A blogger who prefers Wordpress

Yesterday, I received an email from a blogger I featured a while back for his company Carolina Adirondack. The furniture company uses Typepad to create a blog that is used to display the company's products. Kevin indicated that he wasn't 100% satisfied with Typepad and was strongly considering switching to Wordpress.

Wordpress has always been #2 on my list of blog platforms. It's a great platform to use, and those that are using it genuinely seem to love it. As Kevin mentions, Wordpress is "free" while Typepad runs $15/month for the souped up version with all the bells and whistles.

For a business, I would consider $15/month a non-issue, so what are the advantages of running Wordpress? For Kevin, his main concern is working with photos on the blog. Carolina Adirondack is a unique blog in that it does not contain frequently updated posts, rather it is used more as a standard "traditional" website. Kevin wants a format that allows him more flexibility and ease of use with these photos. He may well find a better format with Wordpress.

Also, Kevin isn't too worried about SPAM hitting his blog. The comments feature is turned off on Carolina Adirondack, so there is no need to be concerned with how well the blog platform deals with SPAM. Typepad is really excellent with filtering SPAM from both the comments and the trackbacks and is one of the main reasons I suggest going with Typepad when you first create your blog. But lets give someone else a say today. Here is Kevin's email which he graciously agreed to let me post on PJ:

Hi Brian:

Just ran across your post about my blog at Carolina Adirondack (www.adirondax.com). (I was looking in my stats and saw that someone had visited my site from your blog.) This line caught my eye: "You might be wondering why I'm featuring a blog that is rarely updated, doesn't tell you much about the company, includes only a handful of posts, and lacks most of traditional blogging conventions." It was a gentle rebuke, but I liked it nonetheless!

You are absolutely right about blogging and e-commerce. I think blogging is the way to go for a small business like mine. When I was more active on the blog, my page rank was pretty high and still is in some search combos. But I think Typepad is a bit problematic as a blogging platform, and I'm considering a move to Wordpress in the near future. You might want to consider doing the same and expand your consulting services to that platform as well.

I say this because it took more than a "minimal amount of effort" to get my site set up on Typepad. I began with a multimedia template to take advantage of photos, but the photos in the right column were deleted after 30 days in TP by default. (I discovered this when I went to the site after a month's absence and found that all the photos were gone. An unpleasant discovery.) So I had to rework a standard template based on the multimedia template and put a table in the right column with photos populating the cells in the table. This table also allowed me to retain some control over the photos I uploaded. Using TP's upload service meant that I couldn't get access to the files on the TP server. I didn't know how to hack TP and wasn't interested in learning.

I'm seriously considering Wordpress because it gives you the ability to create static pages easily (something I'd like to have), posting is much faster (doesn't republish everything--not that I post enough to complain about that)and there are lots of templates available that can be tweaked to get the look you want. And it's free! It comes in two flavors: (1) A free-hosted blog that doesn't give you access to templates, and (2) a free downloadable version that can be run on the webhost of your choice. If you opt for number 2, you still have to know some HTML and CSS but it's not difficult. Of course, you may know all this. I've been playing around with it awhile and like it a lot.

My site has a lot of potential and I'd love to post more but I've got my fingers in too many pies at the moment. I could say a lot more about the shop, the designs, the building process, interesting customer requests, interesting projects, etc... when I have more time . . . .!!!

Still, I thought you might be interested to know a little more about the blog.

Cheers and good luck with your business.

Kevin Morton
Carolina Adirondack

Comments

[Jim Durbin]

Hacking Typepad takes skill, but the question is if you are going to use a blog as your main platform, should you host Movable Type instead of using Typepad?

We're big fans of the Typepad platform because once you get it, it has a lot of features you can use before you customize it. For blogger that like to tinker, I think Typepad helps maintain a more professional look.

That said - there don't seem to be many people that are both Wordpress and Typepad experts. It must be a MAC/PC thing.

[Brian Brown]

Thanks Jim for the comment and I like the Mac vs. PC comparison

I have found that Wordpress is like a "beta" version of a program with Typepad being the "stable" version. Typepad has less features overall, but those features tend to work more consistently and take far less technological skill to implement.

If you consider yourself a geek, by all means look into Wordpress. If not, I would suggest giving Typepad a try. Both platforms will give you a very professional looking blog that works, though I'm still skeptical at the SPAM filtering capabilities of Wordpress...Typepad's are top-notch. Typepad is also totally free for 30 days. That's plenty of time to see if it will accomplish everything you would like to do.

As for Movable Type, I would suggest this only if a company is large enough to devote an employee specifically to writing the blog and maintaining the website. It's a big program and a lot of work, and I feel it's a bit overkill for most small businesses.

[Dawud Miracle]

I'm a die-hard WP user. I love it. I love its flexibility and expansion.

Spam is not an issue - just use Akismet. It has stopped all my spam and caught maybe 1 in 100 legitimate comments.

If you're serious about blogging, I would do a hosted solution - Dreamhost is $10 mo or less, has a huge hosting package and a one-click install for WordPress that is quite literally two, very benign, steps.

You'll find a tremendous number of WordPress themes. And with plugins you can expand WP til the cows come home. If you're blogging on a different platform, WordPress even has an import feature - which I've used a number of times for clients and have never had a problem with.

I could go on and on. Basically, WordPress is a one-stop, do-all solution for any blogger's needs. Beginning, growing or A-Lister - WordPress will handle whatever you need.

[Brian Brown]

Thanks Dawud!

With that info, we can compare Wordpress with Typepad pretty well. WP=$10/mo vs. TP=$15/mo. Again, WP has more features, but there is a little "geekatude" involved with playing with templates...not that there isn't any with Typepad, but I have found TP to be a bit more user friendly for novices.

One comment I would like to make about features, while WP has more features, I believe TP has ALL the features a good small business blog should contain.

Finally, both blog platforms are widely used for bloggers of all types, not just business bloggers. But...I would say that Typepad is definitely going after the small business market for blogging, they are catering to it, and it looks like that's where their focus is. I'm not sure if this will result in any added benefits to business bloggers in the future, but I do like their intensity into this area.

I will say Jim's comparison of Apple vs. PC seems accurate, as your WP passion sounds to me just like a member of the "Apple Cult." That's not a bad thing.

Speaking of which...I have to go sync my iPod now.

[sara]

Interesting comparison... I have been blogging as well as setting up blogs for clients for a while now and haven't really seen the rivalry between Typepad and WP.

What I think it comes down to is what suits you..kind of like a religion :)

Different things work for different people and personalities. I personally prefer WordPress as I am THAT geek and I LOVE the support for it.

[eljefe]

As someone who runs his company AND blogs his company, I appreciate that Typepad is as easy to set up and use as it is. My big hurdle with WP is the learning curve - I wish I had that kind of time. I do participate in a WP blog for another company, and I find that the SPAM filtering even with Akismet is not nearly as good as Typepad.

On the other hand, posting multiple pictures to Typepad frustrates the heck out of me! Look at my Feb 18 post for an example. I just want to flow text around multiple pictures and I have to play serious games to have it look not less yucky. I know I could upload HTML tables, but the reason I use a blogging platform is to avoid that extra time and effort...

[Brian Brown]

Here is the link to El Jefe's Feb 18 post.

I think you have inspired me to write a post about photo formatting. Look for it later today.