Welcome To My Island

At first impression I hated Wordpress.  In fact, when I first installed it to try it out, I poked around for about 5 minutes and came to the conclusion that I hated it.

Why did I hate Wordpress?

• Because I was too used to Blogspot.  Blogspot is simple, and since I had gotten so used to it, the switch to Wordpress was very confusing as everything is setup differently.
• It is much easier to change the layout in Blogspot.  Blogspot has a nice layout editor that lets you add page elements (such as a list of links, a picture, etc.) almost anywhere on the page. To add a page element, all you have to do is drag and drop it into a spot.  Wordpress lets you change the layout of the sidebars easily enough, but when it comes to other areas of the page, it gets a little more complicated. 
• Blogspot lets you easily change templates, just select one, and whala.  In Wordpress you have to download a template from elsewhere and then install it yourself.

Although Blogspot is simple and easier to use than Wordpress, you can do tons more with Wordpress.  I have found that although it may have taken me a few hours to acustom myself with how to use Wordpress, it has been all worthwhile. 

If you wan’t a professional looking blog, Wordpress is a good choice.  It is hard to make a  Blogspot blog have the same amount of functions that is possible with a Wordpress blog.

I thought that I could use Blogspot and just buy a domain for it so that I could get rid of the .blogspot.com at the end and make it look more professional.  What I found was that the domain will only go to your Blogspot blog when there is a www. in front of it.  If someone were to type in http://welcometomyisland.com, it wouldn’t take them to my blog at Blogspot, it would only take them to an error page that we frequently see when we type in a domain that doesn’t exist.  This wasn’t the fault of the company that I bought the domain from either, I was told that this is a problem with Blogger. I frequently leave out the “www.” when I type in a URL because it saves me time, so I realized that to keep a blog on Blogspot and to have a custom domain for it would cause me to lose some visitors to the “www.” problem. 

Overall both services are great.  However, if you want to move to a more advanced blogging program, Wordpress will let you do more and create a more professional looking blog.  I am glad I made the switch.