Comparing Blog Platforme #9: Pros And Cons Of TypePad (For Now)

This post lists four pros and four cons.

Reasons to Choose to TypePad (Today)

1. Can Experiment With Adsense.  I want to experiment with monetizing, and Wordpress.com doesn't allow ads or affiliate marketing.  To Monetize on Wordpress, you have to implement Wordpress.org.  And, last but not least, my Google Adsense approval came through today on blogcastgirl.com, and I want to see how it works.

2. Wordpress.org Is Tough To Manage.  After all of my success with Wordpress.com, Squarespace.com and Typepad.com, I decided to try implementing Wordpress.org.  I figured that I was a big girl and it couldn't be that difficult, could it?  Yikes!  It is crazy complicated for someone who either (a) Doesn't have any experience coding, or (b) Doesn't want to code.  I fall somewhere between (a) and (b).  And since I am still finding my way, I can get very nice functionality with either TypePad or Squarespace without hiring a herd of techies to manage the site for me.
3. SquareSpace Has Been Unpredictable. While I love the SquareSpace interface, it has crashed on me a couple of times.  That makes me nervous on a couple of fronts.  First, it may crash when potential readers try to use the site.  Second, it makes me wonder if they might lose my whole site sometime.
4. TypePad Has Nice Post Continuation System. Notice how this post started on the first page and is continued elsewhere?  It is called post continuation on TypePad, and it is part of the "advanced" editor.  You have to turn it on to get it.  Post continuation is a great marketing tool for two reasons.

• (A) It enables the reader to quickly see several topics at a glance.

• (B) It creates a microconversion, which is when the reader clicks-thru and makes a minor commitment to reading more.

Reasons I'm Not Thrilled With TypePad (Or Would Prefer WordPress)

1. Huge Wordpress Support Community.  The Wordpress community is HUGE, and it is self-supporting.  Wordpress bloggers seem to like to blog on Wordpress blogs.
2. My Wordpress.Com Blog Has Traffic.  At this point, most of the traffic (other than myself) is on my Wordpress.com blog.  The search engines seem to find it.  The Wordpress folks attribute this to its SEO optimized code (see Pearsonifications for a lot of commentary on that point).
3. No Horizontal Navigation on TypePad. Horizontal navigation can only be had with a customized TypePad blog, which means that I would need someone to code and manage stuff again.  If I'm doing that, I'll be going to Wordpress.
4. Code May Not Be SEO Optimized.  I ran the TypePad site through a code checker.  It failed.  Not being a techie, I don't really know awful this is, but you can read what BloggingExpertise.com has to say about this.  Their point is that search engines don't do well with flawed code, therefore reducing the number of people who find your site.  Your input on this is welcome.
    

Comments

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Wordpress can be hard for a beginer but worth getting to grips with in the long run imho.

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