I’ve been a busy little bee this weekend. Apart from organizing a small pooja (religious ceremony) for the family, and getting the kids all set for the start of school (overseeing homework, primarily), I’ve also finally done something that I’ve been wanting to do for ages.
After a lot of waffling and worrying, I finally jumped in the deep end and moved my blog to its own self-hosted space (that is, I am no longer hosted on wordpress.com). I now use the services of bluehost to store all my related files, and I manage my blog myself.
As readers, you won’t see too many changes on my blog (at least, not yet). I am yet to find my footing and confidence before I go about making big changes to the blog.
Couple of minor changes that may happen:
- I am test-driving a few themes/templates. Currently, though I am very happy with my existing theme – Panel. I love its flexibility and its ability to display text-only and photo-intensive posts equally well. But, like I said, I am looking at other theme/template options too. And if you have any recommendations, do let me know in the comments.
- To pay for and maintain this blog, I have been using some advertising money that’s been trickling in, and there will possibly be more advertising/guest posts in my blog. Be assured though that they will be as unobtrusive as possible. In an ideal world, I wouldn’t have to do this, but these blog upgrades cost money, and I need to make my blog pay for itself.
- While making this change, I have lost some of my followers, and all of the likes that I received on my blog so far :(. I can’t make out whom I have lost, but in case you notice that you are no longer getting updates from me, go ahead and click on one of the follow buttons on my sidebar.
So, yes, these are my blog changes, and so far I am pretty happy with it. I also can’t wait to learn as I go along, and I do hope you will continue in this journey with me :).
Self-hosted bloggers: I am looking for suggestions on themes, plug-ins, and resources for learning advanced blog maintenance. Do you have any suggestions for me? Let me know in the comments.
Did the same last year and sadly, did lose a lot of followers. I’m with Bluehost too…haven’t had too many issues so far but currently having problems with my feed. Still trying to figure out where the problem lies! Good luck with it all and congrats!
@Psych Babbler: Thanks. I am still trying to figure a lot of things out. But overall, it’s a good experience 🙂
is there more than one way to spell pooja ? I’ve never seen that spelling before
@BookerTalk: It can be spelt puja or pooja.
Congrats!!
@SRS: Thank you 🙂
I took that leap last year. It meant losing a lot of readers but I guess the flexibility that comes with self hosting is a boon. But there are times when I am frustrated with the down times and other glitches which need my attention when earlier all this wasn’t my head ache 🙂
Lots of plugins you could work with but be sure to use some Cache cleaner. That can slow down your site. I use W3Total Cache
@Shweta: Oh, thanks for the recco. I”ll check out W3TotalCache. Also do you use any plug-ins for backing up or security?
Exciting! I hope the transition goes very smoothly for you, and I am happy to report that I haven’t been lost as a follower — still following you on Feedly and seeing your posts as they show up. 🙂
@Jenny: Oh, goody. The transition has been decent so far, not that I have done anything major. I noticed that my blogroll has gone AWOL, and I probably need to recreate it again in text form or maybe a new page. And I really miss the Copy a Post feature that I used on wordpress.com. I have to look if there is a plug-in for that…Oh, well. I”ll figure things out as I go along I guess.
All said though, it’s not as complicated as I thought 🙂