Migrating from WordPress.com to WordPress.org with surprising results

Wow! I must say, I’m impressed.

I’d put off migrating my blog from WordPress.com to my self-hosted site as I was concerned traffic would drop as a result of not being directly connected to the WordPress community.

The time had come, so I migrated on Friday. I published one post yesterday (Tuesday) and have already eclipsed the best-ever traffic day I had on WordPress.com.

So there you go, you think you’re taking a risk and it turns out to be a much better option for your business!

It’s taken a long time and a lot of (wo)man hours but it’s done and I’m happy with the result. It still needs tweaking but I’d rather have it out there than not.

So what steps did I take to migrate my blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org?

1. I found a decent, local host that allows a one-click WordPress install. One-click is a lot easier than trying to set up a testing site on your desktop (take it from me, I tried and failed at the mySQL database privilegesstage).
2. I set up a “testing” sub-domain via cPanel and installed WordPress there, the equivalent of a sandbox environment where I could “play” with my new site.
3. I built my (responsive) site. There were a few hiccups along the way, including being hacked and having to start from scratch! But here it is, using WordPress as a CMS. I know a lot more now than I ever thought I would about the mysterious workings of WordPress. Happily I know code and was able to customise the visual to my liking.
4. I exported my old blog from WordPress.com to my WordPress.org (self-hosted) site following the instructions here. I was tempted to purchase a “guided” transfer but the transfer staff “weren’t there that day” according to the message. Was I up for the challenge? Why yes, yes I was and it was easier than I had
5. I purchased a re-direct from WordPress.com for USD$13 for 12 months. Invaluable, in my mind, as anyone who has bookmarked your blog will still be able to find you.
6. I installed “Velvet Blues Update URLs” plug in which updates all your internal links to point to the posts within your new site.
7. I migrated my testing site to my main domain and, like magic, the JMC website had a major transformation from the old, image-based, non-SEOed one I whipped up one evening and was meant to be temporary, to a slicker, more visual site which is a breeze to update.

 

Things to remember:

• Update your image upload link, etc. in your media settings.
• Update your feed on your RSS subscription services (Triberr, etc.).
• Update your blog listing in any blog directories your registered with.

 

I’ll update this post if I remember any other key points in my “journey”.

Is there any helpful advice you can provide to the bloggers about to go out on there own? Please add it below.