Everything You Need To Know About Going Self-Hosted

May marks my 29th-month blogging and my 13th month since going self-hosted! (insert excited emojis and happy music) After receiving many questions on self-hosting and my own personal experience, I’ve decided to sit down and share with you my experience and answer some of your most asked questions!

My Self-Hosting Experience

A long story that’s not really short…either way, here’s everything about my self-hosting experience. Feel free to skip ahead if need be!

A Little Bit of Background

I started my blog over on www.styledbymckenz.wordpress.com on January 1, 2016, where I thoroughly enjoyed my experience. I was working hard, getting great views, making hundreds of friends with the people reading my site, and actively engaged in using the WordPress Reader. I had an amazing experience on their free, 3GB of space, plan. However, because I was blogging so much and had tons of pictures on my site, my space was running low by about March of 2017.

The reason I chose to make a site through WordPress when beginning my blog was that my family and I felt that this would be the easiest, most user-friendly option for me as a teen blogger—they were right. I knew that one day I would want to switch over to my own domain and go self-hosted but we all agreed that we should see if blogging would be a ‘phase’ or if it was something I would enjoy and stick with in years to come before making the investment.

Like I said, in March I was running low on space. Rather than switching to a different WordPress plan or paying for a bit more space, after countless hours of research and time surfing the Internet, as well as weighing our options, we decided that it was time to go self-hosted and purchase my own domain.

The Lady Behind It All

It’s important to note in this ‘experience’ section that I was just fifteen at the time so most of this doing was beyond me. After expressing that blogging was something that I aimed to do for years into the future, my family as a whole made the decision to make this investment in my future. When going through the steps my mom was the boss lady. She is skilled beyond words in graphic design and everything related to setting up the fabulous site that you are reading off of right now. I genuinely cannot imagine running this site without her behind it too.

What I Wanted From My New Site

It was really important to me to carry over all my blog posts from my previous site and bring them onto my new one. This definitely made things more complicated because transferring posts and pictures that I didn’t have properly saved or labeled from a WordPress Site to your own site, which is essentially just a clean slate, made for a confusing mess and long, long process.

I hadn’t expected for the process to be so long—after all, all the blogger tutorials that you find when searching up ‘how to go self-hosted’ make it seem like a breeze and that it can be done in just a few days. This may have been the case, but like I said I wanted all of my previous archives to carry over. It’s important to me for you to see Styled by McKenz in its purest form. Even the embarrassing pictures that are terrible quality from way back when because that’s a real, honest depiction of the beginnings of my blogging career.

It was also very important to me to not lose my WordPress readers and all the people I had made connections with on my previous site. I grew tremendously throughout my months on my old site and I did not want to be taking steps backward after working so hard at taking many leaps forward.

Choosing a Hosting Company for WordPress.org

Onto the actual process, I decided to go with Blue Host (after tons of research and calculations among all my options) as my Web hosting service and purchased the domain you are reading this very post on, www.styledbymckenz.com! We chose Blue Host for many reasons: (1) because the price was fair and it offered good benefits, and (2) because it allows you to host through them while importing WordPress.org. In understandable terms, this essentially meant that I got to keep the same followers, continue posting and reading in my WordPress reader, and continue blogging on WordPress.

This also meant that WordPress templates were available for me to use in designing my site which makes that clean slate that comes with a domain, a lot less scary.  I was able to choose a template and design my site with the careful help of my mother, and after many, many days of transferring posts over, adding plugins, working on the little things, and reimporting photos I said goodbye to www.styledbymckenz.wordpress.com and said hello to www.styledbymckenz.com.

I have been blogging on my ‘new’ site now for thirteen months. The site itself is everything I had envisioned and I am so thankful to my parents for helping me establish and build upon this aspect of my life. There are still many things I would like to add (like maybe a shop my style page and email list?!) but I have been waiting for summer when I have time to make sure I can do it right and thoroughly.

I’m not going to lie and say that self-hosting was a breeze. It takes a lot of research to see what’s best for you and your blog’s future and lots of patience; if you have a mom as awesome as mine who can help with this sort of thing, consider yourself a very lucky girl! However, it is an investment in yourself in ways I cannot even begin to express. If blogging has become more than just a hobby to you and you want to come across as more sophisticated and the ‘real deal’, as well as have the freedom to create and publish whatever you want, then absolutely take the opportunity and go self-hosted!

It Will Feel Like You’ve Taken Steps Backward

It is hard to be a little fish in the big, big sea but passion and hard work will keep your hopes afloat. I’m not going to sugar coat it, it has been discouraging to watch my site be stuck at a stand-still, for I was flourishing on my old site. However, being self-hosted has allowed for more opportunities and has taught me many valuable lessons along the way.

But please, understand that things are different when you go self-hosted. You are on your own now and generating views and new followers are nowhere near as easy. Being on your own means working ten times harder to be seen, engaging like you’ve never engaged before, and understanding that your SEO is everything. 

Thank You for Being You

I am so very grateful for each one of you who takes time out of your day to visit my little corner of the Internet. You, my friend, are fueling so much more than success but a passion that is so deeply wound around my heard; I cannot express my gratitude.

Answering Some of Your Questions

I asked you all on Instagram to send in your questions on my self-hosting/blogging experience up to this point; therefore, this portion of today’s post will be dedicated to answering those questions.

What do you wish you had known before going through the self-hosted process?

Going self-hosted was a whirlwind of emotions. I remember feeling frustrated that things were moving slow and that the process was not something I could do on my own. Like I mentioned, my mom did the majority of the work including transferring posts, designing details for my site, dealing with BlueHost, and customizing my template. Not understanding how to do it on my own was super frustrating for me. I’m in no way, shape, or form, a techy kind of girl and I wish I had known beforehand that you will need someone who is patient and good with coding and things like that to figure it all out, especially if you’re not starting fresh.

Why did you choose self-hosting over WordPress Premium?

I pretty much knew that I wanted to go self-hosted and use WordPress.org rather than promote up to WordPress.com. Mainly because there was still not unlimited storage, and there were many other things that came in a Blue Host package that were only ‘add-ons’ when going with WordPress Premium.

What struggles have you had with going self-hosted?

Like I mentioned earlier, self-hosting is hard because you are now just a small fish in a big sea. There are thousands of websites out there fighting for optimization. Therefore, choosing tags, carefully wondering titles, and engaging suddenly become much more crucial. SEO is truly a struggle in going self-hosted as it makes generating views much harder. However, because I am still affiliated with WordPress.org I am still able to interact with other bloggers in a very user-friendly fashion as well as generate followers from there.

What is the best way to reach out to companies?

I wouldn’t necessarily say I’ve discovered the ‘best’ way to reach out to companies. There are sometimes when a company reaches out to me and if I genuinely like the brand or am interested in the product then I will take it. There are other times if I really enjoy a brand, where I will reach out to them and send a pitch. Often times bloggers will use a media kit and just forward that to a brand in their email but I, personally, do not have one. When sending a pitch it’s important to be real and honest. Express to the company why you would like to work with them, some background on you and your blog, why they should work with you, and what sort of work you are interested in. Honestly, sometimes it works out and sometimes it does not; it’s important to remind yourself though that authenticity comes first!

How can you grow your audience on a blogging platform?

I’m considering about writing a post entirely dedicated to this because there are really so many ways to do so… however, the most valuable thing you can do to grow your audience is to engage with them. Engage with your readers—comment, like, follow, make connections as much as possible with other bloggers! Not only does this allow development for you and another blogger’s relationship but people see your name in the comments and click on it if your name is new to them or your profile pertains to their interests.

Alrighty, guys, that’s going to be all for today’s post. I’d love to have a blogging focused series but am not sure if any of you would be interested in that. If a blogging beginners series, a Q&A on all blogging related thing, etc. sound appealing to you please let me know below!

I hope this helped in answering some of your self-hosting questions. It’s a long process for sure but one that is well worth it! Thank you so much for stopping by. With love, McKenz

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