How to Transfer Blog from WordPress.com to Self Hosted

Do you want to move your free WordPress site to self-hosted? While there are a couple of methods to transfer from a WordPress.com blog to WordPress.org, I’ve put together the simplest steps to get the job done.

Moving to a WordPress blog with webhosting is a good plan, especially if you want more features and flexibility for your blog.

Let’s get started.

5 Steps to Move from a WordPress.com Blog to WordPress.org

There are a few steps you’ll need to do before you actually move your free WordPress blog posts over to self-hosted WordPress. Those steps are included here.

Set aside at least one hour but you may need two depending on how long each process takes.

Here are the five steps to switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org:

Step 1: Setup WordPress webhosting.

Your first step is to find a webhost that you want to use for your new WordPress blog. Important things to keep in mind when selecting a web host:

• Speed – does the webhost provide top speed solutions so your blog is superfast?
• Customer support – is the customer service fast and reliable?
• Server uptime – does the web host have a history of 99.9999% uptime so your blog will always be available.

Those are the three things I usually consider when choosing a webhost. With that in mind, I highly recommend SiteGround, as they provide the best in the business.

In this step, setup your webhosting account.

Step 2: Install WordPress

Lucky for you if you selected SiteGround, you can install WordPress with a single click! It’s all automated and the easiest thing ever.

Step 3: Export your WordPress.com Blog Posts

For this step, you’ll log into your WordPress.com account.

1. Go to the Dashboard.
2. Click Tools and then click Export.
3. On the Export page, under Free, click Start Export.
   
4. Choose All Content and then click Download Export File.
   

The WordPress XML file will be downloaded to your computer harddrive. It contains all your blog posts, pages and other information. Take note of where the file is located. You’ll need it to upload to your new webhosted site.

Step 4: Import WordPress.com blog posts to WordPress self –hosted

This is a 2-step process. First you’ll install the WordPress Importer plugin. Next, you’ll import the XML file that contains your blog content.

To install the WordPress Importer plugin:

1. Log into your new WordPress self-hosted site.
2. From the Dashboard, click Tools > Import.
3. On the Import page, under WordPress, click Install now.
   
4. Click Run Importer.

To import the XML file that contains your data:

1. After it’s installed, the Import WordPress page will appear.
   
2. Click Choose File. Navigate to the location on your harddrive where the exported XML was downloaded.
3. Select the file and click Open.
   
4. The file name will appear to the right of Choose File.
   
5. Click Upload file and import.
6. You’ll have the option to import the original author name, create a new user or assign the content to an existing user name on your new blog.
   
7. Select Download and import file attachments (these are your image files).
8. Click Submit.

The content from your WordPress.com blog will now be imported into your new self-hosted WordPress blog.

All the original published dates will be intact and all images will be included.

That’s it!

Step 5: Connect your Domain Name to your New Hosted WordPress Blog

Now that you imported your content to your new blog, you need to connect your domain name.

Final Thoughts

I hope that this tutorial helped you with a smooth transition between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. Once you get setup, you can find a free WordPress themes to get started with a cool design.

If you want to have a more customizable and easy to use WordPress theme, I highly recommend StudioPress Genesis themes. They are easy to use and have a lot of customer support to help!

Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your new blog! I can’t wait to see what you created.