March will mark eight whole years of blogging for me. EIGHT. YEARS.
I started The Active Spirit (TAS) as a creative outlet (more details in this post), and now it feels more like an online journal than a creative hideaway. The hobby took off as an actual career for many people in the mid-2010s, and everyone left blogger/blogspot for the likes of Wordpress and Squarespace. I'm still here hanging out on Blogger, and I have no plans to leave any time soon. Here's why:
Ease of Use
Blogger is connected to all my Google accounts. I don't need a special login to access my page, and it's connected to my Google photo library which makes it even easier to share pictures here. Also, in eight years and over 500 posts, I have yet to run out of cloud storage space.It's Free
This is a hobby for me, not a career path. I am not a professional blogger by any means. While I have paid money to invest in TAS (templates, photo editing software, etc.), I do not see the point in paying a monthly/yearly fee to actually use a blogging platform.Cheap Domains & Custom Email
One of the things I really cared about when I first started blogging was having my own domain. I didn't want ".blogspot" in my URL. Purchasing a domain made me feel like I was taking more ownership of my site and my content. For $10 a year I get a custom domain and a custom email address that I can use for all blog communication. I like keeping those kinds of messages separate from my personal email address. If everything was in one place in my inbox, it would feel cluttered, and I'd be far less likely to respond to messages.Porting Content is Tedious
I'd be lying if I said I never thought about switching to another platform. Squarespace is very enticing with their simple templates and drag-and-drop layouts. It would be nice to design this site myself instead of paying a designer each time I want to give this space a facelift. But then what about all my old posts? And the old comments on those posts? I definitely don't want to lose them, but the idea of transferring years worth of content sounds tedious at best and expensive at worst. No and thank you.Nobody Cares What Platform You Use
At the end of the day, people read blogs for a variety of reasons - none of which are the hosting platform. I've never clicked on someone's blog and clicked away because it was on a certain platform. If the content is engaging, if the pictures draw me in, if the writer's voice shines through, I'm staying around and clicking all over the place! Nobody really cares what site I use to publish my content, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
photo source »»
That's true, no one cares what platform you use! I started on Tumblr because I was already using Tumblr (just for reblogging memes haha), then Tumblr blocked Bloglovin' for a hot sec so I switched to Blogger, and two years into blogging I decided that this wasn't a phase and I could see myself doing this for fun for awhile, so I wanted to get my own domain, and at the same time there was a blog template that I liked, but it was for Wordpress, and from what I observed, it seemed like the majority of Wordpress themes looked cleaner than Blogger themes (at least the ones I came across), so I switched to Wordpress. After using it for a bit, I realised I preferred Wordpress' dashboard over Blogger's, so that was great for me haha. All that said, I don't think I switched to Wordpress for strategic reasons but just for personal preference, and I didn't mind putting some money into it.
ReplyDeleteBut it's hard to beat your $10/yr investment, and your template is beautiful :)
thank you, Audrie. :)
Deletehonestly, if i saw a template i loved that much, i'd probably would've switched too. at this point though, i've invested too much over here, so there's no good reason. that being said, i do wish blogger would update their interface. the dashboard is very outdated, and posting on mobile is a huge pain in my side.
I wouldn't be able to tell that you are using blogger unless I was leaving a comment. Is that just me being ignorant? haha
ReplyDeleteAt the end of the day, you are right, no one cares what template you use, it all comes down to your personal preference. For me, I first created my professional portfolio on Wordpress, because they had taught us a bit in university, and it meant that I knew how to adjust the CSS on my own (I am a web designer, so the look of my portfolio really mattered). After that, creating my blog on the same platform seemed like a no-brainer. I already know how it works, so why make it complicated? I am a bit jealous of how cheap your domain is, though haha
xxx
Isabel
https://isabelstories.com/
these reasons make perfect sense! i’m clearly showing my age by saying i learned HTML in college, haha. i’m not even sure CSS was a thing at the time. i am not fluent in that language, but if i were, i’m definitely be more coding curious.
Deletei love the way your blog looks, though. so clean and streamlined.
Sometimes I wish I had stayed with Blogger for the many reasons you listed. The only reason I switched over was because there was a period of time in the blog world where I kept hearing stories of bloggers getting their blogs shut down by google and losing all of their content and site control - it scared me and I switched to wordpress with a quickness lol. But honestly, looking back objectively now, I think I would've been just fine if I had stayed with blogger. C'est la vie. xo
ReplyDeletei vaguely remember that, but i don’t think i had enough published content to actually care. if they same issues presented today, i’d be way more tempted to jump ship!
DeleteI wish I waited and was more patient with understanding blogger. I'm not sure what I was looking for and no one really cares what platform is used. I just opted for word press and to say the least I'm not happy at all. but I'm also not porting again, I can't be bothered lol.
ReplyDeleteyeah, porting content is too big a headache to switch platforms. the only way i'd move to a different medium is if I were starting all over from scratch. also... come back to your blog, ma'am. your readers miss you!
DeleteI use Blogger, too - for going on 12 years now! People are weirdly SO judgmental when they learn that I still use it, but I find it to be so easy to use, so convenient, & so adaptable. Why would I change if I didn't need to?!
ReplyDeletewow, 12 years! that's an achievement for sure. the only thing i wish blogger had was better mobile options. if I could blog on the go, i'd post way more often.
DeleteHello. Reading your post about Blogger made me happy for some reason, I've been blogging since 2009, but since that year, I jump shipped from Blogger to Tumblr to Multiply (!!!!!) to Wordpress to Tumblr and Blogger. It was tedious. So really, what I really want to say was, thank you for this post and I hoped I could stay with Blogger the same way you did. Hehe.
ReplyDeletePS. I love your theme <3
https://www.zellefrancisco.com/