Bye bye blogger!
The more observant among you, in fact anyone with eyes in their heads, will notice that my blog looks a bit different. Cooler, slicker, more professional. Ace, in fact.
Those of you who are bloggers yourselves will recognise what’s gone on here. I’ve waved a fond farewell to ‘blogger’, which has served me well for over two and a half years and have gone all fancy and ‘WordPress self-hosted’.
The cool kids have always used WordPress. Their blogs look slick and move in a slick kind of way. I’m not one of the cool kids. In fact I was always quite proud in a strange sort of way to have a blog which looked a little bit past it, but which was still fairly popular and could make it all the way to the finals of the MAD Blog Awards. Twice.
A bit like when I used to run in £30 trainers, a faded band Tshirt and some Tesco joggers. But then you realise you’re not a Tesco jogger kind of person. You’re a runner. You need running gear.
Well I’m a blogger. And I needed a decent blog.
I’d always been scared of crossing over to the dark  light other side. Because I’m a technophobe. I can’t do stuff on the internet. I also liked the fact that a fair few established and well-respected bloggers, like Chelsea Mamma Stressy Mummy and Rock ‘n’ Roll Mum were also on blogger. But then one by one they suddenly changed over to WordPress and I wondered what the big deal was.
Apparently it had got to the point where some companies won’t work with  blogger bloggers. Not that that’s really an issue for me as I mainly just write about sweets.
And I used to get way too much pleasure out of looking at my stats. I loved the milestones – the first time I hit 100 views a day, then 200, 500… Then on Boxing Day I hit 1,400. That wasn’t right. And I realised my blog was just being hit by spammers. I was getting spam comments on email approximately every three minutes. I gave up looking at the stats, but last time I glanced at them I noticed they were up to 5,000 a day. With about 10% of them being real.
It was time to change.
Obviously I couldn’t do it myself because I’m a total technophobe. There would have been tears and irrational behaviour. It wouldn’t have been pretty.
So I got in touch with the amazing Geek Fairy who redesigned my blog AND switched it over from blogger to wordpress! I didn’t know what I wanted. All I knew was that I wanted to keep my roadsign, which a former colleague designed for me way back when I started blogging and I still love it.
It took a while. Some Internet Stuff got lost Doing Internet Things. In Cyberspace. (Not Geek Fairy’s fault, just one of those Mysteries of the Internet.) But here it is!
And I love it! I hope you like it too.
And it looks amazing! And I’m jealous! Tell me, do your email followers have to sign up again? Do you lose your blog lovin followers? I’m so tempted to move but I do like the design of my blog. It would just be going self-hosted and not changing much else. Yours looks great 🙂
In answer to all of those questions, Suzanne, I don’t know! I haven’t changed my address, so hopefully not, but I’m working things out bit by bit. Glad you like it 🙂
Hi Suzanne – you don;t lose your Bloglovin followers, you just need to update your new RSS feed in the settings on Bloglovin when you move 🙂
Well done you! I need to do this but am too scared! Will have to sort myself out. Soon – ish x
Thanks, Louise. I wasn’t going to do it, then all of a sudden I decided I had to do it! I normally ponder something for months before taking the plunge, but the spam was driving me insane!
Yes I noticed and I love it,
I’ve got word press blogs but can’t get into google apps to transfer my domain name so stuck with blogger and it p###rd me right off
Xxxxx
Thanks! Glad you like it, Dawn! That all sounds very annoying! I have no advice because I’m a total technophobe!
Hi Dawn – I recently solved this issue for a client – try logging in with dawn@stonepitcrafts.com and the password you used for blogger/google. Or if not Dawn the user name you use.
(sorry if you’ve tried this!)
Hi Jo, no not tried that one, thank you I’ll let you know, it’s so annoying especially as I paid GO Daddy to transfer it but Google apps won’t play.
A long story, I’ll email and see if you can sort mine out rather than take over Sarah’s blog with my problems.
Thanks again x
Fab! Much easier to read and love that you’ve kept your road sign.
Thanks, Kriss. It is so much easier to read, isn’t it? That roadsign is my identity, I had to keep it! (Although the kids might have to get a bit bigger soon!)
It looks fab, and just over 2 months on since my move over, I don’t regret it at all! You will soon feel right at home! X
That’s good to know, Sonya. I drafted this last night and found it surprisingly easy and I also made some tweaks to scheduled posts, so I think I’m going to be OK! Haven’t added a pic yet, but the clock is ticking on 365 and Silent Sunday, so I’ll have to do that too!
Looks good! Welcome to wordpress. I’m looking at going self – hosted before too much longer. Any tips?
Thanks very much, Dave! I’m afraid I have no tips at all. I really am a total technophobe!
Ive just seen VicWeltons comment on Twitter about your new Look… so I just had to pop over and check it out… I think it looks FAB, Lovely and clean looking… I love the Traffic Signs :)… Ive never used Blogger before, but im on wordpress too and I have the Jetpack Plugin which contains stats. I also use AWStats and then I tende of go in the middle of them both haha 🙂
Thanks, Leanne, glad you like it! That roadsign is my identity and I had to keep it! Good advice about the stats, I’ll check them out!
Very smart Sarah. Happy Blogging. x
I love blogger and although I do use wordpress sometimes i am not sure I will ever change my blog over – but then they all say that don’t they? lol
I’m glad you’re happy over here tho it’s all looking very slick indeed.
Congrats on the MADs finalists too 🙂
I love the new look and although I definitely don’t consider myself remotely cool in any way, I have always used WordPress because I like it. And going self hosted gives you more scope to experiment (not that I’ve done much of that recently!) x
It looks fabulous! Love it. I started on WordPress so haven’t had the hassle of switching, but seems like it’s all gone well 🙂