Before reading this Guide “How to Transfer Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain” You have to ask a question to yourself, Is it really needed? and are you ready to pay some dollar per months?
As a business person or any blogger having a Blog (free or hosted) is mandatory because it helps to grow the network and build a relationship. It’s the best business strategy to grow your business.
In the online world, there are a lot of Blogging platforms like Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and etc. If talk for Professionally, WordPress is the best one. These platforms are free to use and promote but It does not look good. These give a sub-domain like this (www.dpvishwakarma.wordpress.com)
Well, If you have any free hosted blog on WordPress.com/Blogger/Tumblr, You can transfer it from free to paid and get more features. If you have no, You can start by creating a free hosted blog. Here is a Guide “How to Start a Blog: Step-by-Step Guide to Start Blogging with Free Hosted Blog“. If you have then skipped it.
You will take following 8 simple steps to start blogging with free hosted blog. So Let’s start:
Step 1 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Buy URL And Hosting For Your Blog
Buying URL and Hosting your is all paid service. If you ready to send some money per month then start from Buying a Domain name. You can use the same which you have used in the free blog and if it will possible to register the same name then go for it because your readers will easily recall it. You have many options to register a domain from Godaddy, Register.com, and etc. I am personally recommended Regiter.com
Well, Go to the Register.com and check your availability if it will not, book another one.
Now register yourself and make an account. Fill all basic details.
Add to cart your domain and book hosting for one year. Go to Hosting and SSL and select “Compare Web Hosting Packages” after that choose professional hosting service and again add to cart.
Now, Make payment and You’ll go through the regular payment process. You will wait for a mail from Register.com
Check your mail box you will get a mail like subject ‘Your WordPress Website is Live and ready to use’. Open it and there could be mention two login option with login details. You have to choose the manual method. Follow all instructions and go to login page.
After login, You will get a Dashboard and you can do any thing according to your requirement.
Your WordPress website is ready to use.
Step 2 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Transfer Data From Free Blog
In this step, You will export and import your Blog data from free hosting to paid hosting. You have to follow below steps.
Steps For WordPress.com:
Go to Tools tab from your WordPress Free Blog’s Dashboard and click on export button.
Choose all content to export and download export file.
Steps For Blogger.com:
Login to your Blogger Account, go to settings > Others and download the content.
Your pages, posts, and comments will download.
Now, You have data of your blog content. You can Import data to WordPress through importer plugin.
Plugin for WordPress: Go to Plugin and click at add new and search WordPress Importer and install and activate it.
Go back to Import tab and click on WordPress, you will be displayed a message to import the file. Choose your WordPress file and upload the content.
Plugin for Blogger.com: Go to Plugin and click at add new and search Blogger Importer and install and activate it.
Go back to Import tab and click on Blogger, you will be displayed a message to import the file. Choose your blogger file and upload the content.
Step 3 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Redirecting Old Blog To A New Blog
If you do not want to lose out on your earned search engine rankings, then you must need to provide a 301 redirect from your old blog to new blog. Redirecting users to a new location with a 301 header is the standard solution to keep search rankings while moving a site from one location to another. And If it is not important for you just skip this step. If you have a Blogger Account, you could require a developer’s help.
WordPress: Redirecting old Blog to a new Blog is paid for a WordPress Blog and is chargeable at $13 USD per year. So simply go to wordpress.com dashboard and click on setting tab and click on redirect option.
and after that, you will get an option like below.
Step 4 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Change Theme Of The Blog And Make It Attractive
You can add Theme according to your requirement and you can change any Theme at any time. So, go to Dashboard and click on Appearance tab and select Theme option.
Click on “Add New” button and search your theme.
You can upload any WordPress theme if you will not get a good one here. Well, Select your theme and Install it.
After Installation, Click ‘Activate’ to activate your theme. After your theme is activated, you can go to the ‘Customizer’ to customize your site.
You can modify your theme according to your need and look.
Step 5 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Create Page, Set Home Page, And Add Them In The Menu
This step is website building step and adds Pages and customize Menu.
Simply Go to Page tab and click on Add New Button. Type Home or any thing and Publish it.
Set this page as for the home page in “Reading Settings” therefore Go to Settings Tab and click on “Reading Setting”.
To create your navigation menu, click Appearance, and then click menus under that.
You’ll see a screen similar to the above. Click ‘Create Menu’ to create your menu.
You can select items on the left side and click ‘Add to Menu’ to add them to the menu. Don’t forget to check the checkbox called ‘Primary Menu’, then click ‘Save Menu’ to save your menu. You can click an item’s ‘dropdown arrow’ at the right to expand and edit/delete it.When you’re done, don’t forget to save your menu.
Step 6 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Connect Google Webmaster
You have set all basic thing of a WordPress blog site. Now, We put some extra step for Search Engine Optimisation. You have to connect your site to Google Webmaster for gain some traffic from Google Search Engine.It will also help you to check spam and crawling error.
Well, It is simple steps to verify your site.
- Sign in to Search Console with your Google account with your Gmail Id.
- Sign in, click on add a site and Verify that you’re the owner of the site.
- Upload a file to your server
- Add a meta tag to your website’s HTML
- Add a new DNS record.
Now, Go to your WordPress dashboard and click on Plugin tab and click Add New Button.
Search for Yoast SEO plugin and Install it.
After installation, you will have to activate the plugin in the Plugin section. After activation, you will be able to “SEO” link in the menu Item. Set your webmaster id in SEO plugin.
Step 7 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Integrate Google Analytics Account and Analyse Your Traffic
It’s time you should create & integrate Google Analytics Account. Just log in to your Google Analytics Account and connect your site. After you create your Google Analytics account, the next step to integrate the Google Analytics in your blog.
Watch the below Video How to setup Google Analytics Account:
Step 8 (Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain): Add Contact Form to Generate Leads
You may need to add contact forms to your blog site for collecting contact details of your reader. So, Go to “Plugin” and click on Add New Button and Search Contact Form 7 and Install it.
You’ll see that one form is already there. Click ‘Edit’ to edit this form. Under the edit section, you can add, remove or edit the fields in the form and you can create email message for the user.
Adding the form to a page: There are a lot of ways to add this form to your page.
Method 1: Shortcode (This is useful if you want to add a form anywhere within the content of a page. To do this, go to forms, and copy the shortcode for the respective form)
Method 2: Via Widget (Go to Appearance-> Widgets)
Drag and drop Ninja Forms Widget into ‘Main Sidebar’ and Select the form that you need to show, and click ‘Save’. After that, Your form will show up in the sidebar on all pages now.
Conclusion
In this guide “How to Transfer Free WordPress Blog into Self-Hosted Domain“, I have covered all basic and required step for a fundamental Blog site. You have to practice more for an attractive blog site. Add Call to action button in your blog and get more contacts and build a good relationship.
Thank you!
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