Hey guys and gals! If any of you tried accessing my blog over the weekend you might have noticed it was going through some changes. Some links might not have worked. Some of you may have even gotten emails from my subscription feed, or seen an “update” in your RSS reader with a post you’ve already seen. Sorry about that! However, it was all for a good cause, since now my site is all on WordPress! And hopefully I haven’t lost any subscribers in the process… *chews nails*
I’ve been wanting to make the change for a while now. Blogger has some limitations, and for a design junky like me, WordPress offered some appealing options. I wanted to make my site responsive and retina-ready so that it would look awesome on phones (check it out on your phone! I love it!), and while Blogger has a lot going for it, I was ready to take the leap into self-hosted WordPress. Learning WordPress design has been my secret project for some time, and it took me longer than I expected, but now I’m feeling pretty confident in it.
I think I’ve worked out all the kinks on my site. PLEASE, pretty please, let me know if you see anything wonky, or if anything isn’t quite working the way you think it should. Or if you have any suggestions! I liked my old design, so I kept it mostly the same but added a few updates on color. My biggest change was in clarity, since the old site was rockin’ some pixelated images that drove me insane.
My biggest concern is losing followers, so if you’re a subscriber and you somehow found your way to this post, it’d be awesome of you if you could write a comment telling me how you subscribed and if it all worked smoothly for you in the redirect. I might have lost all my Google Friend Connect (Blogger) followers, so if you follow through Blogger and didn’t get an alert, you might need to resubscribe via email, Feedly or RSS. This one time only, I’ll repost this on my old blog, so please check your subscription, and let me know!!!
Oh, and it’s also my birthday, so as a birthday present for me, please for my peace of mind, leave me a comment so I know everything worked! 🙂 What do you think of my snazzy new WordPress site?
Jennavier Gilbert says
August 3, 2015 at 8:18 amIt works! I followed you through from my blogger dashboard, so everything is working great in that regard.
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 8:22 amAwesome! I’d still DEFINITELY recommend you update your subscription to either email or RSS, since I think the Blogger dashboard only forwarded because I wrote the post on my old blog as well.
Jennavier Gilbert says
August 3, 2015 at 8:28 amPossibly. However it did apparently resend every alert from every blog post you’ve ever written some time last night, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.
Also, there’s a minor technical issue with how your logo appears on my tablet. The links show up perfectly but your name reads as TIAN.
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 8:31 amScreenshot? Is it in the logo picture or somewhere else?
Jennavier Gilbert says
August 4, 2015 at 1:41 pmIt’s fixed. Hooray!
Jamie Burch says
August 3, 2015 at 10:14 amVery exciting! I’ve thought about making the switch, but haven’t been brave enough to go for it…yet. I received your post in my e-mail like normal and everything seems to look good. Fabulous job! Oh….and….HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! Hope you have a lovely day with many wishes coming true. 🙂
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 11:07 amThanks Jamie 🙂 It was a daunting switch, but it was time. If you ever need help making the move, just let me know!
Jamie Burch says
August 4, 2015 at 12:24 pmAww…thank you! 🙂
Dianne Salerni says
August 3, 2015 at 10:49 amI subscribed to your previous blog through Feedly, and this popped up in my reading list automatically. Not sure how, unless the URL was the same. But whatever the case, you are still on my list!
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 11:08 amYep, the URL is the same (tianasmith.com) but I use an RSS service – Feedburner, which is why everyone who had subscribed to my blog via RSS should still be subscribed. All I had to do was go into Feedburner and change the host, it kept all the records. Thankfully!
Shauna says
August 3, 2015 at 1:21 pmYour header with your name is cut off. I see a few books and your name reads TIAN.
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 1:23 pmHey Shauna 🙂 Someone else mentioned that too. What are you viewing it on? Computer/tablet/phone? If you could email me a screenshot so I know what I’m dealing with that would be awesome!
Beth says
August 3, 2015 at 3:02 pmI got an email like I normally do! so hopefully all is still well with the subscription 🙂 although your name does cut off on the side like Shauna said. My brother keeps talking about moving me to wordpress soon too.
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 3:07 pmAre you on a PC, Mac, tablet or phone? And does it fix if you refresh the page? People keep saying this, but no one has given me any more details so I can fix it 🙂
I thought you were already on WordPress!
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 3:30 pmAh, it’s an Internet Explorer problem in not resizing the logo to fit the frame. Now that I know that, I’ll work on a fix tonight. Thanks everyone!
Tiana Smith says
August 4, 2015 at 10:25 amFixed it! Thanks to the people who helped!
Julie Dao says
August 3, 2015 at 3:38 pmIt looks so good! I’ve been thinking about making the jump, but
I know blogger so well so
I’m hesitant…
Tiana Smith says
August 3, 2015 at 4:59 pmIt’s daunting. From a user experience, I think the change is super easy. Basically, if you don’t mess with the design, but just do posts, then you’ll be just fine. From the backend (moving over the design) it’s much more complicated 🙂
Lindsay Sanchez says
August 3, 2015 at 8:26 pmYay! Good Job! I knew something was a little different when I showed up here, but it looks great. Happy birthday! (Imagine I’m giving you a chocolate cake, and if that didn’t happen in real life for you today, then I’ll make it happen in real life next time we see each other which I hope is soon.)
I love the tangled quote. 🙂
Marcy says
August 4, 2015 at 6:10 pmHappy birthday! Another Feedly user, here.
Crystal Collier says
August 5, 2015 at 8:56 amAw! Happy birthday, late. I applaud you for learning a new platform and moving over. Way to go! (Super brave.)
Leandra Wallace says
August 7, 2015 at 3:32 pmI follow you through email, so I got an email (wow, that sounded redundant). =) You still have your lovely pastel colors and pretty design, so that’s all I’m worried about! 😉 But I’ll resubscribe through email just in case.
Lynda says
August 8, 2015 at 9:10 amLove it on my phone
Shelley Sly says
August 10, 2015 at 2:35 pmYour new site looks nice and works well for me! Hope you had a fun birthday!
Ian Sagal says
September 2, 2015 at 8:45 pmIf you are moving WordPress from one server to another, begin by backing up your WordPress directory, images, plugins, and other files on your site as well as the database. Moving your domain without changing the Home and Site URLs of your WordPress site is very simple, and in most cases can be done by moving the files.