Libertarian Man of Mystery: Typepad vs. Blogger

February 07, 2005

Typepad vs. Blogger

When I switched my blog from Blogger to Typepad, I couldn’t really find any quality blog posts about why Typepad is better. I just had a hunch that the service you had to pay for would be better. This post is an explanation of why my hunch was right! Hopefully it will help others (if anyone ever finds it, so please link to it for the benefit of everyone).

On the surface, maybe there doesn’t seem like much of a difference. Blogger and Typepad both provide a complete blog solution. You don’t have to worry about geeky stuff like hosting or getting a domain name. Both Blogger and Typepad take care of all that stuff for you! In fact, it seems like a huge waste of time to mess with Movable Type or Wordpress. I’ve seen posts where even computer guys complain about how much time they waste with it. I don’t see why any sane person would want to bother.

But the benefit of Typepad over Blogger is that Typepad provides you with various tools to help your blog become popular. If you don’t care if anyone in the world ever reads your blog, then Blogger will be fine. But if you want people to find your blog and read your posts, Typepad helps you take your blog to the next level!

The only reason not to use Typepad is if you’re too cheap to pay the $90/year. (Don’t mess with the less expensive option, it’s missing some key features.)

SPEED

Blogger is slow. So many times I would try to log on or post and nothing would happen and I’d waste minutes just watching the computer screen do nothing. Typepad has, so far, never had any huge speed problems. Why waste your time waiting for Blogger when Typepad is better?

TEMPLATES

At first glance, Blogger seems to win here. Blogger provides many different templates to choose from, while Typepad only has one blocky looking template.

However, if you have a Blogger blog using the standard template, you will keep coming across blogs that look exactly like yours. If the blogosphere were a wedding, it would be like discovering that five other girls are wearing the same dress as you. And people know you bought the dress on sale at Kmart. Yuck!

Also, every Blogger blog has an ugly “navbar” on top which is like a free ad for Blogger. I think it’s very tacky.

Theoretically you can do anything you want to the Blogger template, but the problem is that it’s too complicated for anyone but a computer programmer to figure out! Typepad, on the other hand, offers you a simple system that lets you select colors, fonts, and how many columns you want.

Although every Typepad blog using the standard template has the same blocky look, there are so many ways to customize it that you can ultimately create a blog that doesn’t look like anyone else’s. I’ve never seen another Typepad blog that has the beautiful pink look that I have here!

When people see the Typepad look they think “serious blogger,” while when they see the Blogger look they think “cheap free blog.” It’s obvious that Typepad creates the better impression.

Typepad also provides you with Typelists, which provide an easy way to put links and other stuff in your sidebar without having to mess with the template like you have to do with Blogger. They are a lot better for maintaining a blogroll than using Blogrolling.com.

EXTENDED POSTS

This is the first post where I’ve ever used this feature, but the advantage is obvious. If you have a really long post, you can use the extended post feature so that the big post doesn’t scare people away from your main blog page. If your goal is to be popular, you don’t want to scare away your readers!

COMMENTS

Comments are a valuable way to increase your blog traffic, because it creates interaction with your readers and gives people a reason to come back. (I love it when people leave comments on my blog, so please leave a comment on this post!)

The problem with Blogger’s comments isn’t that the system is so bad. In fact, in some ways they work better than Typepad’s. But the problem is that Blogger is too slow. Sometimes, you will try to post a comment and it will take minutes before the stupid comment page comes up. This is simply unacceptable. Most people will just not bother to post anything when that happens. Typepad’s comments always work very quickly and never have any speed problems.

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are a key mechanism for increasing your blog’s popularity. They give other bloggers an incentive to link to you. Links are the key to popularity!

Typepad blogs have the trackbacks in the best place possible. Right under your main post. This means that people who send you trackback pings get the maximum benefit from it. This layout creates the maximum incentive for other people to link to you. On some blogs you have to click on a link to view the trackbacks. Most people will be too lazy to click on the link, so the trackbacks won’t get viewed.

Unfortunately, with Typepad you have to send out trackback pings manually by copying the trackback url into a little box underneath your post. I wish Typepad could somehow do this automatically by sensing the links you placed in your post, but this manual way is so much better than Blogger’s complete lack of trackback support.

THAT’S IT

Those are the reasons why Typepad is so much better than Blogger. Maybe they don’t seem like that much, but trust me, they add up to a huge difference! I’m so glad I switched. (For the curious, this is the link to my old Blogger blog.)

February 07, 2005 at 12:04 AM | Permalink

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Libertarian Man of Mystery

I used to pretend to be a gorgeous blonde "libertarian girl", but the hoax has been unmasked

February 07, 2005

Typepad vs. Blogger

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