Moving to a new platform of blogging and handling everything by yourself is one of the self satisfactory that I enjoyed so much now. Even though there are some time I feel pressured and torn between customizing my blog appearance and writing. Despite having short time to do all that, in the end I manage to get everything in place.
Imagine if you shifting to a new empty house, you have this huge own responsibility to move the most important furniture you need there, and also you need to design your new house without paying someone else. Or it’s like writing an essay, isn’t the introduction is the hardest part before you actually putting all that fancy ideas you have?
This is how I felt throughout this few weeks.
There are lots of trying an error I made, lots of reading and finding resources – hence that is why I changed my focus from writing/blogwalking to mastering WordPress and taking the necessary steps to plan my content.
If you are a having this thought about moving to WordPress, this can be a guidance on what you might encounter, but you don’t need to worry – I have the solutions for you.
This is the problems I faced after moving to WordPress and the solution I make
The Confusing Login to WordPress Dashboard
I don’t know if I am the only noob in this WordPress. First time I login I just followed the instruction by the hosting I sign up (NetKL) and I am all set to updating my WordPress profile and installing themes. The next day I want to login to WordPress dashboard, I just hit wordpress.com and sign in using the username and password I registered before (using NetKL tutorial) but I couldn’t find my dashboard.
Girl, you just made a mistake by not paying attention to the tutorial and instruction. The right way to sign in and managing your page and dashboard is through http://yourpageurl/wp-admin
Customizing My Paid Theme
I purchase my theme by MaiLoveParis – on Etsy. I have been eyeing on her themes for so long after I decided to migrate to WordPress. One thought I have – I have paid a great amount of money for this, I hope everything is easy peasy. When I install this theme I want to look exactly like the preview.
Right after I installed this theme, it doesn’t look like the preview, but it was better than the free WordPress theme. Everything is messy. So I look into Mai tutorial and followed everything.
The customize setting and option are easy to navigate (depend on your theme). There’s nothing much I changed – just the basic like how many post I want to have in the home page, other than that I don’t give a shit.
Most Entry Have No Image
Take note if you used Blogger and you want to import all your post to WordPress, you have to import all your post to WordPress by installing Blogger Importer then clicking the Tools tab – Import – Run Importer. Then you will have all your blogger post in WordPress. You also need to install and activate Import External Images plugins .
The problems I faced was, most of my recent entries doesn’t have images or it was corrupted. What I did was, I edited and uploaded the images to all the post with missing images. This include putting caption and alt text in it.
My recent post from November 2016 onwards have lots of image because I shared my trip to South Korea. Sound like pain in the ass right? Imagine how much effort I put in to upload everything and put them back in place, this not including I have watermarked with my old blogger url, I want to edit the original photo but I did not do that – because to do that I need to select again the photos and edit again, I seriously don’t have the time for that.
If you are thinking to move to WordPress and you have images with your current blog watermark, take triple caution to this. The more images you have, the more you need to do.
Praise to God, some of oldest my post already got images.
Disk Space Usage
After uploading the missing images, then I remembered the limited disk space usage given by my hosting. Damn it girl I have used 75% of the usage. I have just only started and it already taking so much space.
I went to look back at the cpanel dashboard, trying to locate where can I access all the files that have taken up my space. Then I get it, all my images are in a big file size. 1mb – 3mb per images. Heck I remembered I did not resize my images before.
To locate this (if you are using hosting by NetKL), you can go to Files – File Manager. Look at the sidebar, click through public_html – wp-content – uploads. There you can see all the files and the file sized you have uploaded in your blog.
You can see there are few files of the same images in different images size. At first I was thinking why there are so many of that, so I deleted the duplicate images. Smart of me right. But please do not do that. The reason why there are so many files of same images because it was resize to fit to thumbnail, mobile and tablet view.
When you used Blogger, you won’t face this problem because the images will link to your Google Drive Account. Having a self-hosted blog I have to play it smart and be cheapskate by resizing all my images.
No Top Post Slider
Another things that were missing was the featured top post slider wasn’t there. So my page have a blank page gap between the header and the recent post. There’s also steps you have to do it yourself to create the top post slider. Again Mai has provided the tutorial here I have to do go back again to edit my post so that I can click that ‘Featured Item’ on the post I wanted to be on the top post slider.
Creating Categories
My purchased theme have this Categories link on the sidebar. And I want that. When I installed the theme, it doesn’t have that. Again I have to do it myself. I mailed Mai (with some other enquiry) so she can help me. She provided me with her tutorial here and the problem why my Categories doesn’t have images because I did not created one.
When I used Blogger, I used lots of categories. It was again so messy. I just need like five main categories now. For this, I need to edit all my post’s categories. Quick edit in WordPress save my time. Another problem solved in a blink of eye.
Post Content Are Looking So Not Organized
What I meant by this is – the contents were not justify and written with no paragraph spacing. Being so meticulous in post appearance, I simply cannot brain that. I went back to my first post and edit one-by-one. Hurghhh, so tiring but I am satisfied now. I used Spacer plugin to add the spacer.
I am taking this steps to also putting my content with proper heading, adjusting the post title so that is SEO-friendly, renaming and editing the images. Blessed the Headings in WordPress, the content are looking more sleek now.
Commenting Sytem
I wanted to used Disqus comment system because it is easier for me to reply to all the comments. Since I already having the problem with syncing my blogger comment previously, I am not 100% sure this gonna work. I am so worried if this Disqus commenting system could not work – again.
To do this, you need to migrate your old comment url to the new WordPress url. I followed this instruction by Disqus and it works now!
Creating Pages and Menus
We know that by having Pages or Menus on top of the blog make it easier for the reader to move around our blog without scrolling till the end of the page. At first I only added and created the basic thing – Home, About Me and the main categories I want to share here in my blog. But this is not only I wanted.
Thankfully, I found this tutorial on pinterest for the complete guide to WordPress Menu
Now I have an archive page that listed down all my contents. If I put all the categories together, can you imagine how many categories list are there. Display Posts Shortcode is a life saver so no more worries for that. You can look at this tutorial for creating different types of archives.
Dressing Up My Page
Designing or dressing up my page is the most interesting part. One more thing I need to change which wasn’t there is the font customization tab. When I asked Mai if I can change the font, she recommended me to purchase the plugin from her, and I thought I could not change the font.
Browsing through pinterest the masterpiece, I found out how to change font – using Plugin. I found this Easy Google Font plugin, which was a brilliant plugin. Once activated, I see the Typography option on Appearance – Customize section. Now I can select any font I want for my content and heading.
I have mentioned plugins a lot here. I have installed the basic plugins every WordPress blogger need as follows:-
Cache Plugin – mainly to increase site speed and prevent overload
SEO Plugin – how you can optimize you content keywords and meta description so that your content will rank on the top of the search engine
Login Protection Plugin – to prevent hackers
Back up Plugin – to back up all your content
Anti Spam Plugin – blocking spam messages
Contact Plugin – easier way for your readers to reach you
I hope this can help to those who are having difficulties with WordPress
Is the any other difficulties and suggestions you want to share with me?
