I’m going to share a story with all of you first. Yes, it’s true, although I hate to admit it.
A few years ago I decided that I needed a website. Not just a template website, but a website that was custom to me. Branded. One that I could call my own. So, I contacted a company that was referred to me by another agent and started working with them. All I can say is CA-CHING! Lots of money. At the end of the design process the designer said “I really think you should sign up for our SEO package”. I’m thinking to myself, what the heck is SEO and why would I need it? I declined the service. I knew absolutely nothing about anything internet, just that I needed a website, right? I was ok with using these designers for everything. After all, I’m a Real Estate Agent not a web designer. It didn’t hit me until I started blogging what SEO was. I then went in to this almost livid state wondering why they didn’t explain it to me back then. What’s the point of designing a site if it is not optimized in the least? My AR blog showed up on Google in 2 days, surely it couldn’t be that hard. LOL.
The popular question for PBII seems to be about platforms. Which platform should I choose? WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com, etc. This post is really just to put my opinion out and share a little of my experience so far with my fellow litter mates that may still be deciding.
I have mentioned that a year ago I started my Blog on a GoDaddy Quickblog. It was easy, showed up well in Google, that is what I wanted. At the time, I felt that I did not know enough of the techie guru type anything to do WordPress. Today, I’m wishing that I could have found some more confidence on that topic. It has been much easier than expected to set up a WordPress.org site. (Must note here the Queen of Kludge and DaBlogMother has helped out tremendously. Along with Greg, Eric and everyone else that has given a helping hand)
Now, I’m to the point of Exporting all of my previous posts and somehow getting them over to WordPress without it being too painful on my SEO. Because of my niche, I find it very important. Here is where I’m venting a little for anyone considering which platform to use and as a Disclaimer– I’m using GoDaddy as an example because it is my experience. I’m not picking on them. I touched on some of this in my first post.
When I went to export the posts and comments from GoDaddy it just sent everything in to a Notepad file with HTML code. Can that be uploaded anywhere? It can’t on WordPress. There is also the issue with Permalinks. The Go Daddy version ends in .aspx which will be hard to keep, if it is even possible. Then there is my email account that I have with the same domain name hosted there that is about to switch over, but that is a whole different topic. I was all set to switch everything over this weekend, now I have no clue what to do. Any way you cut it, it feels like I’m drawing the short straw. It’s almost like my custom website, dependent on them and lost in the dark.
Where I am going with this is any of my fellow pups considering what platform to use, this is exactly where the benefit would be of having a SELF hosted blog. YOU call the shots. I am now seeing the light, yet again. When you go to upgrade to a different platform, change, or anything else you can think of-you are limited to their services. There is no access to the main files to make changes, it’s their way or no way. Flexibility, what’s that? Change? Even worse.
You may not feel as though you know a lot now, but what about in a year? How about two when you have more to lose? I feel confident that I will get this taken care of and that I will be much happier in the end, it will just take a little bit of creativity to make it happen.
I probably did not really need to put this out there for everyone to read, but I hope that it helps someone in deciding which angle to take since it has been the hot topic for conversation this week. My 2 cents is that you can do it. You know more than you realize. After all, we are fearless Bloodhound pups, right? 🙂 If I could do it again, I would have gone self hosted WordPress. But, JMHO.
Brian Miller says:
Stephanie,
ugh…I’ve just started waking up to self-hosting. Geez, and just when I thought life was peachy. For what it is worth, I think you are way ahead of the game and you are encouraging to me, in that you are willing to wade into the fray and take this stuff head-on. good for you…
July 4, 2008 — 6:21 am
Tom Vanderwell says:
Stephanie,
Very well said. Thanks for the advice. I know I can do it, I just need to balance the extra time and expense it would take to do that now with the time I need for immediate business and family time.
I’m still thinking that a good interim step for me is to go from blogspot.com to wordpress.com and then as a longer term project move from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.
I appreciate the insights that you and everyone else are offering on this subject, it’s been a great learning experience!
Tom
July 4, 2008 — 6:43 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi Brian,
Thanks! I signed up for BlueHost and at one point when I was frustrated I called tech support. They couldn’t help but did offer to refund my money if I couldn’t figure it out. But, I’m not a quitter. 🙂 I’ll figure it out.
You can do it! I’m cheering on the sidelines.
July 4, 2008 — 7:41 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi Tom,
Well, hopefully someone else will hop in and voice on that for you but from everything I have read in the past 2 days it does appear to be easier to export from blogger to wordpress.
As far as wp.com to wp.org- atleast there is the codex to help with that. Just haven’t found anything to help with quickblog to wp.org
July 4, 2008 — 7:45 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
Stephanie
This might be regarded as heresy, but I have found, in the long run, it is usually easier and less stressful to manually copy and paste each post from one blog to another, doing a few per day.
It feels like draining a swimming pool with a tea cup as you do it, but it eventually gets done. Plus you have a chance to update and correct each post as you do it.
Doesn’t help with the comments, though.
July 4, 2008 — 8:21 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi Cheryl,
It looks like that is what most of the people on the wp forum decided to do. Then go back and manually change the day stamp?
I actually got the .txt file uploaded to wp. It gave me a fantastic, everything is here. But, then I couldn’t find it anywhere. Not even on myphpadmin.
July 4, 2008 — 8:27 am
Michelle DeRepentigny says:
Stephanie, you and I are so in the same boat. If it makes you feel better 🙂 Pat Kitano also lives to regret his decision to use Go Daddy’s blog platform, but hasn’t made a move either. We talked about it a lot a RE Tech South. I’ve finally decided to leave my existing blog alone for now and jump into WP with a new blog on another area that I had been planning to blog more about, so I’ll have two local area blogs and I will manually move some of the post over just to give it some meat.
There are still some things I love about GD like the online photo manager that is set up as a subdomain, image handling in WP is a headache – I could set up sets and have permalinks to both sets and individual photos with Go Daddy and I do love my photos!
July 4, 2008 — 9:50 am
Cheryl Johnson says:
Stephanie,
The times I’ve done it, I decided not to worry about the date stamp. You could manually insert a couple sentences — the way Greg does when he bumps soemthing to the top:
“[Okay, BloodhoundBlog will be two years old in less than an hour. Here’s one more little bit of our past in celebration. This is from May 31st, 2007. –GSS]”
July 4, 2008 — 10:29 am
Tom Vanderwell says:
exporting from blogger to wp.com is very easy. I’ve actually done it a couple of times as I’ve been playing with my new site. That isn’t an issue for anyone who’s technologically advanced to even read BHB.
The issue that I’m going to sidestep right now is the self hosting vs. hosting at wp.com. It sounds like when I get to that point, moving it from wp.com to wp.org isn’t going to be a big issue, so I’ll make that the next phase in the expansion of http://www.straighttalkaboutmortgages.com.
Have a great holiday weekend everyone!
Tom
July 4, 2008 — 10:57 am
Bawldguy Talking says:
Welcome Stephanie — I’ve certainly got nothing of import to add to this discussion, as I just ‘call the guy’.
Enjoy your weekend.
July 4, 2008 — 5:49 pm
Real Estate Investor Girl says:
Stephanie,
I’m on GoDaddy now. Update me on how you finally do it. For now though I am going to stay with them, because I guess I am REALLY technically challenged, because I just finally got comfortable with doing the picture loading thing. I used to get so frustrated that I just left the picture out.
I will really need someone to hold my hand if I switch.
Kathleen
July 4, 2008 — 10:40 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
Here’s a better offer Stephanie… call me 502 777 9618…I will walk you through it and then we’ll post it.
You are taking good advice and showing the courage to get out there…The least I can do is help…I have some time today,
I think what you are asking is about the IMPORT function. It is under MANAGE – IMPORT It then offers you the different types of files to import from other platforms…but that said call me and I will make it stress free for you
July 5, 2008 — 2:25 am
Eric Blackwell says:
ack! I re-read your blog a little more closely…for some reason I thought you were porting from something other than GoDaddy…my bad. I think Cheryl’s heresy is right.
Still glad to help with anything that you need with the WP though! (grin)
Eric
July 5, 2008 — 5:44 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi all,
Sorry I’m just now getting back. Was offline the majority of the day yesterday.
First to Cheryl and Eric,
I’ve read that you can upload the .txt file with the movable type to wp with a small hack, but haven’t found the hack. Wondering if it is worth it.
My only concern is screwing up google. I know it is shallow, but I have no idea how long it will take to it to catch up.
Eric mentioned redirects one time-but no idea if I do that or if it does it on its own. I’m determined to get it done this weekend though. Stressing me out.
July 5, 2008 — 7:49 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi Michelle,
Sounds like you have a good plan. As I look through plugins available for wp it is mind boggling as to the options available. I haven’t figured out exactly how to use it but I added the NextGen Gallery plugin for listings. It does about the same thing as the GoDaddy photo manager and then some.
I can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeve for setting up your new blog!
July 5, 2008 — 7:52 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Thanks Bawldguy. 🙂 I/We will get it worked out, eventually.
Hi Kathleen, the only thing that has been a headache is GoDaddy in all of this. I think I’m to the point where I’m SO over GD that I’ll take Cheryl’s advice,copy and paste, and then wait for the google bots to catch up. *shrug* Don’t know yet.
July 5, 2008 — 7:56 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Eric,
Thanks for the offer. I’m going to re-read your URL post and then get started copy and pasting. I could be searching for weeks trying to find the answer otherwise. Lesson learned.
July 5, 2008 — 7:59 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Hi Stephanie…
Let me answer this with my opinion…You are different than some of the the others who have asked in three regards:
#1- You ARE currently getting pretty copious amounts of search traffic (at least from the two seconds I spent in googling you, you should be) (Others do not have this)
#2- You are also migrating from a place where there is no way to keep the urls the same (aspx vs php). (Others do not have this-as well)
#3- (Assuming here-help me with this) You CAN redirect individual posts to their corresponding new equivalents.
If all that is the case, I can only answer what I would do…which is to copy paste…and 301 redirect old to new. JMO..but glad to help. 😉
July 5, 2008 — 8:10 am
Eric Blackwell says:
BTW- Your concern about losing Google traffic is not shallow. It is smart. IMO with every change we make, it is good to evaluate how that affects ALL sources of traffic. None is less important and none is more.
You are doing GREAT.
July 5, 2008 — 8:13 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Thanks Eric,
How would I do a 301 Redirect?
July 5, 2008 — 8:14 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Oh Heck Yeah!
I Googled ‘301 Redirect for Dummies’ and got this video.
http://www.revver.com/video/651811/creating-301-redirects/
For anyone that may need it..I really do have a button for redirect in my cpanel. I’m doing cartwheels over here. 🙂 Easily pleased.
July 5, 2008 — 9:02 am
g.dewald says:
Stephanie,
I’ve a question for you based on your opening comments re: your first web designer and your decision to decline SEO services.
What should the design shop have done/said differently that would have encouraged you to engage in SEO practices?
Thanks,
g
July 7, 2008 — 6:14 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Hi G,
I’ll answer that question a couple of ways. IMO, you can’t sell any product to anyone if they have no clue what it is. I did not even know what SEO stood for. Had they mentioned ‘Search Engine Optimization’ and explained a little of what it was, I probably would have atleast asked more questions.
I also believe that anyone who offers any service can not approach everyone the same way. From the beginning it would have been nice to know that the thousands of dollars I was spending was strictly for design and did not make any promises to be seen anywhere before page 800 or so. Knowing this up front would have been nice.
It just didn’t register with me why I would need to spend the same amount for design all over again throughout the year for SEO.
Guess what I’m saying is that they should have just explained it. I’m an easy going person and hear people out..just understanding what the heck they were talking about would have been nice. 🙂
It was not an objection to using another service, it was just the sake of not knowing…ignorance I guess one could say. LOL.
Thanks G for the question. Hope I answered it in a way to help you.
Steph
July 7, 2008 — 7:07 am
g.dewald says:
Thanks for the answer on that Steph. It is very helpful. I’m always trying to find more ways to talk about SEO (or better yet, internet marketing as a discipline and not just the single tactic of SEO).
Sometimes clients (in this case that’s real estate pros) decline marketing on their site only to come back a year or two later and wonder about SEO or marketing.
I’m always trying to find better ways to explain why building with marketing in mind is important earlier in the process. Some folks don’t have the time/money, others don’t want to spend the time/money and some just don’t understand. It’s that last group that I want to move forward. I’d like to help people make a conscious decision about engaging in online marketing.
Thanks again, definitely helpful.
July 7, 2008 — 7:32 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
G,
You know. It’s a lot like real estate. If people know up front what they will spend to maintain a home, they may not purchase as large of one or one that needs so much work. It’s about making educated decisions.
IMO, it’s the same with services. The ego of people will make them want to have a huge site that looks glossy and has tons of information, but unless they market the hell out of it somewhere no one will find it. I get that now.
However, if someone understands the value of that, you have a long term client IMO. One that will use your services over and over and not feel like they are riding the money train.
Maybe offer a 15-20 session on how online marketing works. Email them some youtube videos that explain it and give them time to think about it. It sounds like you are sincere in wanting to help them, they will get that. They will feel that you are their marketing partner and not just another web designer. But, that is just my 2 cents. 🙂 Then they can make their educated decision on what best fits their needs.
Steph
July 7, 2008 — 8:08 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Amen.
I do search engine work and the answer is that you have to have a site that converts and a way to drive traffic to it.
If you have to choose between pretty and marketing. Choose marketing. A couple of years ago,I watched an agent (ePro) spend over $10K on a site that received no traffic. Ouch. No need for that when a simpler blog or site with a marketing plan will generate a NICE ROI.
July 7, 2008 — 8:37 am
g.dewald says:
Steph,
Your real estate analogy is awesome. I’ll be feeding it to my sales guy pronto.
“a huge site that looks glossy and has tons of information, but unless they market the hell out of it somewhere no one will find it.” Another amen.
Eric I’m with you all the way (don’t tell my buddy in the design dept). Make it convert, then drive traffic, then test and do it all again.
July 7, 2008 — 8:54 am
Stephanie Edwards-Musa says:
Eric, Yep. There are so many web marketing companies that do not explain that and miss the boat. Long term HAPPY client vs. one time $10K. Hmm.. I’d go for happy with the outcome of referrals.
G, It’s all about make them understand. Get the traffic and upgrade later. Would be nice to see web marketing companies offer packages like that. Sort of stepping stones to the glossy site.
July 7, 2008 — 9:11 am
Greg Swann says:
> Make it convert, then drive traffic, then test and do it all again.
Or just don’t negotiate the point at all. “It’s understood that different levels of artistic effort will come at different price points, but all of our sites are built with best-practices SEO/SEM technology from the very beginning. That might cost you a little more at the start, but you’ll make more money from day one. We see that as a smart trade-off. How about you?”
We — meaning BloodhoundRealty.com — don’t negotiate musts. If you’re not all the way on board with us, we won’t work with you. You might think something we do is optional, but we aren’t paying you for your opinion. We’re pushovers on trivial matters, but we do our work our way. If we can’t have all of the essential items our way, we walk away. We will not sell you less than our best.
July 7, 2008 — 9:29 am
g.dewald says:
In my specific instance, it’s less an issue with the tools and tech as that is built in from the get-go because it really easy to provide SEO tools.
It’s more often an issue of whether the real estate pro wants us to do the work of identifying the best keywords for optimization, conduct periodic analysis and on-site optimization and the ongoing marketing activities (from a simple “coaching” level on up to full service site marketing/management); the things that are traditionally outside of the realtor skillset and/or interest (excluding yourself, of course 😉 ).
July 7, 2008 — 9:53 am