A few years ago, I started blogging as a way to document my travels, and maybe share it with my family and friends. Little did I know, it would turn into something entirely larger than I ever could have imagined. Recently, I decided it was finally time to take my blog to the next level and move to a self hosted page. Basically, this means that my blog lives on a remote server, storing my content for a small fee while allowing me complete control over my site.
After doing some research, Bluehost seemed like the obvious choice. Bluehost supports over 2 million websites around the world, is recommended by countless bloggers, and offers the option to get a free domain name with a hosting plan. One additional perk if you use WordPress is their Optimized Hosting for WordPress. This makes it especially easy to seamlessly migrate your old wordpress.com blog to your new site. Even better, you can sign up for as low as $4.95 per month!
This may still all sound a bit intimidating. After all, taking your blog to the next level means more time and energy to get everything going. Let me tell you a little secret. Bluehost makes this as easy as possible for you. I’ll admit, when I first signed up I was a little overwhelmed. There are so many options and all this fancy technical website language that I didn’t understand.
Remember: Google is your friend.
Transferring everything from your old blog and getting all set up is not as hard as it may seem. Take a deep breath and use those Google search skills to read/watch tutorials and you’ll be well on your way.
Bluehost has their own instructional videos that are super helpful, and there’s plenty of other articles and videos out there on the web that help you learn how to do just about anything. Some articles that came in handy for me from some fellow bloggers: Adventurous Kate, Travel With Bender, and Prairie Californian.
One other thing to keep in mind if you are migrating an existing WordPress blog, you may have to do the import a few times to get all your content. Double check everything is there when you do the import, and don’t freak out if it’s not! Just let it run it’s course a few more times and soon enough you’ll be a new and improved blogger!
So new bloggers, are you ready to step it up yet? Take the leap forward, sign up for Bluehost, and blog full speed into the future! 🙂
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10 Comments
Vlad
October 17, 2014 at 11:55 pmI am planning for a while to move from the free wordpress hosting and I am leaning towards BlueHost, for the good reviews they have and better prices. My question is, is it worth getting the extras they offer, like the SiteLock Domain Security or Search Engine Jumpstart?
Marissa Sutera
October 19, 2014 at 9:32 amThe only add on that I purchased was the Domain Privacy Protection, just to make sure my information is private and secured. I would not opt in to any of the other extras. The SiteLock Domain Security is offered through a third party so it is not even a Bluehost service, and Search Engine Jumpstart is much easier to do yourself and I have not heard of anyone finding success with this tool.
The only extra that you could consider is Site Backup Pro, but there are other alternatives you could use to backup your site, so this is up to you.
Hope this helps, and good luck on your switch to Bluehost!
Ray
October 9, 2014 at 2:56 pmLike most of you bloggers out there, I just started my own travel blog as a hobby to jot down past trips and “once-in-lifetime” adventures I have done so I don’t forget about them for the future. I am just wondering what factors each of you considered when making the jump from going from WordPress to self-hosted?
Marissa Sutera
October 9, 2014 at 8:59 pmHi Ray! One of the primary factors I was looking for was something that was going to allow for a simple transition from my existing free WordPress blog to my new self hosted page.
I also wanted to find something that had as few issues as possible, and after reading pages of reviews it seems like Bluehost was the way to go. Price, of course, is another factor to consider. Finally, it’s important to make sure the hosting platform offers good support in case anything goes awry.
Looking back, moving to self hosted is something I should have done a long time ago. There are so many more options for customization (there’s so many plugin options out there!), you can track so many more statistics, and finally make money off of your blog!
Best of luck to you if you decide to make the switch over!
Melissa
October 9, 2014 at 9:46 amGreat tips! While my blog (above) is very new, I’m not new to blogging. I had a blog of a completely different genre from 2007-2011, and I had to go through the whole ‘move from wordpress’ to move to self-hosted. It was kind of a pain in the butt back then, so it seems to have changed for the better! This time ’round though, I dove right into self-hosted!
Marissa Sutera
October 9, 2014 at 8:23 pmThat’s the way to go! It makes it a whole lot easier the second time around. Thanks for stopping by Melissa!
Kim
October 8, 2014 at 1:13 pmI did the same where I decided I wanted to switch from wordpress.com to wordpress.org They offer so much more in the way of plugins and then after I decided on that I had to look into which host to use and like you, am using bluehost. I am so glad I decided to take the leap so that I can do more things with my blog.
Marissa Sutera
October 8, 2014 at 6:35 pmIt’s been great! I’ve had no problems so far and am so glad I finally switched over and am able to take advantage of all the additional features I can have for my blog. Thanks for reading Kim!
Jenny Dewey Rohrich (@PrairieCA)
October 6, 2014 at 1:33 pmThanks so much for mentioning my post! Great post about moving over!
Marissa Sutera
October 6, 2014 at 6:49 pmHi Jenny, no problem! Thanks for sharing such great content 🙂