Graduate to Self Hosting

Transcription

1 Graduate to Self Hosting Joanne Waltham Magenta Sky Solutions Detailed Notes & Screenshots Available at / food-blogger-connect

2 Why migrate to self hosted? With WordPress.com you can t Install any theme Install plugins Take advertising Have complete ownership of your blog But you might want to stay with WordPress.com Free hosting No worries about updates & conflicts You can use your own URL You can customise the style sheet (CSS)

3 Web hosting & Domain Names What to look for with Web Hosting Runs WordPress.org Uptime & reliability Helpful, friendly & available tech support Price Ask for recommendations (I recommend Tsohost) Domain Name Close to your blog title Not too long & avoid hyphens Suffix -.com,.co.uk,.me, other?

4 Install WordPress Installation Most web hosts have a one click installer Might ask you for first user account details First Login First Tasks Check for updates Create new administrator account don t use admin

5 Add New Administrator User

6 Configure Settings General Settings Enter site title & tag line Change WordPress & Site Address if using www Set timezone Privacy Settings Click Hide From Search Engines (switch back at go live) Permalinks Set to the same as your current blog

7 Choose a Theme Don t spend a lot of time making it look pretty until after you ve imported your data

8 Migrating Posts, Pages & Comments Export from WordPress.com Tools -> Export Import into new website Tools -> Import All done. Have fun! If necessary go back & create smaller exports Check number of posts, categories, tags, pages, comments

9 Images Download and Import File Attachments Does not import your images! The images in your posts are still hosted on WordPress.com Cache Images by Matt Mullenweg Plugin Scans your posts for remote images Cache images from your WordPress.com site Downloads the image at the size in the post, not full size Check images & their link URLs

10 Cache Images by Matt Mullenweg

11 Blogroll Blogroll Tools -> Import -> Blogroll

12 FeedBurner The FeedBurner Issue Stay with FeedBurner & wait but export backup of your subscribers now! Migrate to a paid service such as FeedBlitz Find out more

13 Feed & Subscribers If you used Feedburner or FeedBlitz Feedburner.google.com -> Edit Feed & Change URL to Shouldn t need to update anything else If you used WordPress.com subscriptions No easy way (but ask the Happiness Engineers) Publish posts asking people to resubscribe Update Networked Blogs & Blog Rating Agencies

14 Redirect Your WordPress.com site Purchase Site Redirect from WordPress.com Costs $13pa Enter your new URL Redirection is immediate Passes page rank Sounds like too much work? WordPress.com Guided Transfer $129 (but you have to use their partner s US based hosting) Ask me.

15 Conclusions Pros It s pretty straightforward It s a non destructive process You only have to put your new blog live when you are ready Cons It takes time! It probably will have a negative effect on your page rank but your blog will recover with continued SEO effort

16 Recommended Plugins JetPack many of the functions you had on WordPress.com BlogVault Backup $9pm Google XML Sitemap creates sitemap & submits to search engines Digg Digg Social media sharing icons nrelate Most Popular nrelate Related Content Most Popular Widget Related post lists