How to Transfer Your Site to a WordPress Hosting Provider – Without Losing It
There are so many reasons why you might want to transfer your site to a WordPress hosting provider. Maybe you’re sick of dealing with hosting issues on your own, or you want to take advantage of all the amazing features that WordPress offers. Whatever your reason, transferring your site is a whole lot easier than you’d think! In this article, we’ll cover everything from the steps to take before hand, to make sure that you don’t lose any content along with the transfer, to setting up your brand new WordPress site, and more! Let’s get started.
Steps To Take Before Hand
The first step to take before you start transferring your site is to make sure you have an SSL certificate installed on your site. Don’t worry, we’ll get to that in a bit.
Also, it’s a good idea to back up your site before hand just in case something goes wrong. This way, you can restore your site to its previous state. While this might seem like a lot of work, it’s definitely not. Modern web hosts make this kind of thing super easy. For instance, with Squarespace, you can easily back up and restore your site in a matter of minutes. No need to worry about losing content along with the transfer.
Find An SSL Certificate That Matches Your Site
Now that you have a backup of your site, it’s time to find an SSL certificate that matches your site. The first thing you should do is search for the name of your hosting provider in the SSL certificate marketplace. You want to make sure that the certificate you choose will work with your current hosting provider and that it won’t cause any issues when installed onto your site. For example, does your current hosting provider support EV SSL certificates? If not, it might be a good idea to look for a different kind of certificate.
Make Sure That The Certificate You Choose Is Not Expired
Another thing you need to do is make sure that the certificate you choose is not expired. This way, you can be sure that you’re getting the security benefits that you’re paying for. Just remember that once your certificate expires, you’ll have to renew it or get a new one. Luckily, you can usually get an SSL certificate for free from trusted sources like Let’s Encrypt or one of the major web hosts. In some cases, you might even be able to get a free domain and hosting with a good SSL certificate too! Keep in mind that these are just the basics if you want to secure your site properly. Depending on how much traffic you get, you might want to look into getting a dedicated IP address or purchasing a VPS to properly secure your site.
Create A Unique Password For Your WordPress Account
One more thing you need to do is create a unique password for your WordPress account. This will help prevent someone from accessing your site if they hacks your email account and decides to try and log in to your WordPress account. You can use a password manager like Dashlane to generate random passwords for you.
Along with creating a unique password for your WordPress account, you should use a different email address to log into your account. If someone hacks your email, they’ll have to go through additional steps to gain access to your WordPress account. This way, even if they do manage to get access to your email, they’ll still have to go through a lot of effort to gain access to your WordPress account.
Choose A Password For Your FTP Account
One more thing you need to do is choose a password for your FTP account. This will allow you to upload your website files to your hosting provider via FTP. Just remember that if someone gets access to your FTP account, they’ll have full access to your site files too. Keep in mind that it’s a very bad idea to use the same password for your FTP account as your WordPress account. In some cases, changing your WordPress password might even be enough to secure your FTP account (if you used a different one to begin with).
Activate Your SSL Certificate
Once you have all of that taken care of, the final step is to activate your SSL certificate. To do this, just visit your hosting provider’s SSL certificate dashboard and follow the instructions. In most cases, this is just a matter of clicking a button to activate your certificate. If you do run into any trouble, just contact your hosting provider’s support team and they’ll help you out.
To conclude, transferring your site to a WordPress host is a lot easier than you’d think. You have all the necessary tools and resources available to you through your hosting provider. Make sure to follow all of the steps above, and you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of a fully-functioning WordPress site in no time!