TypePad, We Love You! Here's Why...

“Why do you recommend TypePad.com for blogging? What features make it better for professionals than the free platforms?”

We get asked this question frequently.

We believe most professionals have a lot to do simply running their businesses. Marketing should be as automated as possible, while maintaining a personal touch. Of course, blogging is a near perfect medium for communicating your message to a global audience in an informal, personal manner.

We don’t want any tasks interfering with this important marketing tactic. With Typepad as a blogging platform, all the back-end tech issues are taken care of for you. All you really have to do is focus on writing relevant content for your readers.

You don’t have to mess with coding, or plug-ins, or customizing it if you don’t want to. It’s all done for you, practically.

TypePad is easy to learn and you get responsive tech support.  Many free platforms do not have any support at all.
   
Even setting up a blog on Typepad isn’t complicated, although you do need to learn a few things. That’s why we wrote Build a Better Blog ebook.  Six Apart, the parent company of TypePad, is constantly adding new features; you don’t have to research what’s best, they provide it for you.
 

Many of the features, or widgets, are as easy to add as a click of a button.

They provide many ways to manage communication with your reader. Pinging, trackback and comment spam protection are integrated features – no installation necessary.

You can easily customize your blog with colors that complement your website or logo and also by adding a banner.

Your blog resides on the TypePad servers; you don’t have to be responsible for back ups or upgrading the software.

You have a separate domain name for your blog, thus providing “two fishing poles in the pond” that is the World Wide Web.

If you're not a techie and don't want to mess with HTML, php, CSS or any other programming language, then TypePad is a top-notch professional solution. 

The fee for an account is very small (as little as $4.95 per month) for the amount of flexibility, customization and support you get.
 
TypePad is designed with small business in mind.  It's perfect for commercial use such as promoting your business, products, services and books. Some of the free platforms, like Blogger and Wordpress.com discourage using their blogs for commercial purposes and will shut it down without warning if they feel you violate their terms of service. 

Blogger (Blogspot) blogs all have a banner at the top inviting readers to go to the next blog.  You never know where that will take YOUR visitor.  We've heard stories about customers clicking on that link and landing on blogs with pornography.

Comments

[Marc Garnaut]

Hi Patsi

I love reading your posts. They're always upbeat, fun and full of interesting stuff. This is the first one that's made me squint in an "are you sure?" way.

I'm sure everything you say about Typepad is true, but it doesn't really answer the question: "what features make it better for the professionals than free platforms?" I'm not seeing anything in there that Wordpress doesn't do for free.

My personal experience with Typepad is that I signed up and received a one-month "try for free before your payment is debited" offer. In the two weeks I used it I had occassional "server down" problems and very frequent half-loaded page problems (where you can see in the bottom of your browser bar that it is stuck trying to contact www.yceml.net or some other functional link it needs to make). So I cancelled, exported to Wordpress and I've never had these problems again.

Just to comment here on your blog I had to reload your page eight times to get the comment box to appear.

Generally I get a pretty good run with blogs because I'm on during Singapore time, when often everyone in the US is asleep. But even leaving comments on Typepad blogs can be an enormous test of patience. It could be my Mac platform, it could be Firefox, perhaps I'm just unlucky.

Typepad is offering a few small advantages, such as form data in your sidebar (eg email newsletter signup boxes), but you seem to be suggesting that all those things you've listed are exclusive to Typepad, when actually they're not. Point noted about the Blogger banners, but Wordpress is certainly a credible alternative offering all the "advantages" you've listed.

I don't think $4.95 is a large amount of money, and I would have stuck with Typepad if it had been a pleasure to use, but for me it was buggy. The free platform I'm on now seems to me to be a better product. I've never had a "server down" or "server busy" message and I've never had half-loaded pages. I guess your experience with Typepad has been better than mine was.

=) Marc

[Patsi M. Krakoff]

Your experience with Typepad may have something to do with using a Mac, but also in the beginning before they upgraded servers and service there were more problems like what you report. This is the first time I've heard about slow loading pages or delay in commenting however. Your points are valid, except for the fact that Wordpress requires some computer skills that many professionals haven't as yet acquired. I believe that is the main point we make. Obviously if a professional does have those skills and enjoys managing all the back end stuff, Wordpress is a good choice. Most of the clients we work with don't want that responsibility or to spend their time that way. We haven't had "server down" issues, or half-loaded pages in a couple of years.

Like anything in business and life, it all depends on where you want to spend your time and energy and it's a choice.

Thanks for adding your views, that gives readers more information and another perspective to consider.

[Chris Owen]

Hi Patsi
I've been using Typepad for nearly two years now and I've got to say I find it user=friendly to the point of a lay-down misere (if you're into playing cards) In other words it's SO BLOODY EASY I can't imagine why anyone would not!
However lately I've had advice that I should move to Wordpress. When I look at some elements of the wordpress platform, things like the capacity for commenters to get notified of further comments on a posting, I get a tinge of jealousy.
And then I remember I'm not a techy and all i want to do is write and if i make that harder for myself I raise a bar that sometimes I can hurdle with ease and other times I struggle to get near. Why on earth would I make it harder for myself?
As to the dropout issues that Marc talks about, I can't recall the last time that happened. Perhaps it's been once or twice in my two years.
The only techo frustration I have with typepad is that loading an image into a posting takes more than a couple of seconds so i have remember to do that last so I can go away and not get impatient.
2c from me!

[Patsi M. Krakoff]

Boy, you are more impatient than I am! You are right, sometimes it takes as long as 5 or 6 seconds...such a waste of time... Thanks, Chris, for participating. And if anyone else wants to join the Typepad vs Wordpress discussion, please do. We enjoy hearing different perspectives and experiences.

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

Wordpress has two platforms: wordpress.com is a free hosted platform and wordpress.org you have to install and manage on your own server (it's not really free since you do have to pay hosting fees!). We have heard stories about wordpress.com shutting down blogs they deemed "commercial"...like a business blog.

That's not what I want to happen to my blog. wordpress.org does require some tech skills, knowledge of how to install plugins, design and HTML coding to some degree, and as Patsi says, our clients do not necessarily have or want to learn how to manage a website, which of course, a blog is.

I cannot remember the last time we had server issues with TypePad; it's been at least 2 years.

[Dassana Jayalath]

Denise,

After reading the post I was curious enough to open a 30-day trial account at TypePad. It's too early to comment on TypePad features. But to the question TypePad vs WordPress, I would go for WordPress self installation version.

I do agree with you that if a person is non-techie, TypePad will suite them better. But if they are willing to get their hands dirty, WordPress download gives more options.

After much research, I've decided to buy SemiologicPro for WordPress for my blog. It has been a wise decision. I get the robustness of WordPress with the complete set of plug-ins & add-ons without having to research for them.

One of the other reasons why I like the installed version of WordPress is that I can run my own scripts like pop-ups etc. Since it's hosted on a Unix server, I can basically do whatever I want.

I guess comparing TypePad vs WordPress like comparing Microsoft Windows Vs Linux. One you have to pay, but comes with support & upgrades, the other you have to do all yourself.

I am still going to host at-least one of my blogs with TypePad. If it's that flexible, I can recommend it to my non-techie customers.

Thanks
Dassana Jayalath

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

It's definitely like apples and oranges, comparing TypePad and Wordpress. Yes, one is better for non-techies and one is better for techies. Thanks for your contribution, Dassana.

[Dassana Jayalath]

Denise,

I ran into RSS feed issues on my WordPress blog. While fixing it, I bought your ebook, did more research on TypePad and finally decided to move my blog to TypePad.

Except for minor hick-up, I was able to get my site up and running within half a day. I am getting to like it more and more.

Few problems I am facing now :

1. My site it always pointing to the sub-directory for the blog. I am trying to figure out how to point to my main URL (like you have done at BuildABetterBlog.com) rather than setting the pages on a sub-directory.

2. Now I get 404 errors on previously indexed pages. I am not sure whether it’s possible to point error pages to index page rather than ‘page not found’

It’s very easy to setup the template. Did all myself and it was not that complicated.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Cheers
Dassana Jayalath

[Denise aka The Blog Squad]

Dassana, regarding your first question, what you need to do is "map" your domain. We have a step by step tutorial on your blog you can follow: http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2006/05/typepad_domain_.html

As far as your second question, I'm not sure what to say. If you're referring to links on your Wordpress blog, I would suggest that you do not delete that blog but simply redirect that blog URL to your new typepad blog or put a final post sending people to your new blog so what you've already written is not lost in cyber space.

I'm not a techy so I can't help you with redirectly 404 pages. Maybe someone else can answer your second question.

[Dassana Jayalath]

Hi Denise,

Thanks for the information.

Your step-by-step document was very useful (http://www.buildabetterblog.com/files/TypePadDomainMapping.pdf).

For problem 1, getting the domain to map to blog rather than blog account (e.g. to map DassanaJayalath.com to dassanajayalath.typepad.com rather than dassanajayalath.typepad.com/dj/), it’s important to follow exactly what’s highlighted in STEP 4. In my case I had the domain mapped to main site initially. Once I followed your instructions, it worked out well.

Second problem was bit trickier. I’ve contacted TypePad support and they told me that currently there is no functionality to redirect errors such as 404 to a particular page we want. However they are looking into including this in the future.

I used to re-direct all my 404 errors to a download/ opt-in page. I used to get lot of opt-in subscribers through that page. It’s unfortunate that this function is not available currently.

After 3 days of playing around with TypePad, I have summarized my finding. You can read it on my Blog : http://www.dassanajayalath.com/2007/05/typepad_vs_word.html
Even with these hick-ups I enjoy using TypePad.

Dassana Jayalath