Transitioning from WordPress.com to WordPress.org: An Interactive Case Study

Two years ago, I decided to pull the trigger and transition my web site, Open Water Chicago (www.openwaterchicago.com), from a free WordPress.com blog to a completely self-hosted WordPress.org platform. And it wasn’t that easy for me because I didn’t (and still don’t) have an advanced technical background. So I’d like to share with you the lessons I learned and provide you with a simple but effective roadmap so that you too can make the leap as painlessly as possible.

Some of the key areas to be discussed include the following:

  • Why blog at all?
  • Why use WordPress? And why WordPress.org over WordPress.com?
  • Essential set-up costs: what you need, and how to get it all inexpensively
  • Setting up hosting
  • Securing, transferring, and assigning domain name(s)
  • Installing WordPress.org
  • Creating a MySQL database for your domain and website
  • Migrating content to WordPress.org
  • Tweaking your content
  • The Adventure Begins: themes, plugins, and endless experimentation