Do you want to move your free blog from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress.org?
The most important reason most people change to a self-hosted solution is because they can’t monetize their free WordPress blog on WordPress.com with Adsense. It is noteworthy that moving to a self-hosted WordPress blog further allows you to install SEO plugins such as Yoast and the All-in-One SEO plugin which will increase organic traffic to your website.
First, let’s understand the difference between the two versions of WordPress, and second, let’s discuss how to Safely Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org.
What’s the difference between WordPress.com & WordPress.org
There are many new bloggers and website owners who are not aware that there are two WordPress sites. On WordPress.com you are able to open a free account, while WordPress.org requires a self-hosted WordPress plan.
WordPress.com
Blogging on WordPress.com is free if you choose a WordPress sub-domain. However, most bloggers will soon realize that there are a lot of limitations on their free WordPress.com blog, including limited ability to monetize, the inability to install SEO plugins, etc.
Additionally it’s quite expensive to buy and host your website and domain name on WordPress.com. A premium package on WordPress costs between $4 / month and $45 / month.
So if you plan on setting up a professional business or personal blog but you don’t want to pay a lot of money you can explore the power of WordPress.org with a Self-Hosted WordPress blog at Bluehost. Bluehost is a hosting company recommended by WordPress.
WordPress.org
WordPress.org will give you full ownership over your website or blog. You will able to monetize your blog and have absolute freedom to install SEO and other plugins you may need.
Many people recommend the switch from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, bluehost has a very fast response time and even offer fully managed WordPress packages at only $9.95.
But don’t make a decision yet, make sure to read on ’till the end.
What you need before getting started on WordPress.org?
In order to start with a self-hosted WordPress.org account all you need is a WordPress hosting plan and a domain name.
I recommend that you use Bluehost for WordPress Hosting because it is officially recommended by WordPress.
And you will get a free domain name and free stuff mentioned in the below banner
→ Get 65% Discount with Bluehost ←
Once you make a purchase, you will need to go back to your existing free WordPress blog to easily move your posts, pages, comments, and other crucial data. But don’t worry, this is a breeze! Just follow my instructions below.
How to safely move your blog from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress
Export your Existing Posts, Pages, and Comments
You should start by logging in to your WordPress.com account. Log in to your existing blog and navigate to the settings section of the menu.
Once you click on Settings, you find a horizontal menu with items.
Click on Export as seen below.
Now click on Export All.
After a few minutes, you will see a message like this:
The file will be ready for download and includes all of your posts and pages. Please note that it won’t save your general configuration so you will have to set those again in your new blog.
Once you are done with this, you are ready to start your actual blogging journey.
FAQ Related to Migration
What happens to my followers on my free WordPress blog?
Don’t worry, you can easily migrate your followers from your old free WordPress blog to a new Self-hosted Blog.
All you need to do so is the ‘Jetpack Plugin’.
Once you activate the plugin and connect your new website with Jetpack you will be able to access the options shown below:
Just click on “Migrate followers from another WordPress.com blog” and your followers will automatically be migrated for you to the new system. Just click the link and follow the instructions.
If for any reason you have issues with the migration process, you can contact the WordPress.com team and they will help you with any problems you may be experiencing.
Will I get a refund from Bluehost if I am not satisfied?
Yes, you will get a full refund if you are not satisfied at the time of this writing they are offering a 60-days Money Back Guarantee. Sign up for BlueHost Today and Get a 65% Discount with Bluehost.
How do I know if I am eligible for Google Adsense?
Once you have migrated your website to a self-hosted solution you will need to wait for 6 months before you can apply.
Why is that?
Because your domain name needs to be at least 6 months old. When you apply for Google Adsense with a domain name older than 6 months you will be able to get approval right away (taken into consideration that you comply with the terms and conditions of their service).
How do I find SEO plugins?
Once you have your self-hosted blog installed and ready to go you can select the free Yoast plugin which can be downloaded directly from the official website. Yoast is one of the most powerful free SEO tools and in my humble opinion Yoast is the best free SEO plugin available. If however you feel that more options are required you can always update to the premium version.
Another popular SEO plugin is the All-in-One SEO plugin. You can download it here.
I hope this information was useful. Good Luck!
Do you currently have a self-hosted WordPress blog?
How was your experience with the data migration process?
Did you install Yoast or other SEO plugins? How do you like it?
Have you tried Bluehost? What is your experience?
SEO San Francisco 
Great information, Debbie. I have a few questions for you.
When exporting your blog, are all images, videos, pictures and photos on the blog posts and in the media library also exported to the new self-hosted blog?
I heard it often said from some of those who move to self-hosted, that the reblog button from all blog posts is lost when downloading the Yoast SEO plugin. Is that correct? Also, I understand, that the ‘follow’ icon in the bottom left corner of the blog (that becomes visible when scrolling down), is also lost. Is that correct?
I’ve also heard horror stories of people losing all their followers when moving over to a self-hosted blog. However, from your post. I now understand why that may have been the case, so thanks for the information about the Jetpack plugin.
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Hi Hugh, thanks for taking the time to read and comment.
When migrating the WordPress database you can choose to either move the entire live site database, or to only move the blog posts so all the other extraneous database stuff (pages, plugin data, other meta data) doesn’t clutter the new site’s database. If you choose the latter images will not be included, although there are plugins available that allow you to move partial database content so you may want to look into this.
As much as the “like” & “reblog” button is considered, those buttons are not included on any self-hosted site, this is not related to the Yoast SEO plugin. Instead you can add a “press this” button to your browser bookmark bar (see https://codex.wordpress.org/Press_This ). You can re-add the like button to your posts and pages by installing the Jetpack plugin ( for more information see https://jetpack.com/support/likes/ ).
I’m not sure what happened to your follow icon but please note that the follow option in the action bar is automatically hidden on sites that don’t have any posts published. This is so that more traditional websites using only pages don’t show a follow button that doesn’t do anything. The moment you start publishing more public posts on your site that option will activate automatically.
I hope this information is of use to you, let me know if you have any other questions 🙂
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Thanks for answering my questions, Debby. I appreciate it.
I’m not thinking of moving my blog to self-hosting. I’m happy where it is. I asked the questions because I’ve seen them mentioned from other bloggers who had moved to self-hosting and who had encountered problems. Your post answered those questions, so thank you very much.
I much prefer to use ‘Press This’ rather than the reblog button, but I know many other bloggers use the reblog button more because it’s quick and saves them a little bit of time. Personally, I no longer use the reblog button because any images from the reblog are downloaded into your media library and therefore uses up valuable space. I don’t think many bloggers realise that.
Do you have a Twitter account? I can’t find any information on your blog about your social media sites. You may not use any, but I wanted to Tweet this post to my followers and saw that you didn’t have a Twitter handle when I clicked on the Twiter share button under the post. Instead, it shows the Twitter handle for WordPress.
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Hello Hugh, thank you for your feedback, I much appreciate it. I deliberately did not connect any social media accounts since I started this free WordPress blog about 2 months ago as part of an SEO bet with friends. The bet was that I could get this blog ranked on page one of Google and other major search engines without paying for backlinks, and not using any of my social media accounts to draw attention. Based on solely SEO and guest posts this blog has already been indexed on the first page of Google, Bing and Yahoo, so the goal has been met. I appreciate you mentioning that the twitter share button is using the WP handle by default, I was not aware of this (shame on me) and have changed the configuration. A twitter share with your followers would be wonderful, this would probably be the first time that this blog appears on social media so this likely provides for an extra boost. Thank you so much for taking the time to check out my blog and for responding in so much detail!
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Hey, Debbie,
How does this work with premium WordPress sites? I bought a .com domain name, but I would like to move to a website now.
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Hello Will, Do you mean you wish to move from WordPress.com hosted blog to a self hosted blog? Or you want to turn your blog into an HTML website? If you like to move away from WordPress.com to a self-hosted solution I recommend Bluehost, this is low cost hosting solution recommended by WordPress itself. They have hosting plans starting at $3.95 and the only thing you need to do is point the Domain name server to the IP where your website is hosted (you will be provided with this information after you purchase a plan) and then install WordPress on your hosting providers server. You mind me asking what the reason is as of why you want to move?
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Debby, thank you for replying so quickly.
I’m a writer and want a website so I can sell my books as well as have a page to post my writing, poetry, etc. A hosted website gives me more design options and more monetization opportunities, I believe.
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The easiest way to sell products and post content is with a WordPress blog. You can have it hosted on WordPress.com (which is more expensive), or you can move to a self-hosted solution (which requires more technical skills). I see you already have a website WritersEnvy, if your current package allows you to install plugins than I recommend you have a look at WooCommerce https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KahlicghaE&feature=youtu.be I think that might be what you are looking for?
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Thanks, Debby. I’ll check out the link! 🙂
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You may also be interested in https://jvz6.com/c/1565797/111047 , it’s a software tool for writers that helps you see trends in the industry, as well as verify how you are doing. Wishing you all the best with your writing endeavors! Love 💕 Debby
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Oh, a bonus! 😄😄 Thank you!
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Anytime 😉
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very enlightening post. I am still sceptical when I hear people moving to wordpress.org because of the experiences some other people have had
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Hi there, thanks for visiting my blog! WordPress.com is indeed more stable as you don’t have to worry about buggy updates or database crashes. When I first moved to WordPress I installed an SEO plugin, I think it was Yoast SEO, and when it updated the entire database crashed and my template wouldn’t load so the entire website was down for over a week which can mean a considerable loss in earning, and which can additionally be cause for increased chargebacks. If you don’t know PHP and you are not tech savvy enough to repair the database yourself than you probably want to get either a fully managed self hosting package (available at bluehost for $14.95, or stick to WordPress.com which is more expensive and can cost you up to $45/month for a business package). Btw. I tried checking out your website but it is down, are you experiencing problems?
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you’re welcome. wordpress.com is more stable. however there are more opportunities on wordpress.org.
If you notice, my web address is no more the same as before because I was so busy that I forgot to subscribe; I ended up losing the former address. when I make up my mind to move to wordpress.org, I will likely subscribe for a fully managed self hosting package, which, as you stated, is available on bluehost for $14.95.
Thanks for all your information.
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Anytime my friend. If you move to a self-hosted package let me know how it works out for you! Wishing you a wonderful week. Stay safe 🙂
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thanks so much. If I move, I will inform you about my experience
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Hi Debbie, I came here from Hugh’s blog. Thank you for this post. It will encourage those who are thinking about a transition.
I migrated from wordpress.com to .org more than an year ago. I followed the instructions step by step given on the wordpress website itself. The transition was smooth and I did not have any problems. The wordpress.com forum is also a great place for any help.
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Hi Deepa, nice to meet you! The WordPress.org forum does indeed contain a lot of information. You are able to use their forum to discuss any problems you may be experience, and to find anything from SEO tips to help with your WordPress migration. Moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org is really not as hard as some people think it is, and self-hosted solutions are usually a lot more cost effective as compared to those available from WordPress.com which can cost you up to $45 / month. I am glad to hear you had a good experience migrating to a self-hosted solution, thanks for taking the time to drop by and read my blog 😉
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First of all thank you for shearing this wonderful and informative article i am a web developer and people also ask me if we migrate the website can we lost our previous work? this is great one i recommend this article to others who have these kind of question about it..
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