I’ve finally gone and done it!! I’ve moved my blog over to WordPress and gone self-hosted!
I’ve been contemplating it for over a year now, but I’m not the most tech savvy person and, if I’m honest, I was more than a little scared!
However, I recently attended Blogcamp and there was lots of talk of fantastic plugins that I wasn’t able to use on my old Blogger platform. I also attended a session presented by Emma who blogs over at EmmaDrew.info , and afterwards discovered that she offers Blogger to WordPress migrations, the perfect solution for me!
I also had the misconception that it would be really expensive to go self-hosted, but I managed to find a deal with 1and1 for only 99p a month for the first 12 months. I also didn’t realise that if you’re self-hosted you don’t need to buy WordPress Premium (thanks Emma for pointing that out!). So, even with paying Emma to help with the migration (a very reasonable £30), it hasn’t cost that much at all!
Obviously with transferring platforms, I’ve had to install and customise a new theme, which has been a little time consuming and frustrating at times. However, I’m really happy with my new re-vamped blog, plus I’ve learnt a bit about CSS too! It hasn’t changed massively from my Blogger theme, but I think it looks more professional and I’ve really enjoyed playing around with some of the plugins.
The look of my blog is still a work in progress and I’ll probably make some small tweaks along the way as I discover new things. I still need to add a large number of my posts into categories and I want to play around a little with the plugins, but overall I’m happy to unveil it!
If you’re on Blogger and considering making the move, I would definitely recommend doing it!
I’d love to hear what you think, along with any suggestions for plugins (particularly a ‘subscribe to blog’ one!).
J xx
Oooo I was looking at the very same thing. I don’t know why it feels so scary but it does right? Maybe you’ve inspired me and I was meant to read this 😉😉😉 #marvmondays
Do it Faye, it’s so easy (maybe because Emma did all the hard work!) Jemma x
Well done on making the move, it looks fab! I just love all the plugins you can get when you are self hosted. Enjoy X #marvmondays
Thank you. I’m still exploring plugins, I think I could spend all my time exploring at the min! Jemma x
WordPress is so much easier isn’t it?! I’m just in the process of going self hosted too. Thanks for joining us for #marvmondays
I’m loving it! I was really scared about self-hosted, but so far so good! Jemma x
Well done! it’s definitely worth the hassle 🙂 #MarvMondays
It really is x