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25 comments
Hi Jeni! I’m planning to start a blog and your information is quite possibly the best I have come upon. Thanks for all your hard work!
ReplyThanks, Paul – glad you’re finding it helpful. 🙂 Wishing you well in developing your new blog concept!
Replywhat if you already started a free blog on wordpress but now you want to upgrade?Does this still apply or will you have to start completly over on a new site and lose your original one,and your followers?
ReplyHi Mama H, if you’re ready to move to self-hosted, you don’t have to lose everything you’ve already built. Yes, you’ll have to have a new design, but you can keep your old content and your followers. WPBeginner has a fantastic guide on how to do that, found here. Hope this helps!
ReplyHi Jeni,
Thanks for providing this information. This site is demystifying all kinds of blog start-up questions for me. I’m so glad I found it!
Extremely helpful info and easy to follow! But is the money I am using to pay for this site coming back to me at any point? I keep hearing bloggers usually generate a chunck of change for their blog, how so?
ReplyHi Lydia! Sorry I missed this when you posted it. Of course there are no guarantees on “getting your money back,” but it’s worth understanding your different options for monetizing your blog. I don’t have a post specifically for beginners on making money, but Amy Lynn Andrews has a great one right here. Wishing you luck on your new adventure!
ReplyHi Jeni! Great info ..You’re such a big help and make complicated info easier to understand. I have a question about WordPress.. I’m trying to help someone move an existing Typepad Blog that started in ’08 to WordPress to expand content and monetize. So far it’s just been a blog with good content but no effort has been done to build it even though the potential is great. I may need some help moving it …Any advice you can give would be great….What do you think?
ReplyHi Rita,
Typepad to WordPress is notoriously difficult – my best advice would be to hire someone who has done it hundreds of times. 🙂 There are several services out there – you just have to google them. Hope this helps!
Jeni
ReplyReally a great post this is!
I have set up my new WordPress blog recently. But I am not sure what to do next. Should I start writing right now or do some SEO related job first?
Thanks in advance.
Hi Jeni
This is a great post. I have launched my personal blog http://www.rickeysingh.com last week. I have developed it in Wix. Do you recommend moving it to WordPress?
Thank you again for sharing valuable information.
Rickey
ReplyHello Jeni, awesome info and an awesome blog all over! I love how your blog looks, especially the color scheme. I am planning to start my own blog soon, and I believe yours will certainly help mine! Thank You 🙂
ReplyThis tutorial is great, well it started out that way. I got to step six and their set up is no longer as shown! The screen you show has to be found and clicked on and the options are completely different! I already paid and now I feel so confused and overwhelmed. Hopefully I can figure this out….
ReplyYikes! Sounds like I need to update step #6.
Try this: go to the “My Accounts” tab at the top of the page and find the orange “Go to cPanel” button. Click it and you’ll be taken to the cPanel, which is like your behind-the-scenes control area.
Find the “Autoinstallers” area (it has a gray heading) and click the WordPress icon. Then click the blue “Install” tab and you’ll see options for installing. …and if you get stuck, make sure you reach out to SiteGround’s support! They’re excellent, especially via live chat. Cheering you on, Alicia!
ReplyTruth be told I completely panicked (“Oh no!!! don’t tell me I just paid and completely messed something up! or that it doesn’t work that way anymore! or….” BUT their support is AMAZING! I found the thing to ask them to install it, submitted a support ticket, and they had it set up within 20 minutes! So I’m already configuring my blog, installed the plugins you recommended, and am in the process of importing my old free wordpress blog over. Thanks for all you do!
ReplyGreat post! We run an adventure travel blog… I think the most important thing we tell people is to travel with a purpose, Do not just wander around the world aimlessly. (Like ours is to experience and document the Top 100 Travel Adventures) So many travel blogs do not really have a purpose or a niche. Niche is key and many miss out on that because they want to cover and do it all. Do not just start a blog because you think you will get rich quick and be able to travel the world. It takes a lot of work and lots of time.
ReplyThanks for this post! I recently just launched my blog http://www.coloringthemap.com using your directions! Love siteground so far – I have found it very easy to navigate. Thanks for the help!
ReplyShivani,
YES, it’s absolutely okay to start a blog on a free platform until you have a plan for making money. The one caveat I’d give: make sure you’re building your email list (for subscribers) with a third party service (MailChimp is free up to a certain number of subscribers). That way, when you move, you’ll be able to easily take your subscribers with you and won’t have to start from scratch.
ReplyI was confused when I first opened my blog. Now, I am lucky to see your post which is very helpful to me. Thank you.
ReplyHi Kelly,
Ideally you’d have just ONE website on whatever platform you choose. That would include a blog section and a main website section. If your website is already hosted on something that’s *not* WordPress and you don’t want to change it, you have two options:
1. Create a WordPress blog on an entirely new domain, or
2. Create a WordPress blog on a subdirectory. That means http://www.yourdomain.com/blog (where “blog” is where WordPress is installed). Your website host can help you install WordPress on a subdirectory. And you can always get tech help if you need it — we recommend Gretchen Louise at gretchenlouise.com.
Hope this helps!
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