Quick Download: Switching from WordPress.com to Self-hosting

I just switched this site from WordPress.com managed hosting to self hosting with hosting company Bluehost. I wrote prior about why I initially chose WordPress.com for this site. This article will cover why I cancelled that service, and moved to self hosting on Bluehost, and some of the pitfalls and triumphs I encountered a long the way.

I’d say I’m above average when it comes to tech stuff. (I’m a digital marketer by trade) I am by no means a whiz when it comes to this stuff – I really feel, if I can do this, then about anyone can – especially with the availability of support at Bluehost and WordPress.com.

Why I Chose WordPress.com Initially and Why I Left

I’ve written over 60 articles in the last year since I launched this site. I had this idea that I would make a handful of money from “affiliate marketing” on Amazon – I mention a lot of products on this site (products I actually use and like), and when they’re linked to Amazon there’s a good chance it’s an affiliate link, which means I’ll get a small commission if you click the link and buy something. I’ve also created a sponsors page wherein if you buy/order something I’ll get a kickback from the listed sponsor.

This entire site is me making recommendations – sound recommendations I might add, and guess how many purchased there have been through my Amazon affiliate links and other “sponsors”? Rhetorical question; almost none. One actually – I think I tweeted an affiliate link to 3m Respirators (N95) when forest fire smoke was bad – and someone bought a ten pack – my commission $0.93. There have been no other sales I’ve been credited for – in fact my Amazon Affiliates account was shut down over the summer because of a lack of sales (you have to have 3 sales every six months), and it will likely be shut down again.

The reason I’m telling you all this, is that this site has made me $0.93 in the last year of operation – and there is no way I can justify $300/year with WordPress.com.

But Nate, you’ve listed them yourself – WordPress.com has much cheaper plans. Yes, but only the $300 plan has Google Analytics integration, and the ability to add plugins. Using a WordPress site without plugins is like only using Apple provided apps on your iPhone, sure it gets the job done, but all the fun stuff is on the apps not made by Apple.

Analytics too is critical – I/you shouldn’t lean on WordPress provided analytics – it’s too limited, and if you change your site it doesn’t carry over. People say your analysis is only as good as your data, and Google Analytics is by no means perfect – but it provides extensive reporting and continuity. If one day I decide I don’t like self hosting and switch to Squarespace or Wix, the same analytics account can go with me. That long term data is very helpful for content and site performance analysis.

WordPress.com is charged annually, and I couldn’t take another $300 hit so I decided to figure out “self hosting”.

Know Thy Selfhost

What is self-hosting? WordPress.org is an open source website architecture. WordPress.com is a for profit managed hosting entity that uses the wordpress.org architecture. If you want the free open source wordpress.org you need a site host. Self-hosting can be profoundly cheaper than even the most basic plans on Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. Google ‘best wordpress site hosts’ and oodles of articles will come up, but time and time again Bluehost is a top pick for small time blog sites like this one.

Blue host is charging me $106.20 for 36 months of hosting – this comes out to $2.95/month. 

I know I did a terrible job describing what a site host is, but a site host is essentially where your site lives. It’s the servers that house your site so it can be called up around the world wide web. True self hosting is technically having a server in your basement or closet(which some people do), but for this article’s purposes I’m calling hosts like Bluehost, self hosting.

The Act II: Migrating from WordPress.com to Bluehost

I was so intimidated going into this. How would I get all 60+ blog articles from the clutches of wordpress.com, and moved to bluehost? It’s actually quite simple.

1. In your wordpress.com dashboard export your site. It’s “Tools > Export (select “All content”) > Download Export File — this downloads an ‘XML File’ which you will upload to Bluehost.
2. Create a Bluehost account – okay this process is replete with upsells – in fact the upsells were blended so well into check-out I almost signed up for some additional services I didn’t want. (You can always add these services later). If you can dodge the upsells you can land on a hosting only service – the service I chose was $2.95 / month – but to get that rate I had to pay three years up front – still only one third of a year on the WordPress.com business plan.
3. Once you have your hosting service selected – you literally take that XML file you downloaded in step 1 and upload it – and viola! Your posts (blog articles, pages, feedback, order, product, comments, and media have transferred)
4. THEMES and DESIGN DO NOT Transfer – Themes, custom CSS, pluggins – this all doesn’t transfer to your new site. Oh my! A cool thing about the wordpress.com biz plan is you can choose a premium theme. I was on one that retails for $150 – so if I wanted that theme again with bluehost – I would have to pay for it. As I mentioned prior I do not want to spend a bunch of money on this site unless it’s making me money.
5. Choose a theme and update appearance – I chose the WordPress.org default – Twenty Nineteen. Once you have a theme selected you will need to go through and pick the appearance settings you want – things like site tagline, favicon, logo, menu, homepage stuff, what widgets show where and how they’re labeled – poking around with this stuff took several hours today. :/ And I still don’t have site search in header – if you’re reading this and know how to get that added, let me know!
6. Add your plugins – I chose some classics and some from personal preference – here are the plugins I rolled out immediately:
   • Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
   • Insert Headers and Footers – (I used this one to install Google Tag Manager)
   • Posts Modified Date – love this plugin. It simply shows the last time I edited a blog article. From time to time I update old articles and this is a way for me to show the world I’m keeping things fresh.
   • Scriptless Social Sharing – I thought this one was so cool. It is social sharing buttons but with minimal code – hopefully this keeps my site fast and keeps things easy for visitors. Please share this blog article btw!
   • Yoast SEO
   • And there’s a few other plugins that came with the site. I’ll likely add and remove plugins over time depending on need.

Sounds Too Easy

I can assure you it was not! Okay it wasn’t that bad, but start to finish (not including writing this article, the process took me about 10 hours 🙁 – again I’m not super techy so I’m sure someone more skilled could have hammered this all out pretty quickly. I did have to talk to support and I found errors that I poked around myself to find answers too.

Support Chats and Corrected Pitfalls

• No SSL on new site – Bluehost comes with free SSL. SSL is important because it shows Google and users you care about security. After a couple chats with blue host support I was able to get it resolved.
• WordPress User Profile Troubles – okay so I jumped the gun with the new site, and somehow managed to link it back to wordpress.com – this was fouling up my ability to access and admin the new site. The wordpress.com support team very graciously canceled out and deleted my association with their business version and this somehow freed up the user I had accidentally linked. (I’m still not entirely sure what happened here.)
• Link Structure – In this process I also changed my domain name from oakfive.com to askoshbetter.com – this in part caused all of my pages on my new self hosted site to show up with page not found ‘404 errors’. The fix was to ensure that the new site had the same blog post URL structure. This is done in Settings > Permalinks – I needed to get this site to the same ‘Common Settings’ as the old. e.g., year, month, day, post name.

Final Thoughts

There is still work to be done – I’m not out here trying to say I’m some WordPress wizard or that this site is perfect. But for me, it was important that I get on cheaper website solution, but I love the functionality of WordPress. Self hosting, in my instance through bluehost – is helping me save a good chunk of money, without sacrificing functionality.

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