Help! Techies out there! I am in a real quandry. I want to move my blog. I started it 4 years ago and it's officially old fashioned and boring. I want to update the look AEWC, incorporate the 'moving to Kenya/East Africa' forum so that it's all one one site. I want to include more links and useful East Africa information and sort my old blog posts into easily searchable categories etc. Of course, finding more readers would be nice too.
What would you suggest? I have taken the first step and now bought my own domain name http://www.africaexpatwivesclub.com/. This week I spoke to a local web designer (at length) and got hosting and building prices from him - but this is expensive and I'm worried that this option might be a little over the top for a blogger like me. Afterall, I'm not The White Company - or something!!
I looked at 'typepad' and typepad blogs look much more professional than mine. ( I really like http://dailyriolife.typepad.com/) Should I sign up with them instead of having a domain of my own? Would I be able to export all my historical posts from blogger? Help, help, help - comments please!!
The diary of a British expat living in Kenya. News, views, debate and a healthy dose of trivia.
We officially declare ourselves sheep. Wherever you will go we shall follow. All together now BAAAAAA!!!
ReplyDeleteBought your domain name ?
ReplyDeleteGood. I use namecheap.com for domain name, about 9.69 USD per year. Their dashboard is great and easy to run.
Hosting ??
You can find cheap hosting in US as well. I use Hostgator, cheap but it is on shared server. It is less than 100 USD per year
For the CMS, you could use typepad or wordpress. I prefer Wordpress. Installing Wordpress to your server, get a new theme (free or paid theme) and then importing (there is button in Wordpress dashboard to import blog content) your current blog from blogspot should not cost a fortune, really !!!
The tricky part is not to loose your reader and RSS readers.
On the side of SEO, you will loose ranking and your position will drop in search engines.
Then, moving from Blogspot to Typepad is unecessary. You better tried to change the layout of your blogspot.
My 2cents
On your new domain you can instal wordpress, look for a nice theme/template and you will be good to go. Good thing is that Bluehost has an easy way to instal wordpress. With wordpress you can have more static pages for the different stuff on EA you want to put up (like a normal website) and still blog as usual (like a normal blog. No coding needed, not pricy, better than typepad.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely go for Wordpress and not Typepad. Wordpress has WAY more options.
ReplyDeleteAs the others say, Wordpress is probably the best option. There are various way you could make this work well. I'm a web designer, and spent the first 8 years of my life in Kenya. Please visit my website, and get in touch if you've like a quote to help you out. I have recently created several sites using Wordpress - including joyfulbirth.co.uk and clearskin-ebook.com. My website is karenarnott.co.uk, I look forward to hearing from you.
ReplyDeleteCheck out yola.com which is pretty new and funky(and easy).
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for all this valuable help and advice!!
ReplyDeleteI am a bit worried about this blog losing its search history if I move. At the moment it comes up pretty quickly on Google.
Seems that Wordpress wins! My brother-in-law who is building a website of his own also recommends it.
Thank you!!
"I am a bit worried about this blog losing its search history if I move. At the moment it comes up pretty quickly on Google." - that's the only thing which would worry me. As said above, there is nothing you can do... It will take you at least 6 month to come back to what you are now in Search Engine.
ReplyDeleteThere are quite a few hosting services who will preinstall wordpress for you. Be sure to get one of those. Although it's really not all that difficult yourself, but you'll likely appreciate the service. Also, do consider spending a small amount of money ($20-50) for a theme instead of a free one. They usually are slightly better built and offer much more flexibility. No matter what, don't be afraid to play with whatever theme you go with and customize it and make it your own. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.
ReplyDeletePS. I'm in Nairobi. Wonder if we'll ever bump into each other :)