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Many beginners often start with WordPress.com and soon realise the limitations of hosting their site with WordPress.com and decide to switch to self-hosting WordPress.

This guide will walk you through the process of moving your site from WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress hosting with Jolly Leaf.

Why move from WordPress.com to WordPress.org (self-hosted WordPress)?

Hosting your website with WordPress.com can be restrictive as you have limited control over your website. Whereas self-hosting WordPress gives you full control of your website, with the following benefits:

1. WordPress is an open-source software that is free and super easy to use.
2. You can add endless free and premium WordPress plugins.
3. You can customise your WordPress website design. You can add any free or premium WordPress theme, or even create a completely custom theme from scratch or by modify an existing theme.
4. You can monetise your website by running your own ads.
5. You can add custom scripts to your website, such as Google Analytics for custom analytics reports.
6. You can turn your website into an eCommerce store by choosing from multiple eCommerce options.

Step 1: Install WordPress with Jolly Leaf

Follow our step-by-step tutorial on how to use our app installer to install WordPress in a matter of clicks.

Step 2: Export your data from WordPress.com 

To move your blog posts, pages, posts and feedback from your WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress, you will need to export all of your data from WordPress.com.

Login to your WordPress.com dashboard and click Settings from the left-hand-side.

Click Export.

And then Export All.

WordPress.com will now export all of your data into an XML file. Once completed, click Download to save your export XML file.

Step 3: Import your content into your self-hosted WordPress site

Login to the WordPress Administrator dashboard for your self-hosted WordPress installation, and click Tools on the left-hand-side and then Import.

Install the WordPress Importer by clicking Install Now and then Run Importer.

Upload your XML export file and click Upload file and import.

Choose the author the imported content will be assigned to. You can choose an existing author from the dropdown, as shown in the image below. To import all of your blog's media, check Download and import file attachments.

Click Submit.

If you're migrating a blog that has many posts and media to import, this might take several minutes to complete - so please leave it to run.

Once the import is finished, all of your blog posts, pages and media will be imported.

Step 4: Finishing touches

Note: The WordPress export/import feature will only migrate content, not themes and settings. Therefore, you will need to complete these finishing touches manually.