Goodbye Blogger, Hello Self Hosted WordPress!

    What a week this has been!  I cannot even begin to explain to you guys how great it feels to be writing this post.  This post is a testament to the fact that I am finally finished moving my blog from Blogger to self hosted WordPress.  Although I am still alive to tell you how it all went, I do have some virtual bumps, bruises, and scratches to prove that this was no easy task by any means.

Let me begin by explaining to you guys that this was a move that I have been contemplating for awhile now.  However, from reading a wealth of articles and blog posts about this topic, I was well aware that it was not going to happen overnight nor would it easy to do.  So, as a result of this, I pushed it to the back of my mind and worked hard to learn everything that I could about Blogger so that I would be able to fully customize my blog on their platform.  Over time, I felt pretty confident changing HTML code on Blogger and designing various aspects of my blog so I was pretty content.  This does not mean that I forgot about migrating my blog it just means that I pushed it aside momentarily.

Last week a blogging sister of mine,  sent me a link to view her new blog which is currently under construction.  She also will be redirecting her old blog with blogger to self hosted WP when her design is complete.  She is doing a great job and she really got me thinking again about hosting my own domain.  Every blogger has different reasons for making this move.  Some want to earn money from blogging, some want to have more creative control over their content, and others are trying to create a brand.  I fall into the second category because I did not not like the fact that I did not have autonomy over my words and the writing on my blog.  Of course, if that generates any kind of income I am definitely not going to turn it down.  After all, what is better than doing something you love and earning money while doing it?

After all of this going back and forth, I finally decided that I was going to take the leap and just do it!  Initially, I set out to hire a professional to switch the blog for me.  That is how intimidated I was at the prospect of initiating such a large endeavor.  As a matter of fact, I sent out multiple emails to various blog designers and experts that were recommended to me by my friends in the blogging community.  I also began to reach out to my contacts within the blogging communities that I belong to in order to get feedback from them regarding changing blogging platforms and self hosting.  Everyone was great but most of my best advice came from my friends as Blog Catalog who told me it was better to do my homework and try to do this myself than to pay someone to do it.  They really empowered me to do it because I realized that if I want to be a serious blogger, I have to learn all aspects of blogging including the technical aspect.

A lot of people have been asking me how I did it and, I have to be completely honest, it was really hard.  Now, what I mean by really hard is that I had to put in a serious amount of research time, time spent talking to technical support, time emailing others to ask questions, and time trying to fix things that I did not get right the first time.  There were so many things to consider that it was overwhelming but, luckily, there is a lot of literature online to explain how to do the entire process.  I learned very quickly that I was not the first one to attempt this feat and I was also not the first person to screw something up while doing it.

The first thing that I did was to purchase web hosting.  A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that allows individuals and organizations to make their own website accessible via the World Wide Web.  The purpose of doing this is to give you complete control over your brand, logo, and all of the content and posts on your blog.  After shopping and asking around, the concensus seemed to be that HostGator is a really good web hosting provider so I purchased a hosting package through them.  I have to tell you, I can vouch for the fact that they have excellent and knowledgeable Customer Service Representatives who literally spent hours chatting with me online to help me resolve some of my migrating problems.  One of their techs even stayed on the phone with me and talked me through adding my new domain email to my cell phone.  This kind of support meant a lot since I was learning the ropes as I went along.

I’m not going to bore you with the specifics of what I did to transfer the blog.  Anyone who wants specific advice as to how to do that can email me privately.  Suffice it to say that I did it and it worked.  It definitely was not impossible.  That is the wisdom that I really want to impart to all of you with this post, you should not be intimidated by maintaining the technical side of your blog.  Although we are writers, it is a necessary evil to be able to manage this facet of our blogs.  Although there are many professionals out there who would be more than happy to do it for you, for a fee, that is not as rewarding as accomplishing it on your own.

Having said that, even I know my own limitations so I did contract a professional to redirect my feed directs and to help me retain my search engine traffic from posts under the old Blogger format.  Shirley was amazing!  She maintained contact with me at every turn, was generous with her advice and, most importantly she did not drain my bank account.  Her fee was reasonable and I did not have to sign over my firstborn child to her.  You can find her at http://bloggingwithsuccess.net/  Within hours, all of my traffic, subscribers, and feed had been redirected to my new blog.

I’m not advocating any one blogging platform over another one in this post.  What I am promoting is the idea that you should truly be the captain of your blogging ship.  It is important to educate yourself on all aspects of your blogging and to not be afraid to seek answers and support from others.  You would be pleasantly surprised at how many knowledgeable bloggers are more than eager to share their skill set with other bloggers.  Part of your networking should include sharing ideas with others and building your blogging repertoire.  I simply cannot stress how invaluable these interactions are to the long term success of your blog and how much they empower you as a blogger!

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