I did it. I took the plunge and bought a domain name. I decided to use iPage to host my domain and used WordPress for my template.
I had a blog on WordPress for a year before I decided to get my own domain name. I made the switch so that I had more choices such as some great plugins and the ability to advertise or sell products and services on my site.
The process has been thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I decided to do the work myself and without a tremendous amount of knowledge, I have had plenty of ups and downs. If you are thinking of switching over to a dot-com, I have listed below a few things that you might want to consider before making the leap.
1. Decide if you will be putting your website together or if you will be hiring someone. The more things you want your website to do, the more technical it can get. The best thing you can do is write out your plan for the new site and then decide if you feel confident in attempting the switch yourself.
2. Realize that there will be glitches. Whatever you do, save all of your material on your old site before trying to transfer anything. If you lose all of that work, it could be pretty devastating.
3. Be aware that you can get your site set up so that if people go to the old address, they can be redirected to the new one. You will be able to save all of your hard work building up your ranking if you do this. Unfortunately for me, I am still struggling to figure out how to do this.
4. Another glitch I have hit is that although my posts and comments transferred over, my followers did not. I have 1,147 followers on my old site. Currently I have 23 followers on the new site. It’s a pretty painful thing to see. There is supposedly a way that WordPress can do the transfer, I’m not positive of this and it’s something I am still looking into.
5. All of the sites that have my old address have to be adjusted to reflect my new address.
6. Surprisingly in the small amount of time I have had the new site up, it has seen twice as many views as the old site. I have heard that a dot-com gets a better ranking in searches and many people feel more confident viewing a dot-com site instead of a WordPress dot-com site.
7. Because I am ranking so low again, getting advertisers to sign on is rough. My old site had a good amount of traffic and a decent Alexa rating. The new site has a while to go before my ranking moves up to a decent spot.
8. The amount of plugins available is the best part of having a dot-com site. I feel like a kid in a candy store. There are endless possibilities and the choices are a lot of fun.
9. In the long run, switching over is definitely a worthwhile venture. In the short-term, there are some definite growing pains that just naturally come with the territory.
Wendy McCance
To contact Wendy McCance about a writing assignment, interview or speaking engagement, please email her at: [email protected]
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I’m scared to do this because I’m not sure about how to make sure about #4. And I’m not sure how to make sure everything from the wordpress dot com shifts over to the new dot com.
It can be scary, I won’t lie. You have some options. You can have a company set up your website. iPage will set up your site for a fee (for example) or you can find someone who puts websites together for a living. If you try it on your own, make sure to copy all contents of your blog so nothing gets lost. Keep the old site running until the new site is just the way you want it. Good luck.
Congrats on the new site. I have a dot com domain on Weebly but thinking of changing to the WordPress format. Most of my writer friends recommend that move, due to the plugin features and other available upgrades. My provider said the transition will be an easy one, however I have a tech-savvy friend to help with the move. I will maintain my dot com status and will not have to include “WordPress” in my URL. My provider also stated that WordPress is much better for blogging than Weebly, where the only traffic I’ve seen is from family, friends and Linkedin group members. Good luck with your new venture and I subscribed!!
Thanks so much. Wishing you the best with your move.
Hi Wendy,Let me felicitate you withn respect to what you ahve accomplished. I would have to hire someone instead of doing it all by myself. Whew!!Blessings.
Thanks. Trust me when I say that I am hitting some major glitches. There are still several things I need to address before all runs smoothly.
Wendy-
I tried to sign up-but got this message…The feed does not have subscriptions by email enabled
Is it just on my end?
~ Stephy
I think I will get rid of it. I have a subscription button at the bottom of the main page that works. This has been my biggest issue for me lately. Not making subscribing easy has been a nightmare.
Congrats and much success with your new site!
Thanks so much.