WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms these days. Aside from offering millions of bloggers free hosting and data storage services, WordPress is also a highly customizable platform that will allow you to build and design a unique blog that is truly yours.
However, some people who love the customization options have qualms about WordPress’ domain name being on their URL. You can enjoy the convenience of a WordPress blog without using a URL that might appear unprofessional in some circles. Here are the steps to host your WordPress blog on your own domain.
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Move your blog from WordPress.com to Self-hosting.
WordPress.com is WordPress’ free service, where most users were not required to have advanced technical skills in tweaking and designing their blogs. There are also plenty of wonderful widgets that you can use for free, as well as free plug-ins and themes. However, WordPress.com can be quite limiting, especially when your blog gets popular. One could not translate a WordPress.com blog’s traffic, especially since the platform explicitly prohibits the use of tools like Google AdSense. WordPress.com also does not allow their bloggers to use JavaScript, which can prevent the use of tracking software such as Google Analytics. On the other hand, free blogs do not look professional. So, if you want to fully own your blog with all the benefits provided by self-hosting, then consider spending a bit of money.
Self-hosting allows you not only to further customize the look of your blog but also use a wide variety of tools that will allow you to be holistic in your branding.
From here, you can begin to transfer your posts from the free WordPress.com service to Self-Hosted WordPress Blog. Simply follow the next few steps and your blog will be moved in no time. Using Managed VPS Hosting is the recommended method if you want to get this done efficiently.
Get a hosting and register a domain name.
You will need to order a virtual server and your domain name, which you will use to host your blog and your domain. You can get a fully managed WordPress server from us, and we will help you migrate your WordPress.com blog to your own WordPress server.
With our services, you can enjoy a wide array of features and applications and you are assured that your registration details are protected. This means that with our private domain registration, your private information, such as phone number and home/office address, cannot be gleaned from your domain’s whois record.
Export posts from WordPress.com and import to your own installation.
If you have one of our hosting plans, our admins can install and configure WordPress for you, free of charge. Since you will have installed WordPress on your server, you will be able to transfer your WordPress.com posts to your own WordPress blog with your domain and hosting services in place.
In the WordPress.com admin dashboard, with using the Manage > Export option you can easily export your blog posts, comments, and essentially all data as an XML file. Your new installed WordPress allows you to import these files by using the Manage > Import option, which will be automatically downloaded and shown on your own domain.
If you are not sure how to do this, we offer free migration to our hosting network, so feel free to contact our admins and make a migration request by submitting a support ticket or initiating an online chat.
Redirect search engines and your blog visitors to your new domain.
You will find that the new WordPress blog that you have set up is a direct copy of your old blog—and visitors and search engines will still go to the old one if you do not inform them of the move. While you can simply do this by announcing the change on your old blog (or your social media accounts) by showing the new URL, you will still need to use a tool that will automatically redirect your old WordPress.com blog’s traffic to the new one.
Doing this is quite simple. You will first need to log in to your domain registrar, or the company that holds your domain’s registration. Then, you can change the DNS settings of your domain, which will automatically direct traffic to the servers of WordPress.com. It is important that you take note of the nameserver addresses at this step. If you want to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress you can refer to our guide about The Pros and Cons of Choosing WordPress for your Website.