Beginner’s guide to self-hosting your WordPress blog

Welcome to my new home!

This is it! I have taken the plunge, and have decided to self-host my blog. WordPress.com has been a wonderful   platform over the years but I felt increasingly frustrated by its lack of features. Let me explain…

When I started blogging back in 2006, an html platform perfectly met my needs. And then, new tools such as Twitter, the MyBlogLog visitors’ widget or Feedburner’s subscribe via email box  became a must on sidebars. WordPress.com does not support javascript for security reasons unlike Blogger or Typepad, and I simply felt that my blog didn’t meet my technical needs anymore.

More importantly, conversations have evolved. Twitter is now a major conversational tool that complements blogs, and my readers frequently send @replies rather than commenting on some of  my blog posts; this made me realise that I needed plugins to take this blog to the next level.

If you don’t know it, Google it

I found all the information I needed to self-host my blog on Google, and you’ll hopefully find this beginner’s guide useful:

1) I found an absolutely brilliant video tutorial on becomeablogger.com that takes you through the different steps  to self-hosting your blog. The videos cover topics such as  buying your domain name, selecting a host, downloading and installing Worpdress, themes and plugins. Gideon’s (the guy who hosts the tutorials)  narration style is clear and informative, in a nutshell simply perfect for all newbies out there!

2) Once my site was up and running, I had to transfer the posts from my old wordpress.com blog onto my new self-hosted, wordpress.org blog. This turned out to be a major headache…

• Firstly go to your wordpress.com blog and export the .xml file onto your hard-drive by going to tools – export – on your dashboard. The .xml file is a file that contains all the data that you have ever created including, blog posts, comments, tags and categories.

• Once the .xml file is saved on your hard-drive, you’ll have to import the .xml file onto your new blog. Go to tools – import – .xml file saved on your hard-drive and follow the instructions on screen. If you’re lucky, all your old blog posts, comments will appear on your new self-hosted blog, and you’ll be done!

I unfortunately ended up with my old posts in chronological order (as opposed to reverse chonological order!) and I kept  getting a fatal error message. I turned to Twitter for help and my problem truly turned into a global affair with @WOMarketing @yenra @blogcoach @robbucker stepping in to give me  a hand!

My .xml file was too large and kept generating a ‘fatal error’ message. In order to overcome this, I had to increase my upload file size to 64M on my host.

To increase the upload file size go to your host’s control pane – search for the php.ini file – click ‘php.ini quick edit’, and amend the upload file settings. Go back to your wordpress dashboard and upload the .xml file again! Job done!

3) A lot of templates come with a big fat RSS feed button in the header. This is in theory a great thing but you’ll have to make sure that you the RSS Feed chicklet points towards the correct feed! I downloaded the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin which detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds, and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

4) Don’t forget to register your new URL on Technorati and Google Blog Search to make sure it appears in search engines.

5) If you don’t know it Google it, and you’ll probably find the answer you’re looking for. Twitter also turned out to be brilliant for help and support.

6) Blog, blog and blog… till you drop

I hope you’ll find this post useful – if I can do it, so can you!