Discovering a New World

I have recently moved off the online wordpress platform to the .org platform. Even though everything remains the same, interface wise, there are just so many options available here, which I had not explored when I was using the online platform. They range from plugins, widgets, analytics and search engine optimization programs. This last week has been a crash course in learning about html, permalinks, bounce rates, ftp transfers and a whole range of other topics. It is like being in an accelerated learning module, with just a week to digest everything. A lot of thanks go to a friend, Faizan Laghari who has really helped me with this transition and has probably just about had it with me and my never ending set of questions and requests.  I sincerely appreciate everything that you have done Faizan and apologize for all the inconvenience.

Some major points I want to highlight are:

1. Switch Early: I should have made this migration a long time ago as using the wordpress.org platform gives you much more flexibility and opens up a host of options to help your blog grow faster. I took the approach of building content first, looking back, I would do it again, the only thing I would change would be, to do it on the .org platform. A major inconvenience has been fixing permalinks, adjusting categories, optimizing each post etc. If you are planning to blog seriously, I definitely recommend switching earlier.

2. Design: I finally decided on thesis and am really happy with my choice. Choosing a theme that fits your style is really important and I recommend taking serious time out to think about what works for you. Thesis has a lot of functionalities that make modifying the theme relatively easy. It has been designed really well and the typography stands out clearly. The following links helped me make my decision a lot easier.

– 10 of the Best WordPress 2.7 Compatible Themes

Pearsonified Themes

– Best Premium WordPress Themes

– 20 Great Free WordPress 2.7 Themes

3. Search Engine Optimization: Being a completely newbie to this field I have quickly learnt about the importance of permalinks, crawlers and meta tags. I downloaded the All in One SEO plugin from the wordpress plugin site and it has been working really well so far. All my old posts are associated with a different address so I guess it will take some time for my blogs to get indexed again. This is yet again another reason to switch early. I recommend reading through the links below, they helped me greatly in getting started.

– 9 SEO Plugins Every WordPress Blog Should Have

– How to Survive a Category and Permalink Overhaul on your WordPress Blog

– Search Engine Optimization for Blogs

– How to Analyze and Improve the ‘Bounce Rate’ for Your Website

These were some of my discoveries todate. I hope they will be of some assistance to bloggers who are also moving off the online version of wordpress. Once again I apologize for any inconvenience that may have been caused to readers during this migration time. I am doing my best to get everything running smoothly by the end of the week. I look forward to your comments and suggestions on how to improve my new blog.

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