I’ve been blogging now since November of 2015 and I love it! Love it, love it, love it! I think about it all the time and I’m my most happiest when blogging.
I’ve learned a lot about blogging and screwed up a lot. Hell, I’m still screwing up. The biggest mistake I made was self-hosting too soon. I still don’t know to this day if this is an accurate statement but I think you lose the audience of WordPress reader by self-hosting. When I knew I was in love with blogging and for once in my life stuck to a hobby for more than a year, I decided to buy my own domain and self-host. Here are the good, bad and ugly from a hot mess perspective:
- I have access to Google Analytics and this is amazing. For those of you that are unfamiliar with GA, you can get such detailed info such as what time readers read your posts the most, what cities they live in (yes, that’s right, I know where you live ;)) and what pages they leave from indicating that post may have sucked. This reason was a huge reason for self-hosting.
- ‘Let’s make a little cash on the side’, I thought before going the self-hosting route. This was INCREDIBLY stupid or at least premature on my part. If you self-host you can participate in AdSense. Basically Google slaps ads on your site (you can have just 1 or many; I think I have like 2) where you dictate. Every time someone clicks on the ad, I get a few cents. This is great if you have thousands of people visiting your site a day, which I’m not there yet. Since starting this in September (and removing a few ads that left my site looking tacky), I’ve earned a combined total of $5.61, or half the price of 1 monthly fee to have godaddy.com host my site. And the kicker is, you can’t cash out till you’ve raised $100. So hopefully I can cash out before the year 3000.
- Plugins are pretty cool. You have a HUGE amount of options to personalize your site. From SEO, to social media to survey templates, you have so many more tools at your disposal. I use probably .0000000000000000001% of the ones available out there as I am too chicken shit to add something that will screw everything up. I’m not Steve Jobs here.
- I don’t know if this was an option when WordPress hosted my blog but with godaddy.com hosting my site, I have access to free, quality stock images. It seems like there are thousands of them! Now for my more obnoxious posts, it’s hard to find a matching picture (such as the post about the stripper or the vibrator- now that was a struggle) and leaves me be be creative.
- Every time I gain a follower from WordPress.com, I must migrate them over to my site which is kinda’ a pain. It’s ridiculously easy though.
- That leads me to my next point and it has been THE MOST PAINFUL thing to endure. Because you don’t show up in reader like you did when WordPress hosts, you loose a TON of opportunity to gain new followers. My growth has been at a slug’s pace, even when I’m posting almost daily. I mean, you are literally you’re own website and you have to be in charge of finding new readers.
- When I first migrated over, I lost all my readers. Not because I suddenly pissed God and the world off but that somehow you loose them all and have to scour forums on how to get them all back. You can read about it here: OMG…I Think I Lost All Of My Followers…. I got everyone back, thank God!
My next big thing I’m considering is switching my theme. I haven’t found any that I’ve fallen in love with yet. I like to keep the look simple and let my writing have the party. I’m all ears though if you have any suggestions. I’d also love to hear if you’ve been considering self-hosting or if you are happy on WordPress. If you did move to self-hosting, what was your experience?
I’m so scared to switch to self-hosting. Thankfully, it’s not really something that I have a desire to do. I bought my site name and that’s about as much investment as I’m going to make into my blog lol. I don’t know how you do it and stay sane. I get frustrated so easily with technology that I would probably have to stop writing – and I can’t stop writing.
Oh, there have been times where instead of punching out the next post, I’m on chat forums or exploring functions to consider on my blog. So many parts and pieces!
I like the simplicity of it on my end. Lol I’m a simple techy person
And nothing can replace simplicity when you have a million thoughts running through your head! I think it’s a great idea to stay on it!
Oh yes! I love just being able to jump on, type with madness and then post haha. Although, I sometimes want to know more about where my readers are coming from. Especially since I’m an anonymous blogger…I don’t want too many people finding me out haha
Yeah, you can get down to the city and not just the overall city but even down to the suberbs. It’s pretty cool.
I did the same thing. I own http://www.fattymccupcake.net and that is about all I am ready to invest in at this point in time! Self-hosting and losing followers is a big fear!
Yes, I really don’t know how many followers I’ve missed out on from self hosting. I think you are smart!
But, I don’t make the big bucks like you do ??
Shit….that’s adorable. I wish I did! 🙂
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Thanks for the honesty (which I’ve come to expect from you always). I’m not self-hosted but like many bloggers I’m sure, I’ve thought about it. I’ve only been blogging for 9 months, and I’ve definitely slowed down since the start, so I’m not sure self-hosting would be beneficial to me. I think the only way I would strongly consider it is if I run out of storage space on my site, but that’s not happening any time soon…
Honesty always! Yeah, you have to be in it to win it! There are pros and cons like anything. Since new readers have to be found in other ways, my growth is taking much longer, but in the long run I hope it’s worth it’
I’ve been thinking about it. Not sure though. I thought you went to wordpress.org instead of Go Daddy. What’s better?
Oh, I may have to amend my post to add that little quirk. Ok, this is confusing! wordpress.com is what you are on and I used to be on. To self-host, you do move to wordpress.org BUT they actually don’t host you. You have to find a godaddy, bluehost, hostgator, etc. to be your host. Then somehow wordpress.org functions, such as plugins, work with your host to keep you up and running. It’s so stupid that wordpress.com and .org aren’t combined. I could go on and on about this. I chose godaddy.com bc they have a section that is specific to bloggers/wordpress.
Okay, I understand. How much was your initial set-up?
Just my first monthly payment I believe. What I regret is going on the monthly plan which is around $11 a month when if I paid for an entire year, it was a significant discount but I was too broke at the time to pay up front. Also, I have the patience of a 2 year old. Sure, there are all sorts of additional functionalities you can get and pay for but to self-host, just your monthly charge. If you ever decide to go that route, let me know and I’ll help as best I can.
Ok. Thank you
Ok. Will do
I’ve been shopping and plotting and generally doing the pre-pounce butt wiggle at self-hosting… it all sounds grand, except for the (PANIC!) and the (LASTMINUTETHINGWENTWRONG!) and the overwhelming analysis paralysis of sooooo many plugins and packs and choices over on wordpress.org. But their support seems so much better (I’ve had some horrible experiences with .com support) and analytics! Tools! TOYS!
But now? I hadn’t considered that I’d actually be losing readers or slowing growth. Everything I’ve read promises (super pinky-swearsies!) that all that stays the same. Do you have more detail about exactly what happened there?
I wish I had more details on what happened there. I still don’t understand the logistics of what happens. It’s so frustrating too b/c wordpress insists .org and .com are COMPLETELY different yet both are owned by the same company (I think), I still have the option to post on wordpress.com and once on my dashboard, I use the Jetpack plugin to access (as they call it) even more analytics on wordpress.com. It’s like a mind-fuck they are doing. Shame on me for not understanding better. Yes, there are things you could do to screw it up but again, a ton more features. I am approaching this with this mentality: though growth is slow in the first few years, the links I am building with Google as well as using Google Analytics to better understand my readers, will allow me to make better informed decisions when posting. I could be TOTALLY wrong but hopefully I’m not. If you ever have more questions, let me know.
I think how you lose readers is that when you self host, you don’t show up in WP Reader. Also, it is not as easy for a follower to like and comment on a self-hosted site. Your dedicated readers and followers will do the hard work, but so many others won’t. That is what I have learned thus far. Hot Mess, chime in if I am not accurate on any of this.
Wondering now if I should ask around to find out how many of my current followers actually found me through the reader. I’m pretty sure it’s only the original 15, and maybe not even all of them. I’m not a DIY blog or a food blog or a travel blog so wordpress isn’t sure what to think of me (other than I have a potty mouth).
OMG, I wrote a post about that and how all the posts are boring and lame. All the titles are like The Lamb and the Candle or Serenity Prayers of Hope. Here is that post and I don’t regret it for a minute: https://hotmessmemoir.com/2016/02/20/why-are-discover-wordpress-posts-boring/
See I didn’t think I showed up in reader either. Can you confirm that for me? Or maybe I only show up if my tag matches other people’s searches? IDK. Agreed on the tougher to comment/like!
I can look. I don’t use the reader much.
I just go to people’s posts via the email
I get. That is also how I keep track of who I’ve read and need to read.
No worries or rush if you can’t.
Did my reply send??
Is it the one I just responded to?
I don’t remember now ??
You showed up when I searched for you by name, but the search feature on WP Reader is kind of shit… for example, if you search “humor” it literally looks for blog posts that contain that word. Not for blogs that have been labeled humor blogs, or even posts that are tagged “humor.” Because it doesn’t distinguish between humor and yoga.
Basically, if you’re a travel, lifestyle, fashion, DIY, or food blogger, WP may feature you and that’s probably reason enough to stay put and take advantage of the reader.
Or I could be wrong about all the things.
No, that makes sense. I just always got Pissed bc they would feature the worst, most boring posts like: 10 Benefits of Kopi Luwak or My Photographic Journey of Amish Hallways.
You joke, but right now someone is writing both of those posts. And WP will feature the shit out of them.
I’ve been blogging for just over 2 months now and still happy to sit with WP for a while, though the thought has crossed my mind regarding self hosted. Great tips here Angela. X
My pleasure! It was a lot of growing pains!
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Thanks love. X
How is the support side of being self-hosted?? Part of why I’m attached to my dot com is the ease and speed of support and I would be afraid to lose it 🙁 I would also be scared to lose followers!! I don’t know that I have the stamina to hang in like you did- you have so much strength behind your blog!!