Hello everyone!

I was previously roamterra.wordpress.com but now I’m offtotheworld.com talesfromjes.com! Finally I’m going self hosted after bickering to and forth with myself for a month (in two different animated voices, of course). Here’s the entire process.

Firstly, I’m just gonna let out a loooong breath. I was so afraid to go self-hosted! Not only because that means I’m no longer blogging for free (although, that is one of the reason) but another reason is because this blog has been such a stress-relief for me. I was so nervous going self-hosted would make this a ‘serious’ thing and instead of relieving my stress, it would induce it. But, first few days of self hosted and I’m really glad I did it!

I’m writing this post to describe the entire process, cost, and how I feel about it. I feel like lots of you must also be on the constant debate whether to continue using the free platform, or take it up a notch.

Host

This is the crucial, most important point. Which host are you going to choose? Yes,  you can choose to host with wordpress, but it’s way expensive.  You can opt for other web hosting to which you can connect your wordpress site. The three most known hosts are Bluehost, Siteground and Hostgator. Choices, choices, choices… which one, then?

Hostgator and Siteground offer free Site migration, which will mean that they’ll move everything from your old website to your new one and you can just sit back and order some coffee. This shouldn’t be a key feature, however, since site migration is not difficult! (more on that later) For a professional opinion, you can refer to tons of comparisons uploaded on google. Read it carefully, choosing the wrong host is definitely not what you want.

Price for Hosting

This was one of the key factor for me. Firstly, choose ‘Web hosting’. These hosts have plans like ‘WordPress hosting’ which cost more, but you don’t need that. And, before you purchase your plan, surf the internet for coupons, there are plenty of them. You can also use my link for Bluehost here.

I finally settled with Bluehost, with their cheapest plan, with a code that reduces the price to $3,95 a month. Here’s if you wanna use the same code: Bluehost. (Contact me on my email: Jesica@talesfromjes.com or twitter DM @talesfromjes if you want to have even a lower price. I will show you how to get the biggest discount from Bluehost! So contact me before you purchase your web hosting from Bluehost!)

Why Bluehost? I didn’t give it much thought, just that it’s the cheapest plan out there, really. They have 24/7 live chat support (which I use all the time, since at first I kept messing up! I know nothing of websites) and they provide you with SSL. That means, your website is going to be deemed secure, for example, to enter credit cards info (when you’re selling) and other stuffs.

Hostgator  do not provide SSL, you will need to pay an additional fee to have your website security certificate. That means another additional expense (and quite a significant one, at that). With Bluehost, the only additional cost I had to pay was to keep my information private as the domain owner ($16). You want to buy this option, since otherwise your name, contact information, and even address will be accessible to public.

I’m not going to act as a pro and straight-forward recommend Bluehost, though. They have been quick in helping me with live chat support and so far I hadn’t had any problem, but it’s only been about a week. Morely, they are the one officially recommended by wordpress.org. Thus, I can connect my website to wordpress.com, and still appear in Reader. This was so important to me as Reader is where bloggers mostly and easily interact.

Checking Out / Purchasing

After a (very, very) long thought, I finally decided to take the 3 years plan from Bluehost. Yes, yes, I know! 3 Years sound like such a scary and long commitment, but hear out my reason. When you first sign up with Bluehost, you get access to discounted price with this link, but when you renew your plan.. it’s back to the original price! The original price which is twice the discounted price. For 3 years, along with domain and everything, it rounds up to about $150 . It costs only $50 a year to run your blog professionally.

You then proceed to fill out your details, pick your domain (for free!), complete the payment (CC/Paypal) and voila! You own your own blog!

Site Migration

At first, I was sweating and squirming thinking about migrating my site. I mean, how can I do that without any professional help?! But, it turns out, it was really easy. You just need to head to export your old blog, and then import it in dashboard. Thing is, this process took quite some time (of course, duh). But the inexperienced, silly me was completely convinced I did something wrong and that I have finally lost my content forever. All the while, I was bombarding all the personnels in live chat support… kudos to them for being very, very helpful!

After my site was migrated, I installed Jetpack to connect it to wordpress.com…and there you go! It’s done!

Start building

Deciding to go self hosted was honestly the best decision, ever. I suddenly have access to all these amazing plugins and widgets which make my life so much easier. And to finally be able to use those cute (and free) themes!! For one full day, I was busy setting up my blog because I was that excited.

Take a look here to a page in my previous blog, which I created complicatedly. I needed to do manual html coding, and edit some images, and then align them personally, and coding (which I’m so bad in) again. And, this was the result.

But! Now that I have access to all the amazing plugins in wordpress.org, I created an upgraded version of it, all in two minutes and with a few clicks.

So, if you guys are wondering whether or not to go self-hosted, I would say yes. Don’t stress about making your blog monetised so immediately, firstly- have fun and meet amazing people! The best part of blogging for me is my satisfaction and happiness, being all giddy looking at my new polished blog. But on top of it all? It’s all the people I’ve met through blogging and their supportive words. I grin every time I answer to a comment or interact with you guys. That’s worth it all.

If you want to go self hosted with Bluehost and want a discount: click here. And since I’m now self hosted with Bluehost myself, feel free to ask me questions and I’ll try my best to explain everything! x

PS: I myself know how nerve-wracking it is to actually go self-hosted. So ask me anything. I’ll be glad to help all I can! Contact me via twitter DM @talesfromjes or email Jesica@talesfromjes.com

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