggers

As a new blogger, it’s easy to go crazy posting for a week or two, and then run out of post ideas, or energy, or both. Before you start, have a plan of blog posts to write for the first few weeks and spread them out. Allow space for impromptu posts. If you pace your posts and effort, you’ll be more likely to persevere once the initial blogging ‘high’ has worn off!

Tam from Around Here

If you have nothing original to say, then at least think of an original way to say it. Otherwise, you’ll be just another contributor to the web’s cesspit of regurgitated content.

James  from James Bull Consulting

Engage with other bloggers! It is the best way to get readers and forge connections.

Kristen from Wanderlust

Never use a picture you didn’t take or are 100% positive is free for you to use; be super cautious of who you quote – ask permission or don’t write it! And remember that whatever you publish is truly forever. Be sure that whatever you publish will be ok 5 days, 5 months and 5 years down the track. Discussing your toddler’s small peepee is not unheard of in blogland, but you can bet he won’t thank you for that post if he ever runs for Prime Minister

Lisa from Simple Loving Thoughts

Imagine your grandma will read it and post accordingly. Write for yourself. If you write for others, it gets boring really quickly. It also encourages you to continue if you’re the only one reading it for a while! Ask for help and give it where you can!

Twinkle Little Starfish from Natural Aussie Families

When I started my blog I didn’t have a clue how to promote it, I got good feedback from my friends but only 30 or so people were actually reading. I plodded away, enjoying my writing but only posting once or twice a month. My sister encouraged me to join twitter.. I was highly resistant… I found it confusing and overwhelming (the sheer speed at which it operates!)… but through twitter I connected with hundreds of other bloggers, I started to gain my own following… I discovered regular blog hops… a community! Within months my page views jumped from hundreds to thousands and my confidence is growing too! Join twitter would be my number one tip for new bloggers.

Catherine from A Cup of Tea Blog

Add some grit. Even if it’s perfect, people like reading about an imperfect life. I would also add “Learn technique”. Whether it’s writing, photography or cooking, anchor yourself in one core skill.

Sandra from $120 Food Challenge

Find someone nice that you can ask for help!
David from Click WP

Just do it. Just write and publish. Don’t get caught up in having it perfect before publishing, especially in the early days when no-one will be “finding” it via a search engine. Develop your style as you blog and get confident with your writing style.

Nikki from Styling You

Just play with it. You can’t really break anything! And it’s the one way to feel comfortable. It doesn’t have to be perfect from Day 1 – it fact it will NEVER be perfect!

Nat from Mummy Smiles

Cliched, but “keep it real” comes to mind. Be mindful of your audience, but don’t compromise your opinions for them.

Kimberley from Melbourne Mum

Do what makes you happy. Blogging is meant to be fun. You are your own person, make your own rules.

Bianca from Big Words Blog

Damn, a lot of my number one tips have been said! My number 2 tip would be to include at least one photograph per post. The eye-candy draws people in!

Nicole from Bitten by the Travel Bug

I’d echo some of the other thoughts on just starting and practicing. That’d be my #1 but because that’s been said….

Be useful. Put yourself in the shoes of someone that you could see reading your blog and ask yourself what they’d find useful… and then write something that fits that.

Make the lives of those who read your blog a little better – by making them laugh, solving a problem, making them feel they are not alone, giving them information that they’re searching for or inspiring them – and you’ll go a long way to building a blog that people will come back to again and again.

[From ed:] I saw Darren mention his blogging mantra on twitter the other day and I thought it was worth a share here as it is pretty cool: “Inform, Inspire Interact – that’s my writing mantra”

Darren from Problogger

Write how you speak, make it a conversation.

Kirsty from 4 kids, 20 suitcases and a beagle

The best advice I could give is to connect with other bloggers (and readers) in whatever ways he can: social media, by commenting on other blogs, responding to comments on his blog, attending conferences and even joining an affordable (but valuable) membership group. They’re all ways that he can learn as he goes along, and at the same time avoid the feeling of isolation that I’m sure many bloggers experience.

Brigid from The Inspired Notebook

Treat your blog like you are standing at the front counter of your ‘shop’ and chatting with the customers. What would you talk to your people about? What would you help them with? What stories would you tell about what you do/offer/make/sell? Write about that. =)

Karen from build a little biz

Have a few blog post ready to go if you are starting a new site.

Nathalie from Easy Peasy Kids

Aim to keep posts to 500 words or less (give or take) and have catchy title and a first paragraph that hooks the reader in.

Linda from Create your own Success

I think that as much as you want to just vomit it all out on to a page, write it, save it in drafts and then go back and edit before publishing. It’s easy to waffle.

Sarah from That Space in Between

Proof reading is dull but important. No one will take you seriously with typos or silly mistakes in your text!

Tonya from The Crafty Mummy

There are so many abandoned blogs and sites out there, where people have lost interest and given up. Or posted three times in a week, then nothing for two months. I’d go with consistency as my #1 tip. Something along the lines of: Even if you feel like giving up, keep going and post regularly. It often takes a while to see the kind of readership you’d like, but consistency is key.

Kris Emery

Just start. You only get good at blogging by doing it. Do it regularly and do it with love.

Christina from The Hungry Australian 

Record yourself talking and then write that down. This is your voice. If you practice enough, you will become more confident with writing your voice.

Dorothy from Singular Insanity

So many great tips – the biggest one which i am sure has been said, but was driven home to me last week doing the SWOT analysis – people read your blog because of you. So don’t follow some formula, or rules, or what you think you ‘should’ do. Be yourself, do what feels right, and natural for you.. and be persistent, they will come

Lyndal from Welcome to the Family

Be yourself and always write from your heart. Don’t be afraid to be yourself, play with it and grow every day.

Renee from The Bra Queen

Something I learnt from the super smart Nicole Avery, think about why you are blogging and what your goals of blogging are …that way you don’t get caught up in comparing yourself to what others are doing

Martine from The Modern Parent

Avoid comparison with other bloggers. You are unique so don’t try to recreate another blog, no matter how much you love it. This often means switching off from absorbing other people’s content when you are writing/creating your own. There is no competition when we are ourselves because simply put, no one else can be YOU!

Belinda from Web Chameleon

A practical one – work out what your tags/categories will be from the start – this will save a world of pain later!

Lee from Mummy Issues

My absolute number one tip would be to pick a niche that you absolutely love and know a lot about. You will soon burn out if you don’t, because blogging takes a lot of commitment and time. You may as well enjoy it while doing it! When you do something you love, consistency and quality of posts and connecting with other bloggers in your niche comes automatically, which are the other requirements of a successful blog. Oh and another really important one: think long and hard about your domain. Brainstorm for hours or weeks if necessary. You need to get something that is short, catchy and clear and that you are really happy with. (Believe me I speak from experience that it’s a total pain to change it after you’ve had your blog for several months…)

Sylvia from 40+ Style

My tip is to set yourself a challenge! When I first started my blog I set myself a challenge to write every single day for three months. I did it and I tell you what, it really helps your writing skills and overcoming fears and perfectionism. Of course you have to stick to your challenge but it’s well worth the effort.

Jedha from Paleo Weight Loss Coach

Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% is good enough (except spell check/proof read – I think this is really important to get right), just get it published and move on to the next post or you can be stuck for days trying to finesse it.

Kylah from Zest E-biz

Write about what you know best in your voice, because you cannot be anyone but you and people are interested in your stories, not copies of anyone else’s.

Denyse Whelan

The final word

I was involved in a GREAT conversation on twitter recently that started when Michaela from Five Frogs Blog mentioned that she never knew what posts were going to hit the mark and which weren’t. There was a resounding chorus that this was pretty normal, a conversation ensued and at the end, Michaela summarised the conversation as below. I think this is a pretty great place to finish up!

..

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Luckily the very clever Louisa Claire from Brand Meets Blog saw the need as well and answered the call.

She wrote a little e-book called How to start a blog – A beginner’s guide and it’s brilliant. Literally every question I’ve ever been asked about starting a blog is covered in there. At $8 I believe it is a no-brainer investment for those of you thinking about dipping your toes in the blogging pond.

One of my favourite parts of the book is when Louisa covers ‘why blog’. I actually crowdsourced a whole lot of answers to this question and the results are in this post. But I really love Louisa’s answer:

At the heart of blogging is relationship; whether your blog is personal or professional the end goal is to connect with others. Blogging enables you to connect with like-minded people from all over the world and form cyber communities that offer support, encouragement and fun.

I couldn’t agree more. The number one thing I love about blogging is the chance it has given me to connect with like-minded people. I have become friends with some wonderful people through all my various blogs – people who I would otherwise never have come across in real life. I consider that a huge gift!

So back to Louisa’s book. After despatching the ‘Why blog’ question with aplomb, she moves on to such essentials as:

• How to name your blog (very important!)
• Blogger vs WordPress (she breaks down the pros, cons and technical aspects beautifully)
• Setting up your blog
• Five things every blog needs
• How to find readers (most asked question in blogging!)
• Tip and Tricks for successful blogging
• So as you can see – very comprehensive yet easily digestible. I’d highly recommend this little e-book to anyone thinking about taking the plunge or even for those of you who might have recently started a blog but feel like you are operating in the dark!

And if after reading Louisa’s e-book you still have any questions about blogging – feel free to come back here and ask them!

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Adding an image into a WordPress sidebar isn’t the easiest thing in the world as it involves a few steps and also a bit of mucking around with code. Once you’ve done it a few times however it becomes much easier and you will enjoy the control you have over the look and feel of your sidebar.

Before we start I will assume that your image has already been re-sized to fit neatly in your sidebar. If it hasn’t, you will need to do this first because inserting a 3MB, 600 pixel wide image into a 200 pixel wide sidebar isn’t going to do your website any favours

Step 1: Upload your image

1. In your WordPress admin menu go to Media > Add new:

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2. Upload the image from your computer

3. Once the image is uploaded, don’t close the Add Image window as you need to copy the image url as indicated below:

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Step 2: Insert the code into the sidebar widget

1. In your WordPress admin menu go to Appearance > Widgets:

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2. Expand the sidebar you want your image to appear in. In my case it is the Primary Sidebar

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3. Drag a text widget into the sidebar and add your code {I will outline what code you need to use in the next step}

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4. Click to save changes. Your image should now appear in your sidebar.

Step 3: What code should I use?

1. If you just want to show the image and are not concerned about linking it anywhere or aligning it use:

<img src=”THE FULL IMAGE URL THAT YOU COPIED IN STEP ONE“>

Using my image as an example:

<img src=”http://ozbloghosting.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MY-IMAGE.jpg“>

2. If you want your image to link to a webpage:

<a href=”FULL URL OF THE WEBSITE YOU WANT TO LINK TO” target=”_blank”>
<img src=”THE FULL IMAGE URL THAT YOU COPIED IN STEP ONE“>
</a>

Using my image as an example:

<a href=”http://ozbloghosting.com.au/?p=133″ target=”_blank”
<img src=”http://ozbloghosting.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MY-IMAGE.jpg”>
</a>

3. If you want your image to appear centred in the sidebar:

Simply add <div align=”center”> above all your code and </div> below all your code

For example

<div align=”center”>
<a href=”http://ozbloghosting.com.au/?p=133″ target=”_blank”
<img src=”http://ozbloghosting.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/MY-IMAGE.jpg”>
</a>
</div>

NB: If your website breaks

It is most likely because you have forgotten to put in the </div> code after the image code.

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Now here’s a question I see people throwing around a lot in the blogosphere: Do I really want to move from blogger to WordPress? (Note, for the purposes of this post, when I say ‘Wordpress’, I mean the self-hosted version, not wordpress.com)

As with most things, there is a long and short answer to the above and today I am going to attempt to give a short answer. The VERY shortest answer is a question:

Do you want to own the content on your blog?

If the answer is yes then you need to have a self-hosted WordPress blog because with blogger, Google owns your content. If Google decides it doesn’t like something in your content then Google can and will press ‘delete’ and the first you will know about it is when your blog doesn’t exist anymore. Oh. My. Goodness.

Other reasons you might want to move to self-hosted wordpress:

1. You treat your blog like a business and generate income from it – whether this is through off-blog or on-blog methods
2. You want greater control over the look and feel and functionality of your blog
3. You want to be able to run competitions or promotions without worrying about whether you are breaking an obscure Google rule that no-one knows about
4. You want to be able to easily create static information pages (like about us and contact us) more easily

Reasons why you might want to stay with blogger

1. You don’t like change. I will be 100% honest and say that it takes a while to get your head around how WordPress does certain things. So if it took you a while to get your head around blogger, then you will get really annoyed having to re-learn how to do certain things in WordPress!
2. You don’t want to give up Google Friend Connect (Google stopped allowing WordPress blogs to display Friend Connect earlier this year)
3. It wouldn’t phase you a bit if you lost all your blog posts because of a glitch at the Google end.

Things you need to know if you do make the move

1. There is a bit to it. You CAN do it yourself (here’s a great guide that takes you through the process) but it is better to pay someone to do for you.
2. You may not able to get your sidebar to show things in exactly the same way in WordPress as it does in blogger.
3. If some posts have more than 50 comments, all the comments from that post may not come over.
4. If you have used two or more commenting systems over time (ie the blogger native commenting system and DISQUS) then you’ll have to choose whether you bring your DISQUS comments over or your blogger comments.
5. While all your old posts and most of your comments will get brought over to the WordPress site, all your photos will stay at blogger. They will appear in your WordPress posts, but they will be referenced from your blogger site. So you won’t be able to delete your blogger site.

So there you go – hopefully these give you some logical reasons for whether you should stay with blogger or not rather than wading into the emotional debate about which platform is better!

Have you made the move from blogger to WordPress?

How did you find it? Did I miss any important pros, cons or problems in the above?

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Tiny Antelope is a digital marketing agency based in Melbourne. Besides an adorable logo, they also have many years of web development and design experience across a huge range of industries. They also have their very our own award winning blog!

So much bloggery. Let them help you with yours.

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