Hi there! My name is Khairah @khairahscorner and welcome to my new self-hosted blog! It feels really good to finally have a blog without the annoying ‘.wordpress.com’.
BRIEF INTRO:
Khairah’s Corner is a blog for modest fashion advice, skincare reviews and relatable lifestyle content. I also share helpful blogging resources and useful tips & hacks!
Check out this starter guide for my new readers & visitors🖤
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SUMMARY OF MY BLOG SETUP
1. Buying a Domain + Hosting
WordPress.com offers different paid plans that could have made migration to my own domain easier & less stressful. However, I couldn’t afford a yearly payment of the plan I’d have preferred (Business plan). The lesser plans are good options too but the least plan that offered as much flexibility as a self-hosted blog was the Business plan.
For Self-hosting, BlueHost is reportedly the best hosting platform for self-hosted websites. However, I couldn’t afford the annual billing of domain+hosting package and there’s also the issue of not being able to pay with your local debit card. The whole decision process was too time-consuming and I wished I’d gotten a detailed l guide to put me through the whole process.
2020 UPDATE:
I finally wrote a guide that could help ease this process for new bloggers or anyone looking to build a self-hosted website for their brands/businesses!
This eBook packs everything you’d need to set up from SCRATCH (including the initial thinking processes of how to brand your blog)✨
Ultimately, I had to go with a Nigerian hosting service. I conducted a thorough research on best and affordable web hosting services and it helped with the final decisions.
I was concerned this may affect my blog’s availability in other countries but you know what they say about life and lemons.
After long searches, I went with Qservers. They had the most favorable server uptime, and good domain and hosting prices.
UPDATE:
This provider is the WORST EVER. They treat their customers HORRIBLY, withhold your money without actually providing the service and lie that the money was not sent to them even when the bank says otherwise. To make things worse, they refuse to issue a refund and stop responding to your emails. LITERAL THIEVES.
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT purchase any services from them.
My experience with them was so appalling and I had to switch to a new provider to prevent me losing my domain. It’s been almost 6 months and I still have not been able to get my money back from them.
2. Setting up the Blog
I had issues connecting to my site at first. I was eventually able to get things to work after a lot of research. Having a tech background also helped me a lot.
I was also able to export my contents from WordPress.com and import it into the new blog. You can use this detailed step-by-step guide to fully understand how to import/export your previous content + everything else you need to work on the blog.
3. Customising my Theme
Being a frontend developer certainly has its perks. It was a great deal of work to find a suitable & professional theme. After several tries, I finally decided to pick a free minimalist theme . My developer skills came in real handy because I was able to remove a lot of generic & unwanted features from my selected theme. Despite the limitations, I was also able to tweak the theme files, customise it with more unique features until it seemed different from the original theme. In other words, I made it unique.
Want to learn how you can do this to any other free themes?? This eBook is for you then!
If you’re interested in paid & premium themes, check out this theme seller. I also included more websites & sellers where you can get unique paid themes in my eBook.
3. Getting Familiar with SEO and other plugins.
Having access to installing plugins was a major bonus(something you can only have on a Business WordPress plan). SEO helps develop your writing skills and most importantly, your search engine ranking. I also used one to design my Coming-Soon page while I was setting up the actual site.
Those are basically the steps I used in setting up the site. If you’re interested in taking blogging seriously or starting a professional blog career, you have to get your own domain and a self-hosted website is the best option.
If you’re still contemplating on why you should have a custom domain for your blog/brand, this article is for you.
Thank you for reading and I hope you were able to get a brief summary of what it takes to build a self-hosted blog!
With Love,
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