Feet + Surf by mattsabo17, cc license
Well, I've decided to move again. I know I've only been at Blogger for a month, but this is really the move I should have made in the first place.
Why Move Again?
In this post I explained why I made my original move from Edublogs. There I mentioned that I had considered hosting my own blog. My husband has a bunch of web space where he has his website kiwibytes.com. I looked into putting WordPress (open source blogging platform) onto your own web host, but it looked a little too techie for me. Luckily, about a week ago my husband decided that he wanted to set up a blog and at my suggestion he checked out WordPress. Within a few hours he had it up and running. He offered to set up WordPress for me too. Excellent!
What's In A Name?
I decided to purchase my own domain so that if I get flighty again and move, at least my web address will stay the same. So I went to GoDaddy and tried a bunch of names. Most of the dot com names I tried were taken. Claire.com, Clairethompson.com, ClarifyMe.com... I wasn't sure if the domain suffix was terribly important, but just to be certain I posed the question on Twitter (with some other good advice from @OakesMedia). In the end I decided that I would go with a .ca domain. I want this domain to be where I present my professional side. Initially it will house my blog but more may be added in time (CV, other websites...)
And The Winner Is...
So I decided to go with claireonline.ca. My blog name is still Clarify Me. If you're so inclined to add me to your RSS feed reader I promise I won't move again :-)
Thinking of Moving?
If you are thinking of moving your blog, do take the time to look into all the ins and outs. You don't want to be like me and have 3 blog homes in one month! I found that there is a lot of good information on how to import your blogger blog to wordpress and vice versa. Do be ready to clean up loose ends though, like broken internal links and dealing with the fact that blogger tags can get converted to categories in Wordpress. If you've moved before and have some good advice, please share it in the comments. Thinking of moving and have some questions--I'd be glad to answer any that I can.
As always, thanks for reading!
This process you've just taken on is one I have been thinking about for a while but I just haven't plucked up courage to do it. I really feel I need soemone to hold my hand as I do it...I am also very reluctent to leave Blogger because I like it so much...so back to procrastinating yet again
ReplyDeleteSarah, I know what you mean! I've pondered this move for more than a year. Once I made the leap it was surprisingly straight forward. It does take time though, so I wouldn't do it until you know that life will be a little slower for awhile.
ReplyDelete