Bernaisesource

Are you ready to take off your training wheels and host your own blog?

If you are like me and have been blogging for at least a few months, you have gotten comfortable with posting and RSS feeds, but now you want the flexibility and functionality that services like blog.com and blogger.com don’t provide.

Changing URLs would put you in good company.  Robert Scoble made the switch to Wordpress last year.  But like with most things I do, I am carefully considering my options. 

When I began blogging, I first started with blogger.com and then quickly switched to blog.com.  I wasn’t sure if I would even like blogging.  But both services were inexpensive, easy to set up (with the help of a friend with sensational IT skills) and even easier to use.  At the time, I didn’t think I needed a “mature blog.”  I was more interested in writing than techno geek stuff.

But my how times have changed, and making the change is more and more likely. I think having my own URL is more professional. Having blogspot and blog in your URL is like having AOL in your email address.  It will also allow me to format my blog the way I want and include features I can't currently offer.

For some advice on changing URLs, I turned to fellow bloggers Todd Defren, head of SHIFT Communications and Liza Barry-Kessler, a colleague at EarthLink who both made the switch.  Todd has a professional blog, and Liza’s is personal.  Their experiences may help you decide what is right for you.

Todd recently left blogger.com and relaunched his blog pr-squared.  He made the switch because he found Blogger to be “slow and glitchy.”  Additionally, he would often see cool features on other blogs that he would want to try, and 7 out of 10 times his IT guru would say, “Sorry, Blogger won’t support that.  I’ll see if I can hack it somehow.”  Since Blogger is a free service, you get what you pay for.  Part of his decision was that a dedicated URL could do more for his agency’s search engine optimization (SEO) results than a Blogger site.

Liza decided to move her blog from a Typepad.com hosted address to her own domain lizawashere.com for the "coolness factor."  She wanted to have more control over how her blog looked, and if she included things liked Amazon Associate product links, she wanted the revenue to come to her instead Typepad.  One of her considerations was finding a more affordable option for hosting her blog.

For Todd and Liza, however, the transition has been mixed. 

Todd “now has a place of his own.”  When he sees a new widget, or wants to create a more appealing interface or design, he doesn’t need to ask permission, hack it, or otherwise worry about it. 

On the other hand, Todd lost the formatting of all old posts – “ugly as sin to look at an old post on the new site.  I could go back and reformat some of the key posts, but honestly I am too busy and (more honestly) I doubt anyone’s looking at ‘em.  The raw content is just there ‘for posterity.’” He also found any trackbacks and links to the old site are “lost” due to the automatic re-direct from Blogger to the new PR Squared site.

For Liza, it is a lot harder to manage her own blog in Wordpress than she thought it would be.  Wordpress's "5 minute setup" took her almost an hour, and she still hasn't succeeded in customizing the blog the way she wants it to be.   

Liza reports that, “I'm not quite ready to give up yet. But the time and energy that getting this blog where I want it to be is going to take a significant investment. And I am considering hiring someone to help me get the look and feel of the blog to a more interesting and customized state.”

For me, part of the hesitancy is vanity.  I have worked hard to build a small readership, and the switch may cost some readers, let alone undermine that all important Technorati ranking.

Todd is making his way back to where he was, but he lost his Technorati ranking, “which was a sad thing to relinquish.”  The new blog (Rank: 25,110 -- 277 links from 101 blogs) has yet to match the Technorati ranking of his old site (Rank: 12,746 -- 432 links from 176 blogs).  

Based on Todd’s and Liza’s experience, I would make the following recommendations for those who want to take off their blogging training wheels:

1. Set it up as part of your own corporate site, or buy a dedicated URL and host it yourself.  

2. If you determine you are serious about blogging, make the switch early. 

3. If you consider making a big switch like this, find a patient IT person if you are not technical.

Personally, I know I should bite the bullet.  I recognize the longer I wait, the more difficult the switch will be.  So don’t be surprised if you come looking for bernaisesource.blog.com and get redirected to another site.

I am curious to hear from others about their feelings regarding blogging services and their experiences with taking off their blogging training wheels.

Let me get back to you.

Technorati Tags: Blog Hosting; Blogging; Todd Defren;