BlogCastGirl

Comparing Blog Platforme #9: Pros And Cons Of TypePad (For Now)

2007-12-19T10:50:26-08:00

This post lists four pros and four cons.

Reasons to Choose to TypePad (Today)

Can Experiment With Adsense. I want to experiment with monetizing, and Wordpress.com doesn't allow ads or affiliate marketing. To Monetize on Wordpress, you have to implement Wordpress.org. And, last but not least, my Google Adsense approval came through today on blogcastgirl.com, and I want to see how it works.

Wordpress.org Is Tough To Manage. After all of my success with Wordpress.com, Squarespace.com and Typepad.com, I decided to try implementing Wordpress.org. I figured that I was a big girl and it couldn't be that difficult, could it? Yikes! It is crazy complicated for someone who either (a) Doesn't have any experience coding, or (b) Doesn't want to code. I fall somewhere between (a) and (b). And since I am still finding my way, I can get very nice functionality with either TypePad or Squarespace without hiring a herd of techies to manage the site for me.
SquareSpace Has Been Unpredictable. While I love the SquareSpace interface, it has crashed on me a couple of times. That makes me nervous on a couple of fronts. First, it may crash when potential readers try to use the site. Second, it makes me wonder if they might lose my whole site sometime.
TypePad Has Nice Post Continuation System. Notice how this post started on the first page and is continued elsewhere? It is called post continuation on TypePad, and it is part of the "advanced" editor. You have to turn it on to get it. Post continuation is a great marketing tool for two reasons.

(A) It enables the reader to quickly see several topics at a glance.

(B) It creates a microconversion, which is when the reader clicks-thru and makes a minor commitment to reading more.

Reasons I'm Not Thrilled With TypePad (Or Would Prefer WordPress)

Huge Wordpress Support Community. The Wordpress community is HUGE, and it is self-supporting. Wordpress bloggers seem to like to blog on Wordpress blogs.
My Wordpress.Com Blog Has Traffic. At this point, most of the traffic (other than myself) is on my Wordpress.com blog. The search engines seem to find it. The Wordpress folks attribute this to its SEO optimized code (see Pearsonifications for a lot of commentary on that point).
No Horizontal Navigation on TypePad. Horizontal navigation can only be had with a customized TypePad blog, which means that I would need someone to code and manage stuff again. If I'm doing that, I'll be going to Wordpress.
Code May Not Be SEO Optimized. I ran the TypePad site through a code checker. It failed. Not being a techie, I don't really know awful this is, but you can read what BloggingExpertise.com has to say about this. Their point is that search engines don't do well with flawed code, therefore reducing the number of people who find your site. Your input on this is welcome.

Comparing Blog Platforms #8: Domain Mapping Is Easy On TypePad

2007-12-18T21:38:22-08:00

See the 2008 Blog Comparison Challenge posts #1 to #7 here.

-------------------------------

Well, it's official: you can now find this blog on www.blogcastgirl.com. I now have my own domain...and therefore my own "brand."

It was a pretty easy process. The TypePad Knowledge Base had some great screenshots that walked me through the domain mapping process at GoDaddy.com. I bought the domain before I started the BlogCastGirl Challenge, it just took me a while before I decided which platform to map to.

After considerable hemming and hawing, I decided to map to the TypePad site instead of Wordpress.com site for several of reasons. I'll post those reasons separately.

Comparing Blog Platforms #5: TypePad Leading By a Nose

2007-12-14T14:58:47-08:00

The 2008 BlogCastGirl Blog Platform Challenge continues in my quest to find the system that anyone can understand.

So far, I've built blogs on Wordpress.com, TypePad.com and Squarespace.com. <<And yes, it is getting a little wacky working in three editors. I don't plan to continue this much longer.>>

Blog Platform Challenge So Far: Typepad Leading

Here is a summary of the results so far. TypePad is in the lead for general useability and promotional support. The next test is building ads and affiliate programs into the blog (Wordpress.com excluded), and after that I'm going to check out how much support each platform has for customizing pages.

Part #1: Wordpress.com
Part #2: Wordpress.com v. Typepad
Part #3: More Wordpress.com v. Typepad
Part #4: Squarespace v. Wordpress.com & TypePad

Today was my first blog on Squarespace.com, and I'm sorry to say that it didn't go smoothly. I love the concept behind Squarespace of it being a more professional resource with which to host your website AND blog. However, the jury is still out with me regarding whether it will meet that self-imposed expectation.

Specifically, their home page says this: "Our software helps discerning individuals build stylish, easy to manage websites complete with state-of-the-art blogging tools." They are right, the look and feel is definitely stylish, and they have some great features like help-type information displayed simultaneously with menu items. But...it seems a bit slow. At least it was today, and on some other days that I have clicked around on Squarespace-hosted sites.

Slow isn't good. It makes building the site a pain, and it chases away visitors with short attention spans. Perhaps it's just my connection today, so I will continue to test and report back.

Anyone out there have an opinion on this?

Comparing Blog Platforms #3: Typepad v. Wordpress.com

2007-12-13T12:49:03-08:00

Welcome to my big experiment comparing blog platforms to find the one that anyone can understand. I started this blog over on Wordpress.com, and you can see Part #1 and Part #2 at www.blogcastgirl.wordpress.com.

Today, I built my first blog on Typepad.com. Here is a five-point comparison of the two platforms.

FIVE POINTS OF COMPARISON

Free Wordpress.com v. Pay Typepad
Time to First Blog: 10 Minutes on Typepad v. 1 Hour on Wordpress.com
Editing Interface Is Similar; Publishing Differs; No Emoticons or Undo Button on Typepad
Help and FAQ: Typepad Wins By a Nose
Domain Mapping: Available With Both Platforms

1. Free Wordpress.com v. Pay Typepad

Wordpress.com is a free blog, while Typepad.com charges a monthly or annual fee. I'm trying Typepad on its "14-day free trial" basis. I chose the Plus $8.95 service (second from the bottom) so that I could have multiple blogs, advertising, and domain mapping.

>>Why pay? Both the free and pay services include the web ware, hosting, and support required to maintain a blog online. There is one big difference: advertising.

If you want to monetize your blog--run ads or affiliate programs--Wordpress.com doesn't allow it. This information isn't in any obvious location on their site, but it is very clear in their FAQs that they don't cotton to blatant commercialism. They target business and personal users who are using the blog to deliver information to their readers, not advertising and products.

2. Time to First Blog: 10 Minutes on Typepad v. 1 Hour on Wordpress.com

My first metric of comparison is how long it takes to get to the first blog. In my mind, time-to-first-blog is composed of four steps.

Creating an account
Choosing a blog title
Choosing a theme or template
Starting (not finishing) my first post

>>Getting Started on Typepad: 10 Minutes

I have to say that I am impressed with Typepad so far. It has been much easier to get to the "first blog" than it was with Wordpress.com. The login screen whisked me from account creation, to choosing a blog title and theme, to composing my first post in less than ten minutes. It would have been less, but I couldn't resist looking at the various theme choices despite my personal resolve to just get on with it.

>>Getting Started on Wordpress.com: 1 Hour or More

Now, to be fair, I cut my teeth poking around on Wordpress.com's menus, and so I was a smarter user when I logged into Typepad. But the point is: I didn't need to know the process. Typepad took me through these first three steps automatically. There was nothing for me to figure out. Wordpress.com presented me with a "dashboard" menu embedded with a lot of other menus in the middle of the page. It took me a while to figure out which menu held the keys to the castle. (Everyday people need neon signs that say "click here silly" in order to know where to begin).

On Wordpress.com, I had to click around to find the things that I was looking for. As a result, I got side-tracked a lot in areas that I nothing to do with the four steps that I outlined above. Sure, I learned a lot, but for an everyday person, this is pretty frustrating. For less persistent/analytical folks then me, it would be a show-stopper.

3. Editing Interface Is Similar; Publishing Differs; No Emoticons or Undo Button on Typepad

The editing interface looks very similar between Typepad and Wordpress.com. I learned how to create turn text into links back on Wordpress, and the process is similar here.

>>Publishing Differs Between the Systems

One gotcha for the everyday person: Typepad handles publishing differently than Wordpress.com.

In Wordpress.com, there was a "save" button and a "publish" button. This enables me to save drafts as I go, and it isn't published until I press "publish."
In Typepad, there is a "save" button that relies on the "posting status" drop box to either save the post as "draft," "publish on," or "publish now." If it is on "publish now," your post goes out to the world when you press "save." I did this by accident, then changed the "posting status" to "draft," and the post was removed from my page.

>>Like The Emoticons (And Special Characters) In Wordpress

Wordpress.com translates emoticons (smileys to some of you) into cute little yellow faces. It is a nice way to draw attention to phrases in a post. So far, I haven't found a way to insert either emoticons or special characters like hyphens, trademarks, and copyrights.

>>No "Undo Button" In Typepad

I haven't found the "Undo" button in the Typepad editor. I have to say that I have become quite dependent on it in Word, and Wordpress.com does have this feature. I did a Knowledge Base Search in Typepad and didn't find any relief.

4. Help and FAQ: Typepad Wins By a Nose

The help and FAQ (frequently asked questions) on both sites are great. I am finding TypePad's Knowledge Base Search (their version of FAQ) to be easier to understand. Wordpress.com's FAQs feel a little more like the collection of questions that they are, so the structure is more haphazard and the writing feels techie.

Wordpress.com's tech support is fast to respond. At one point, I wanted to restore the default theme on my blog and I couldn't find it on the list. I submitted a question in the evening, and by morning I had a response from them owning the problem. And, most importantly, it was fixed. I haven't tested Typepad's tech support.

5. Domain Name Mapping On Both Platforms

If you are using your blog for any kind of business or commercial purpose, you should own your domain. In fact, they are so inexpensive, that I think that everyone should have one. Both platforms allow you to map your own domain to the blog, thereby making "blogcastgirl.typepad.com" look like "blogcastgirl.com" to the outside world.

>>Why Own Your Domain?

For business users, owning your domain means that you are driving traffic to an asset that you control. Migrating it later is difficult to impossible.
For casual users, it probably doesn't matter a hoot.

>>Domain mapping is inexpensive on both platforms. Both give you the option of purchasing the domain through them, and both walk you through the process. I can't compare the ease of use, since I haven't done it yet. But if you want to own your domain, it is important to have this option.

On Typepad, this service is included in the $8.95 per month Plus account.
On Wordpress.com, you can purchase an upgrade for $10 a year (a bit more if you need to buy the domain).