How To Move Your Blog From WordPress.Com To Your Own Hosting Server

Are you getting frustrated with WordPress.com services?

Why?

Wait. I will tell you!!

WordPress.com has a lot of limitations, from less monetization ability, plugins installation issues, to third party ads on your users, and so on. Newbies generally start using WordPress.com and realize its drawbacks later and wish to switch to its hosting server.

Despite that, if you are planning to build a serious business, you will realize that WordPress.com is not a skillful option to go with. In case of premium options, such as audio/video uploads, custom domain, advertisement display, extra space, you have to pay for the extra amount. With the lack of security and control, WordPress.com shows an inability for output generation from the blog.

If you are facing these issues, it's time to switch to your hosting server.

The aim behind this article is to present the methods or the steps to change your blog from WordPress.org to your server. Hiring the Best WordPress Development Outsourcing company is also a favorable approach for effective work. According to the demands and budget, you can choose the path that will be suitable for you. Let's proceed without wasting more time!!

Table of Content

Why You Should Move To Your Own Hosting Server

Steps to follow to move from WordPress.com to your hosting server

• Step #1 Register a domain & find a hosting provider
• Step #2 Install WordPress
• Step #3 Find & install a theme
• Step #4 Export Data From Your WordPress.com Server
• Step #5 Import Data On Your New Domain
• Step #6 Redirect Your WordPress.com Site
• Conclusion

Why You Should Move To Your Own Hosting Server

When moving from WordPress.com to another host, you're going to have to pay for hosting. Fortunately, there are many benefits to upgrading.

Here are several reasons to move from WordPress.com to a self-hosted solution:

• It's only good for community-based, low traffic or personal sites.
• It does not support email hosting.
• You can't use custom plugins and affiliate links.
• If you don't abide by WordPress' terms of service, you could get banned by them.
• It can't handle the growing requirements of a business.
• Limited theme choice – several professional themes are not supported by WordPress.com.
• You cannot make changes in WordPress theme structures as you are limited by customization restrictions.

Now that you know why you need web hosting, let's talk about getting set up.

Steps to follow to move from WordPress.com to your hosting server

Step #1 Register a domain & find a hosting provider

First, register a domain name of your choice. Next, choose a hosting service. Hosts are not hard to find – do a quick Google search.

Step #2 Install WordPress

After you've registered with a hosting company, you need to install the WordPress CMS on your site.

With most hosts, it only takes a few clicks to install WordPress. If you run into any problems, again, Google is your friend.

Step #3 Find & install a theme

You can find many great themes in WordPress. Premium themes such as the Genesis Framework – on the other hand, might require some digging.

Oftentimes, you pay for what you get. Free themes might seem nice on the outside, but they break easily. Use WordPress own Twenty Sixteen or Twenty Fifteen themes as a starting point if you don't have a budget for themes right now.

Step #4 Export Data From Your WordPress.com Server

Log in to your account at WordPress.com and click on "My Sites" in the top left-hand corner if it isn't already selected. Scroll down in the menu bar until you see "Settings" (it should be at the bottom)", and then click on "Export" in the primary window.

Then, export all content. You'll be prompted to save an XML file to your hard drive, which contains all the data of your WordPress site, including pages, categories, posts, tags, comments, and so on.

Step #5 Import Data On Your New Domain

Log into WordPress on your self-hosted site, if you aren't logged in already.

From the left-hand menu bar, roll over "Tools", and then click on "Import". Scroll down until you see "WordPress", and click on the "Install Now" link, which will install the WordPress Importer plugin. Once installed, activate the plugin and run it.

You'll be navigated to browse for a file on your hard drive. Upload your XML file from earlier, click on "Upload file and import", and the Importer should do the rest of the work for you.

Step #6 Redirect Your WordPress.com Site

First, you'll need to go to this link. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it's the easiest way to redirect your site.

Now, click on the site you want to redirect (if you have more than one connected to your WordPress.com) account.

Enter the new domain where you want your traffic to redirect to, then click on "Go". Yes, you must pay for the redirect option. Follow the checkout process, and you're done this part of the process.

But there's one more thing you should check, which is your permalink structure. In most cases, you can keep the defaults, and everything should work fine. But if your permalink structure is different on your domain than it was on your WordPress.com blog, the forwarding may not work properly. Double-check to make sure.

Conclusion

So, this was an easy-to-follow tutorial comprising of only necessary steps to move your blog from WordPress.com to your hosting server. Try out these steps and see how easily you migrate to your self-hosted domain. Enjoy the ride!

About the Author

Emily Johns is a web developer and IT consultant at WordSuccor, a WordPress conversion company. She is dived through open-source code for over a decade and shares everything about WordPress and new Web design technologies. You can find her on Twitter!