I have had a blog for over a year with 240 posts and 1,300+ followers. I am rebranding/renaming myself and want to move my blog to be self-hosted. How do I move it and keep my followers? 

you read my mind, Anita. I’m going to use hostgator but the lowest one, I think it is hatchling thanks for the recommendation, might check him out, probably diy approach @anitacohen-williams

@deairby, you have 1 of 2 choices:
1) Move everything over to the new blog and shut the old one down. The problem with that is you’ve got a lot of SEO juice and a lot of links out there with the old URL. Shutting it down loses ALL of that.

2) Set up the new blog and leave the old one intact. Write one last blog post, “This blog has moved to a new address: _______” If you really want to be put a link at the bottom of every post (or at least the to 60 most visited posts) that says the same thing. Then, remind your followers several times that you’ve moved to the new site.

@deairby That, I don’t know. 

@deairby

Hi Dea,

For someone that isn’t familiar with the inner workings of WordPress, it can seem extremely complicated but its relatively easy.  

When logged into your Wordpress dashboard, on the left hand side, hover over tools and click export.  Click all content to transfer all of your posts and pages.  I suggest all content because you can always remove things once you’ve got it transferred over.  This will download a file to your computer.  Keep it in a place you know is easy to access.  

Login to your new site and on the left hand side like before, hover over tools.  This time click, import.  It will go to a screen that will ask you what type of platform you’re importing from.  I’m assuming it’s WordPress but either way the platform type should be there.  Click WordPress (or whatever platform you’re coming from) and it will take you to the upload screen, select the file and click upload and import.  

All ”posts, pages, comments, custom fields, categories, and tags into this site” will be transferred.  

If you have any questions or run into an issue, shoot me a message here and I’ll help you.

~Nichole

Hi @deairby, I already have self hosted blog. But my hosting is soon up for renewal. And I am considering changing host.

And Hostgator seems to provide me with all the options I like to have for taking my blog to the next level. 

Hopefully the transfer want give me to much trouble. The only thing I have to check out is how it effect the emails I have. 

From what I read on Hostgator most of transfer should go fairly smooth. I plan to have it done by next month. 

Cheers…

Are Morch – Hotel Blogger

Anytime! @deairby

thanks, Wiser Jason (I think that’s a better way to call you!) @jasonwiser

@jasonwiser