November 2013
Thoughts on Blogging is a monthly summary of how this blog is doing for anyone interested, topics related to blogging, blog stats and analytics.
This month’s topics:
- Nobody likes to start over again
- The blog
- What are the options outside of WordPress.com
- Of course there are conflicting thoughts!
- Top November blog posts
- How about the old posts published before November?
- Nablopomo
Nobody likes to start over again
But I am contemplating this.
If you are thinking, “Huh? What do you mean by starting over again?”
It means, I’m contemplating a move to http://weliveinaflat.com domain and starting from page 1/blog post 001 all over again, with a new template.
Are you crazy?
Let’s look at the reasons why.
Why move?
It’s kind of necessary if I were to want to monetise the blog anytime in the future. WordPress.com doesn’t really allow it’s users to do affiliate links, product reviews, etc, etc, other than participate in WordPress’ own advertising program it seems.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done the necessary research to know that most blogs aren’t able to monetise at all, let alone newbie blogs like ours. And most monetised bloggers still have a day job, so any income they get from the blog is just nice pocket change.
Still, as long as I’m blogging, it’s always fun to try new things.
The blog
The following chart shows the growth in views and visitors for this blog.
Traffic only started to increase significantly after I started to blog daily. It dipped in August but recovered in the next month. I’m projecting a slight increase in visitors by Nov month end, and a decrease in views. But that’s to be expected since views was artificially jacked up in Oct when the shelter was featured on Gentle Paws Facebook and I had new visitors who went through a number of old pages that month.
That’s 9 months of newbie blogging with some lessons learnt, hopefully to gear up to the next level.
And it’s starting to look silly holding off the move, with an intention to move later if traffic increases to a level that appears worthy of monetising. It just means that I am building traffic to the existing blog which may not move with me to the new blog. Hence, it makes sense to start on the new blog and start building traffic there earlier rather than having to start from scratch again later.
What are the options outside of WordPress.com?
So at this point, there’s 1 of 2 paths that I can take:
- Move to wordpress.org, which is a self-hosted blogging software solution
- Pros
- freedom to use more powerful analytics tools
- freedom to use custom tools and widgets
- greater control over SEO
- freedom to implement affiliate and other advertising links, etc
- freedom over design
- can migrate existing posts and comments over to new blog
- Cons
- have to manage updates to software and widgets, etc yourself
- have to manage site security yourself
- ongoing monthly cost
- loss of links to wordpress community, i.e. traffic from wordpress community
- Pros
- Move to blogger.com
- Pros
- found a template prettier than the current one I am using, hoho~
- freedom to use google analytics
- freedom to implement affiliate and other advertising links, etc
- freedom over design
- more synergy with Google for SEO?
- no software to update
- no monthly costs
- Cons
- less control than wordpress.org over seo
- probably unable to migrate existing comments over to new blog
- less easy to customise than wordpress.org with fancy widgets
- I probably won’t migrate existing content, which really means I will start from scratch -LOL (hopefully with a clearer direction of the content and more polished, well-crafted articles after have done so many draft 1s on this newbie blog)
- a lot more content building work, a lot less traffic with probably another 6 months of work to build back to existing levels
- Pros
- Move to Ghost.org
- This really looks kinda cool but it’s just so immature at this stage being such a new product. Would love to try this when they have templates I can see myself using! But no, not now.
So yeah, those are sort of my thoughts about blogging platforms for the moment, as usual off the top of my head. I’m kind of leaning towards blogger for the moment, simply because there’s this template that’s grown on me, it’s free (I’m such a cheapskate) and I don’t need to worry about server packages and software and widgets security etc, etc. And I’m basically free to experiment all I want without having to worry about breaking even, lol. Come to think of it, we did spend on the URL already….hmmm… I’m rambling because…
Of course there are conflicting thoughts!
Will staying within the limitations of wordpress.com lead to stagnation? Is one question.
Will moving lead to decline of the blog? That’s two.
Of course, any decline will be my own fault, because what I am doing is apparently NOT standing up to the test that is the move and I should probably just go do something else instead… leave blogging to the pros… Haha!
So anyway, looking at the past history of this wordpress.com blog, you know I do things on impulse such as changing the template in July and fiddling with SEO in August. And because I’ve been burnt there, I’ve been good for the last couple months :P and I’m just itching to shake things up a bit, I guess.
Now back to the regular stuff!
Top November blog posts
Top 5 posts for the month by views (last 30days)
Obviously the posts earlier in the month will have more time to accumulate views versus posts later in the month. That said, the following are the most viewed pages written this month (minus the last week).
- Is this photo eerie? Here’s how I did it (Nov 3)
- Re-homed dog abandons bear (Nov 17)
- Why does my dog hump other people/dogs? (Nov 5)
- Miss Harper Lee and I play 20 facts (Nov 12)
- Donna takes her own sweet time (Nov 14)
Top 5 most commented posts (last 30days) (including my own comments cos I’m too lazy to weed those out :P)
Given that views is not a very accurate representation of how popular the posts are relative to one another, comments may be a better way of judging how interesting you guys found the posts to be.
- Is this photo eerie? Here’s how I did it (Nov 3)
- Re-homed dog abandons bear (Nov 17)
- Donna takes her own sweet time (Nov 14)
- Phoneography Weekly: Creepy Crawlies (Nov 11)
- Dog socialisation 1 – what do you think of when you hear the word socialisation? (Nov 13)
Photo posts do very well this month.
How about the old posts published before November?
Three months after the dip in August, and with a total of 308 posts on this blog to date, I’ve started to see a significant increase in search engine traffic against wordpress.com traffic. The old posts do very well when it comes to SEO traffic and in fact get more views than the top posts of Nov!!
Another 100 followers, after the 100 last month. That’s faster growth than blog followers!
Nablopomo
#558
Yup, still blogging every day and if you’ve read through the first part of this blog, you will know the reason why.
And I guess my questions to you are,
– would you visit the new blog if I do move?
– And what sort of content here would you like to see appearing on the new blog?
More than happy to hear any other thoughts/comments/advice on moving or not moving down below in the comments box or over email – weliveinaflat@facebook.com :)
Teepee12
Clueless indeed, I too have stumbled along, learning as I go. I should start over, but that would mean a new name, a new blog … and I don’t think I have the strength of character to deal with it. I know. I’m a wimp.
weliveinaflat
Not necessarily a new name but I’m actually not averse to a new blog… not all the old stuff is good :P and it’s an opportunity to refine it for the better ^___^
Roxy the Traveling Dog
Well, first of all if you move to wordpress.org everything will move with you. No need to start over. And there are templates, and themes galore. I love the one I have because it’s soooo customizable. They only cost you should have is for hosting. And you pay the year, then done till next year. And keeping things up to date is easy. You get a notice that you have updates, click update, and bam…done. Being able to insert code for widgets, blog hop links, all the stuff is a plus for me. And you are still connected to wordpress,com. At least as far as reading other blogs goes. If you go with blogger, isn’t then blogger.com part of your URL?
weliveinaflat
Not if I map my domain to the blogger blog! Honestly, it’s mostly because I haven’t found a wordpress template that I like yet, and I’m not sure how customizable the current theme I am using is, cos in its current version it’s not perfect :p you just made it imperative to go investigate that first before deciding which to move to!!
lensandpensbysally
Oh, I understand your concerns and considerations. I am in a sort of limbo trying to figure out the next step. Please kind up the discussion. Since this week is stuffed with holiday plans, I cannot contemplate the subject. Thanks opening the subject.
weliveinaflat
Sure, we can exchange notes as we go along :)
Kyla
I’m old but I’ve been told that my blog will always be my blog-kylascott.com. Kaci may write it after I’m gone, but it will always be MINE! I upgraded my wordpress.com blog and have my own domain and they take care of all the maintenance. It does what I want.
weliveinaflat
Upgrades still come with limitations though, but its good that your blog will always remain yours… not sure what Kaci thinks about that though!!
Kyla
She’s OK with it.
Will and Eko
There are so many good options to choose from, so there is not necessarily a wrong move in my view. If you make the jump and commit you could make any of these options work for you. That said, I do like the wordpress.org option, especially for retaining visitors. The easy integration from here to there would seem to lend for the most smooth way to bridge the gap. In any case, good luck!
weliveinaflat
Thank you :)
2browndawgs
I know of a lot of bloggers who lost readers once they moved. The thing I absolutely hate is having to type a captcha in to leave a comment. The one thing WP.com does pretty well is to deal with spam.
weliveinaflat
I’m with you on that! Hate it Hate it, that captcha thing. Waste of time.
2browndawgs
Also google+. Can’t comment when the only option is using google+.
weliveinaflat
I remember you said that before… it’s quite silly to restrict people just to google+… probably gets a lot less comment…. I did feel an aversion to disqus…. but that’s just because I don’t like to have multiple accounts and passwords… hence simplest for me is just name and url and I’ll moderate on my end.
2browndawgs
Allowing Twitter and FaceBook comments makes sense, but I agree too many accounts. Google+ stinks because it won’t let me comment in the name of my blog. They need to get with the program. If people using it, would demand a change, it might happen.
weliveinaflat
You need a sizeable number of people demanding for that though. FB agree, have not really seen twitter comments I think.
2browndawgs
I get some from twitter.
weliveinaflat
Good to be all inclusive in general :)
Jessica @ Life with Duke
This drives me crazy! I usually leave the page before I realize I had to do the captcha, so my comments don’t get posted unless I double check! Glad I’m not the only one!
weliveinaflat
Oh no, you’re not. ;)
rubytheblacklabrador
I don’t think the look and feel is as important as you think. I look for something I’m interested in with good photos. Obviously if it looks a complete mess (e.g.. cooking blog with blurred photos) I give it a miss but otherwise I’m not too fussed. I also like the spam control on wp although I moderate my comments anyway. I think it depends what you want out of blogging I guess too. btw I’ve been blogging every day too!!! From a posting point of view I find wp easy and intuitive and too and I’m not too concerned about my appearance (the only thing I’ve really changed is the size of my photos thanks to input from your good self). I reckon you should just move everything to wp.org :)
weliveinaflat
Subconsciously, it will work together to build that overall visual experience! And besides I like things to be pretty, hah! I’m so proud of you for blogging everyday… Haha!!
huntmode
Shudder – I remember all this from when I began my blog. Hats off to you for thinking ahead with ambition and drive. Have you talked to any of the bloggers over at Blogger? Otherwise, I’d got with WP.org if you want that flexibility for ads, etc. May it go well, whatever you decide!
weliveinaflat
Blogger would have flexibility for ads too right? But no I have not talked to bloggers over at blogger… that’s part of the thing about being on wordpress, one seems to start spending more time within the wordpress community and forget that there is a bigger world out there… if that makes sense?
huntmode
I would guess that to be true of any blogging service – you get traffic because you go to theirs and they come to you. I think I went with WP.com because it was easy, I had no desire to fuss with maintenance and I knew I could shift to .WP.org and take my followers with me. You seem far more adventuresome and good for you. I think the tipper would be the population at the service. How many use Blogger vs. WP or whichever you choose. Especially if you want to make money while blogging. Just my two cents – okay, maybe a nickel. ;)
weliveinaflat
Makes sense to me ;) Fussing with the .org version … headache >_<
Jessica @ Life with Duke
I’m so interested to see what path you take! I’m looking to make the switch soon too. I think to wordpress.org from wordpress.com. I’m hoping to do it soon, while the blog is still young, before I have too many readers to worry about losing! I’d definitely continue to read if you moved. I’m just confused about how much it will all cost when I’m done making the move.
weliveinaflat
Cost wise:
I think it’s mainly this two:
1) hosting; usually comes with free domain – monthly cost depends on the webhost; watch out for cyber monday sales perhaps? In a lot of cases the promo price will revert to the usual price in the second year, so you need to factor that in too, probably when you are looking at long term cost.
2) cost to redirect from wordpress to the new URL – if I don’t remember wrongly this is $13
Other costs are optional
– themes – there are free themes and paid themes
– etc, etc