This one is for all my readers who are bloggers themselves! I have recently been getting an influx of emails and Facebook messages asking me for blog help. I decided that it would be more effective if I started to post blogging tips because more than one of my readers may have the same question. I created a new category called “Blogging” (how original) so if you are just stopping by to read about this topic you can scroll to the bottom of this page and click on that tab under the category listings.

Here’s a little background on all of it: I originally started blogging as a project for a course I took in college my senior year. I had a basic understanding of websites, HTML code, analytics, and social media marketing from being a webmaster/technology assistant/virtual assistant for a couple businesses I have worked for throughout the years, plus I have a marketing degree which also helped. I loved the challenge of learning more about it all and getting hands on experience that allowed me to use my own creativity. I joined blogger communities and I have made some great connections through those also. Now let’s get to it!

How did you go about the switch?

Recently I migrated my site from Weebly to WordPress which was a huge undertaking to say the least, but it was so worth it! I manually transferred everything from my Weebly site to my WordPress (self-hosted) which meant that I did lose all my comments in the process.

Did the switch effect you negatively at all?

My following was in no way negatively impacted. My social media following has since grown along with my monthly visitors, although I am not certain if these directly related to the new site. Everyone has been VERY supportive of the update and I have gotten positive feedback overall!

How did I get all of my content from Weebly to WordPress?

Like I said everything was done manually, copying, pasting, uploading photos, it was VERY tedious and frustrating although in the end SO WORTH IT! I never found a way to do an export of my weebly site, not to say that it can’t be done.

Do you recommend being self-hosted?

Being self-hosted on WordPress has a huge number of advantages: more options for creativity, SO many widget and plugin options, professional, clean cut, I could go on and on. WordPress.com is easy to use (I do not use this for SMDC), but WordPress.org (self-hosted, which I now use for SMDC) is pretty hard to tackle at first. Once everything is set up though it is fairly easy once you are acquainted.

How can I setup my own self-hosted site?

There are a lot of people who have Etsy shops who will set it all up for you or you can watch YouTube videos on it. I used 17th Avenue Designs for my theme and they were extremely helpful with my questions during my installation process. As for hosting itself, I was lucky enough to have a Computer Science Major friend who helped me with BlueHost and the nitty gritty. I would definitely recommend finding someone who can help you do this, like I said there are a lot of people who you will need to pay for their service, but it is well worth it. Also using WordPress.org you have to pay for your domain URL and then also the hosting company. This will be a switch that is somewhat costly, but WORTH IT (have I mentioned it was worth it)!

Still have questions? Feel free to leave me a comment below or contact me via email. I am happy to help!

P.S. Be sure to head over to my Instagram @thesaramagnolia to enter my giveaway for a necklace + earrings set!