3 Reasons Why You Might Have to Give Up Your Tistory Blog
Today, I want to share why I decided to leave the Tistory blog, which had been the main blog for “Smart Statistical Life,” and switch to a WordPress blog.
Server Stability and Speed
Tistory is a free blogging service provided by Daum that manages and operates the blog for us. It’s not like we truly have control over the blog as the owner; it doesn’t work that way. Slow updates, inconvenient UI, and many other aspects of Tistory can become quite frustrating.
Tistory blogs are slow.
The most challenging aspect for me was definitely the speed. To put it simply, no matter what you do, Tistory blogs are always slow.
On the other hand, with WordPress, the difference lies in the fact that when you invest money, you can improve the performance of your blog.
Currently, the blocking time is somewhat limited due to the performance of the hosting provider. Since my operational costs are very low (around 6,000 KRW per month), I’m still using it as is, but as the website’s traffic increases, I’m considering switching to premium hosting. If you are thinking of starting a WordPress blog, make sure you read some important knowledge so you don’t regret it later!
The main point is that Tistory blogs have a limit to how much you can improve speed, whereas WordPress blogs do not.
Currently, I’ve invested about 300,000 KRW into WordPress. This covers the cost for the next year, and if I earn that amount back within the year, it will be a profitable investment, right? Haha. By the way, my first-month earnings so far are 44 USD. I’ll continue to share my earnings with you.
SEO convenience
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization,” which refers to the process of improving a blog’s ranking on search engine result pages. The goal of SEO is to enhance the visibility of a website and attract more traffic. This is achieved by optimizing the content and structure of the website, acquiring high-quality backlinks, and employing various strategies.
Existence of SEO Plugins
Tistory is, in my opinion, a barren land when it comes to SEO. WordPress blogs, on the other hand, have many plugins that assist with SEO when writing posts. I personally use a plugin called Rank Math, which helps set the keywords you want to target for Google exposure. It then shows you in real-time what needs to be done to optimize the SEO for that keyword.
This plugin checks your SEO in real-time every time you write a post and gives each post an SEO score, so you can quickly tell which posts are well-optimized and which are not. Additionally, you can see where each post ranks on Google search, along with post history and current search volumes.
These are features that Tistory bloggers can’t do, no matter how hard they try. The difference in the existence of an SEO management plugin speaks for itself, right? When thinking about long-term operation, Tistory has many limitations.
Expansion Convenience
The greatest advantage of WordPress is the ease with which you can add various features to your blog. In other words, I believe it’s easy to expand your business. Currently, the blog “Wise Statistics Life” is using the Kadence theme. Kadence is a popular theme not specifically designed for blogs, but rather for creating various types of websites.
This means that from the blog you’re seeing now to the hospital website I’ve recently worked on, I can transform it into any excellent website if I put my mind to it. Additionally, if you want an e-commerce site, you can easily add shopping cart features without needing to know coding.
The expansion convenience of WordPress was one of the key reasons that led me to switch from Tistory to WordPress.
Monetization Potential
The ultimate goal of blogging is monetization. How much money can you make, or how much potential income can you generate?
Many people think of Google AdSense when they think of blogging, but there are more ways to make money from a blog than most people realize. AdSense is just one part of it, and in fact, it doesn’t contribute to a large portion of income.
Around 80% of people who make significant money from blogging do affiliate marketing. I didn’t discover affiliate marketing until I reached 10,000 YouTube subscribers.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a marketing method where one company promotes another company’s products or services on its website or online platform, and earns a commission based on the sales or traffic generated. In short, it is receiving a commission for recommending products.
Affiliate marketing generally follows a three-step process:
- Agreement between the company and the affiliate partner 👉 Creation of tracking links 👉 Sales and commission payment
People who don’t know much about affiliate marketing (myself included) might be skeptical, thinking, “Isn’t that just people recommending products to make money for themselves?” But the truth is, you can attach affiliate marketing to almost any product you can think of.
However, affiliate marketing isn’t something that just anyone can do. Advertising companies also need to verify if they can trust you to promote their ads. If anyone were to get an affiliate link, it could damage the image of the product.
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Therefore, among all the available products, it’s best to apply affiliate marketing to products you believe in or genuinely like. Personally, I receive many advertising emails from various companies, but when I realize I’d have to make a video for an advertisement or promote something I don’t actually want, I start feeling disillusioned. Ultimately, the product itself needs to resonate with the person doing the affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Link Management Plugins
So why did I transition from discussing Tistory to talking about affiliate marketing? Tistory is extremely inconvenient when it comes to running affiliate marketing. There are many affiliate programs out there, but each one has its own link structure. As a result, managing affiliate marketing links becomes a hassle, and you even need to protect them from potential affiliate marketing malware.
In WordPress, there are specific plugins designed to manage affiliate links. Two of the most popular plugins for this purpose are Pretty Links and ThirstyAffiliates. Personally, I use ThirstyAffiliates because it’s cheaper than the other option. 😊
- As of June 2024, “Wise Statistics Life” (my personal blog) is still using ThirstyAffiliates, but “WPlaybook” (another project) uses the Lasso affiliate management program.
These link management tools allow you to categorize your affiliate marketing links, track whether they are working correctly, and monitor how many clicks they are getting. Additionally, these plugins offer an editing feature, making it easier to search and insert affiliate marketing links while writing blog posts.
The Lasso affiliate link management program, which “WPlaybook” is currently using, also supports product displays as shown below.
In conclusion, when it comes to features that directly impact revenue generation, WordPress has a clear advantage over Tistory. And unfortunately, it seems like these differences will be difficult to overcome for Tistory in the near future.
In Conclusion
In this article, I shared the reasons why I transitioned from Tistory to WordPress for my main blog, Sensible Statistics Life. Based on the various trials and lessons learned while using WordPress, I launched the WPlaybook Blog.
If you’re interested in WordPress and online monetization, feel free to subscribe to the WPlaybook Community or the WPlaybook YouTube channel for more insights and tips! 🙂
