Sunday, February 10, 2013

Goodbye Blogger, Hello Wordpress

So I have made a big blogging decision and I am kinda scared.  This may mean absolutely nothing to non-bloggers, so I apologize if this doesn't compute but I am making the big switch.  Bye bye Blogger...hello Wordpress!

Let me start at the beginning.  When I first started Mission Decorate I knew nothing about writing, designing, maintaining, all that stuff about a blog.  And for me Blogger was the perfect home.  First of all it is free.  And how was I to know that 306 posts later I would still be doing this.  (Let me say I did purchase my domain name right away, which is why I don't have "blogspot" in my URL.  Which I HIGHLY recommend doing if you are starting a blog and the name is available.  It is maybe $10 a year.)  Blogger was also a good decision because it is very straight forward and easy to figure out on your own.  It has served me very well.

But what began as a side project has grown into something I love, dedicate a lot of time to and truly wish to grow.  And that is why it is time to say goodbye to Blogger and take the Wordpress leap.  There are endless reasons why people prefer Wordpress to Blogger or vice-versa and I am not about to claim to be an expert, but I will say my main driver is design capabilities and plug-in options.  But if you want to read more I thought this post from The Painted Hive is very well written.  I also like this list of pros and cons from Lovin' From The Oven.

So once my decision was made to make the change I then had to decide how I was going to do it.  It is very possible to do this conversion yourself.  There are actually great e-books out there that walk you through it, like this one from Addicted to Blogging.  But in addition to the conversion I was also hoping to get some design help to change the look of MD.  And that is why I decided to seek out help.  I researched high and low, in every price range, offering every service and made the decision to work with Stephanie at Dirt and Lace Designs.

It may sound silly but just committing to someone has been stressful.  Mission Decorate is my baby that I have built from the ground up and it is hard to hand it over to someone even if it is just for a day or two.  And one of the most redeeming qualities about Blogger is that I know how to use it!  I have no idea how to use Wordpress.  I have watched videos and it looks pretty straight forward but eek.  I am pretty computer savvy and I know I will figure it out but it is still scary.

Now I still have some things to do before the big conversion can get started including selecting a host (which is why Wordpress is not free).  But I wanted to keep you all in the loop because although this wont make a big impact on your Mission Decorate reading (hopefully the site wont be down at all during the switch), it will make a big impact on my Mission Decorate writing.  So wish me luck and I will keep you posted on the progress.