Workplace Psychology Blog (WorkplacePsychology.Net) Is Now on Wix

Hello and welcome to the new look and newly redesigned "home" of the Workplace Psychology Blog (WorkplacePsychology.Net).

In this post, I'll talk about Workplace Psychology Blog's migration from a WordPress.com theme and platform over to a much cleaner and clutter-free Wix theme and platform.

I'm very excited to FINALLY unveil this transformation.

It's been quite a drama-filled journey. Although the new home on the Wix platform will be much more expensive for me, I truly feel this move is worthwhile and will greatly benefit readers, visitors, and me (the sole writer and administrator).

When I first started my Workplace Psychology Blog in late 2009, I used the WordPress.com* platform to build the blog and to compose the entries and pages.

* WordPress.com is different from WordPress.org. WordPress.com is a service that helps you build a website using the WordPress software with managed hosting. With WordPress.org, you download the software and then build and maintain a website on your own.

Throughout the years since the launching of the Workplace Psychology Blog on WordPress.com, I've tinkered with the design and layout by using different WordPress.com themes to change how the blog looked.

Several years ago, I began entertaining the idea of moving completely away from WordPress.com to using a blog running on either a Wix or Squarespace platform.

In the end, I decided that Wix was the best fit for the Workplace Psychology Blog.

For anyone who has ever "migrated" their blog from one platform to another, I think you can relate to how much time and effort it takes.

I have three main goals for the Workplace Psychology Blog on the Wix platform:

(1) To be clean, clutter-free, and easy to find and read the blog entries.

This is my biggest priority for Workplace Psychology Blog's new home. While I'll miss the old look, the theme I used on WordPress.com made the blog very cluttered and the task of locating, scrolling through the entries, and easily reading each blog entry quite challenging.

On the old WordPress.com theme, there were two columns on each side of the blog entries and, for some insane reason, I felt the need to fill them up with widgets of texts and images. As a result, the blog became quite bloated.

Of course, I could still stick with the WordPress.com platform and just use a WordPress.com "blog" theme. This then leads to #2 (below), the top reason for me (as the site administrator) to switch platform.

(2) To have an administrative back end that lets me effortlessly compose & edit blog entries, and maintain the blog without getting lost or having to fight with the platform.

From the perspective of the administrator and sole writer for the Workplace Psychology Blog, this is perhaps the most important priority in terms of managing the blog.

I was frequently faced with challenges on the WordPress.com platform, and they seemed to have only gotten worse over the years. If I wasn't constantly struggling with the WordPress.com admin page and dashboard, I don't think I would have gone through all the hassles and expense of migrating the blog over to Wix.

And, to add insult to injury, WordPress.com completely bungled my domain transfer to Wix and I ended up wasting a week contacting and waiting on WordPress.com tech support. WordPress.com did not let me or their tech support team change the name servers. They did manage to unlock my domain, but with the WordPress.com name servers unchanged.

This sent me into a catch-22 situation where Wix would repeatedly reject the domain transfer from WordPress.com because the domain still showed the WordPress.com name servers. And there was nothing I could do to change or update the name servers — not on Wix and not on WordPress.com.

Unfortunately, Wix was also to blame since it rejected the domain transfer multiple times (during the 7 day process) because the domain still showed the WordPress.com name servers. What was so frustrating was that I was truly "stuck" because there was also no way to update the name servers on Wix.

So Wix sent me back to WordPress.com to work the problem, and WordPress.com said it was out of their hands since the domain transfer was already "in progress" and I had to wait for the transfer to finish, and then update the settings at the new registrar (Wix).

It went like this, back-and-forth, for 7 days.

My "break up" with WordPress.com was a very unpleasant and long-drawn-out drama because they just wouldn't let me go. And settling into my new Wix domain home has been a bit of a letdown because they, too, fumbled the domain transfer process and experience.

Hopefully, going forward, all of this domain transfer & domain name servers drama will be far behind me. What a nightmare!

(3) To eliminate blog entries and pages that were outdated, had outlived their usefulness, or contributed to making the blog "bloated."

Once I decided that the blog migration to Wix needed to happen, I immediately thought of the number of blog entries to remove. Truth be told, when I revisited my blog entries over the last 12.5 years, I wasn't happy with about half of them. Many were quite dated and the contents were now obsolete. Some of the entries were of TED Talk videos or quotations I had found inspirational. Finally, there were nearly a dozen blog entries that cited and relied solely on a resource that is no longer in use (i.e., the now defunct "HBR Answer Exchange").

Although these blog entries weren't terrible, bad, or wrong, I didn't feel like they needed to continue on in the new Workplace Psychology Blog home.

As a result, out of the 265 original posts on the Workplace Psychology Blog (on the WordPress.com platform), only 130 posts made the final cut and were ported over to the Wix platform. Rest assured that an incredible amount of time was invested in this vetting process.

The migration over to a much cleaner and clutter-free Wix theme and platform also meant that some of the old blog "pages" on the Workplace Psychology Blog (on WordPress.com) had to be left behind (e.g., "Resources" [my list of books on I-O psychology, leadership, organizational development, coaching, HR, training, etc.], "Interviews" [my instructions for reporters who wish to interview me], and "Archives" [a list of all blog entries]). I'm fine with this trade-off, especially since Workplace Psychology was always meant to be a blog first. By adding more and more pages to the WordPress.com theme, I had veered away from the simplicity of a blog format and turned it into a cramped website.

As you can see from the above screenshots, the old Workplace Psychology Blog on WordPress.com was very "busy." There was just so much going on that it was really easy to be distracted or get lost.

New Blog - Clean and Clutter-Free

This Wix blog is designed to be clean and clear of clutter so you can have a more optimal reading experience.

But don't let this NEW theme fool you. In addition to the clean and clutter-free layout, the Workplace Psychology Blog on Wix is now more refined and provides real-time search options.

New Blog - Pages, Menu, Categories, Search

The new Workplace Psychology Blog on Wix has these "pages" (found at the top menu): "About Site", "About Steve", and "I-O Psychology."

Yes, the I-O Psychology page is still here, but it's now under "More" since there wasn't room for it on the menu.

All blog entries can be found on the "My Blog" menu link. Once you're on that page, you'll see the Categories (where you can browse posts by topic; for example, Attitudes & Emotions, Change Management, Business, etc.). You'll find additional categories listed when you hover the cursor over "More ⌄". Finally, you can use the "Search" box and type in your search terms.

New Blog - Contact Me/Comments/Messages

At the bottom of every page is a "Drop Me a Line, Let Me Know What You Think" section where you can share your thoughts or comments, or ask a question.

New Blog - Subscribe & Subscribers

If you are not a subscriber and would like to "subscribe" to the Workplace Psychology Blog, it's easier than ever. On the main "Home" page, scroll down and find a section titled, "Never Miss a New Post." Type in your email and click the "Subscribe" button.

Also, on the main "Home" page, if you scroll down further and look on the right-hand side, you'll find a section titled, "Subscribe." Type in your email and click the "Subscribe" button.

Finally, for the 1,300 people who are "subscribers" to the Workplace Psychology Blog on WordPress.com, you are still "subscribers" on this new Wix platform.

Thus, if you have already subscribed, you do not need to do it again (HOWEVER, see notes below). When a new blog entry is posted, I'll notify you via email*. Look for an email from me (either Steve Nguyen or Workplace Psychology) with the label "Ascend by Wix" at the bottom.

So Sorry If You Haven't Received Notifications

I would like to APOLOGIZE to anyone who had "subscribed" previously via Mailchimp, but had not been getting my emails notifying subscribers of new postings.

The Mailchimp email campaign I used was not very good and there were many "bounced" emails from recipients that prevented me from continuing to send you emails. If you signed up or subscribed and never heard from me, this is most likely the reason why. Again, I'm very sorry about this.

So, if you have not been getting emails from me (WorkplacePsychology.Net) for the past several months, please resubscribe on the new Wix platform. Just follow the instructions in the "New Blog - Subscribe & Subscribers" section above.

Future notifications of new blog posts will come to your email inbox from the new Wix email campaign. Please check your SPAM folder (in early August) because it's very possible that the new Wix email campaign will be marked as spam.

*Just a reminder: If you are a subscriber, please CHECK your SPAM folder because there's a very good chance that my new Wix email campaign will be marked as spam and end up in your email spam folder.

New Blog - Work In Progress; Will Continue to Update & Fix Broken URLs

In the coming weeks and months, I will continue to work on and improve the Workplace Psychology Blog on Wix.

Unfortunately, there will be some broken URLs, especially if those URLs link to the old WordPress.com blog. Please bear with me as I work as fast as I can to make sure that I update and correct them.

Over 3.8 Million Unique Visitors

I've been extremely fortunate to have had and continue to have so many frequent visitors and devoted readers to the Workplace Psychology Blog.

At the time of this blog entry (now on the Wix platform), there have been 3,835,310 unique visitors to the Workplace Psychology Blog on WordPress.com! That's phenomenal for a blog about the science of people at work. Thank you!

While it was thrilling to know that millions of people had stopped by, going forward on the Workplace Psychology Blog on Wix, I will not include a visitor counter. It was truly nice to see the blog growing in popularity when I first started on WordPress.com nearly 13 years ago, but now, in 2022, it's unnecessary.

Thank You!

Thank you to each and every subscriber, reader, and follower of the Workplace Psychology Blog. I hope you'll find that these changes will greatly enhance your experience when you visit the Workplace Psychology Blog on the Wix platform (WorkplacePsychology.Net).

Thanks for visiting,

Steve Nguyen, Ph.D.

Organizational & Leadership Development Leader