Dana: The Coupon Challenge

I started my site with blogger using a free design from The Cutest Blog on the Block. The set up was easy and FREE. There are numerous other sites offering free or cheap templates to give personality to your site. These can be downloaded with little to no expense or design experience.

After several months, I had my blogger blog designed by Custom Blog Designs. The rates were reasonable and I loved her designs. Plus, she handled all the design installation with very little downtime to my website. My only problem came later when I moved to wordpress. I would have loved to work with her again, but she only works with blogger. She was able to help me adjust the header to accommodate my new site, though.

I would like to eventually change the design of my site to fit this stage of my life and where I’m hoping to take my blog in the future. For now, I’m working to make the site more user friendly to keep you all wanting to come back for more!

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You’ve been blogging awhile.  You want to change hosts.  You decide to take the plunge.  Fear sets in.  You know you lack the knowledge or experience to transition yourself but the price of paying someone seems out of reach.  What do you do?  As two bloggers that have recently moved from blogger to wordpress or changed hosts, we’ll let you in on a little secret.  We had no idea what we were doing either.

Dana’s Experience:

After about a year of blogging, I decided to move from blogger to wordpress.  I was lucky that another blogger was kind enough to offer how much the move cost her.  I was shocked!  Could I afford to do this?  The frugal in me briefly considered trying to move the site myself.  Luckily, I realized it was worth the cost when I factored in my time, effort & sanity. 

My best advice is to ask for recommendations from other bloggers.  Find out who other bloggers used for their move and what their experiences were.  Don’t take the advice of 1 individual and don’t go for the cheapest option.  My site transition had lots of hiccups, but in the end I had a site hosted by Host Gator & only a few gray hairs.  However, I lost my Google Friend Connect & my Google Analytics.  I had to start both over from scratch.  I also didn’t realize how long my site would be down or how long feeds would take to pick back up.

Don’t even get me started on how I felt when I opened up my new wordpress dashboard to write my first post.  I was in tears asking why I did this to myself.  I had no idea how to use wordpress.  I had no idea about using HTML or CSS.  A plugin? What’s that? 

I spent countless hours & sleepless nights searching for answers.  It’s been a couple of months now and I’m still learning.  I’ve learned that wordpress is completely worth the stress & expense.  I’ve learned to not be stubborn and to ask for help after searching online for hours to no avail.  I’ve learned to be grateful to all the ladies that gave me advice.  I’ve learned that I want to help others by posting what it took me months to figure out.  Stay tuned…

Amee’s Experience:

I did it. I moved. I moved my word press blog to a new host. I have to say my move was like most people’s moves I lost some stuff. I gained some stuff. I mostly gained about $75 a month and a lot of information that I never thought I would need to know. The first thing I learned was hire someone to do this for you. I bothered my poor almost brother in law to help me. He deserves a huge gold star. I have since learned that this service typically cost about $120. I asked Moritz Fine Design if they gave free estimates and they do. If I did this move thing over again I would hire them to look at my site to determine what I need. I know I bought the best package on Host Gator but I know for a fact I over bought for the needs of my site. I wanted to be safe but really I am throwing away money. I figured after a couple of months I will have them evaluate what I am using to determine if another plan fits my needs better. This will save me tons of money since I will only be buying what I need.

A typical migration for a website would be:

Move Website Files
Move Database
Change domain and DNS
The cost is usually $120.00
If you need to migrate your emails it will be more

I received a free move with Host Gator which is great but what I didn’t know is a s soon as they say the move is done look at your site. They mean it. I left that email in my box and kept on blogging until the weekend. This resulted in the content that I wrote staying on my old IP address. I had to beg my brother in law to download and upload the content that was on the other site. I lost some of my printable lists. I also lost a lot of the changes I made to the site design. I saw a lag in my rss feed and I believe that it was not delivered for a day. I spent countless hours trying to figure out where to point what to get what I needed. I pointed my domain prior to moving things over which left me without a site and a small heart attack then I figured out I needed to download stuff so I pointed them back to the server and did the download. If you have no idea what I am talking about spend the $120.00 it is well worth it.

What were your experiences moving to wordpress or changing hosts?

Renee with Madame Deals has put together some great information on how to get attention to your blog.  You work hard and want people to know you’re there.

Okay, so you have a blog. You have a button and the code to post so others can promote you. How do you get people to your site now that you have decorated it with great screen shots. You head to your newly created twitter page and think of something good to say. Except, you have two followers and your mom has no idea how to log into the twitter account you created and the other follower doesn’t speak the same language.

That is the key to think of something others want to hear or learn about. You need to define who you are and what your audience is looking to gain from coming to your site. You have to come up with a plan for engaging your audience. The best thing you can do is be true to yourself. It is very difficult to put yourself out there and have opinions. A blog is not for the faint of heart. I have received ugly comments among the positive comments. The point I always remember is there is more good then bad and if we can help one person make a difference in their life then we have done our job.

I have really learned a lot about social media in the last couple of months. I have put forth a tremendous amount of effort to build my audience it is something I am devoting an hour or more to each day.

Here are the top 3 ways I have built my audience

1) Get a twitter account, facebook account, and goggle friends account these are the most common social media channels to follow and be followed and add plug ins to your site to feed your blog directly to these sites. I encourage you to do more then send your site to these media options engage your readers/ followers by sharing more than just the latest deal.

Madame Deals-

Facebook

Twitter

The Coupon Challenge-

Facebook

Twitter

When you gain a new follower respond to their comments. It is important to build relationships.

2) Participate in blog hops. I do one facebook hop, one twitter hop, one stumble hop, and a random hop a week. Here is a list of hops to attend. You can add yours if I am missing it.

3) Design a contest that your readers will enjoy. Madame Deals is the home of We Love Coupons But We Hate Cutting Them Contest and We Got It and You Want It Contest where we gather all the items we got for free and add to the contest daily.

4) Link up your contest to other sites. You can steer their traffic to your site and hopefully you have the content to keep the new visitors interested. I put together a list of giveaways here. This is a super way to gain exposure.

Last week Amee showed you how to make a blog button.  Now all you need to do is input your information into the code below and viola, you have your very own clickable button with grab box!

1.  Copy your image direct link from photobucket as Amee showed you here

2.  Enter your Blog URL and button image link into the appropriate spots below:

<center><a href=”YOUR URL HERE”><img border=”0″ alt=”NAME YOUR BUTTON” src=”BLOG BUTTON DIRECT LINK HERE” /></a></center>

<center><textarea id=”code-source” rows=”5″ cols=”12″ name=”code-source”><center><a href=”YOUR URL HERE” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ alt=”NAME YOUR BUTTON” src=”BLOG BUTTON DIRECT LINK HERE” /></a></center></textarea></center>

This is what my blog button code looks like:

<center><a href=”https://www.thecouponchallenge.com/”><imgborder=”0″ alt=”The Coupon Challenge” src=”http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/TheCouponChallenge/coupon-challenge.png” /></a></center>

<center><textarea id=”code-source” rows=”5″ cols=”12″ name=”code-source”><center><a href=”https://www.thecouponchallenge.com/” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ alt=”The Coupon Challenge” src=”http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/TheCouponChallenge/coupon-challenge.png” /></a></center></textarea></center>

3.  Copy the entire code into a blog post or a widget for display on your sidebar.

<center><a href=”https://www.thecouponchallenge.com/” mce_href=”https://www.thecouponchallenge.com/” target=”_blank”><img border=”0″ alt=”The Coupon Challenge” src=”http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/TheCouponChallenge/coupon-challenge.png” mce_src=”http://i743.photobucket.com/albums/xx76/TheCouponChallenge/coupon-challenge.png” /></a></center>

The top section of code is a clickable button and the second section is for the grab box (as shown).

Thanks to Amee with Madame Deals for sharing how to make your own blog button!

The button everyone has. I don’t mean belly.  I mean blog buttons. This is the easiest way to promote who you are.  I am going to show you how to make on in under 5 minutes.

Where do you get them?

You can make your own. I will show you the easiest way I know. I say if I can do it anyone can do it.

Step 1: Think of your theme

Step 2: Search for or create an image to use for your button. Here are a couple of sites that have nice images. Make sure that they are not copyrighted.

Step 4: Edit your image by cropping, enhancing colors, adding text, removing flaws

Step 5: Resize your image to be 125×125

Step 6: Save your finished product to photo bucket

Step: 7: Get the HTML code so you can post your image on your site and make your button available for others

The Video was made using JING.

If you need a button made or you need any design work done:
My friend Kas at Southern Bellas Ways To Save makes super buttons.

She designed ours for our bloggers group Money Mavens.

Moving from a blog hosted on blogger to wordpress is a huge adjustment. It is well worth the change, but it’s important to understand the financial cost before you begin your journey.

The cost of a wordpress blog: 

1. Cost of a wordpress theme approx. $75-$90.  Free themes are available, but you will need some knowledge of CSS & HTML.
2. Cost of professional content migration from blogger to wordpress, approx. $100-$150.  You could attempt this yourself, but may lose followers or PR.
3. Hosting:  Prices vary by host, approx. $110-$120 per year with a dedicated IP address or $85-$95 per year without.
4. Design changes: Cost varies widely, look to spend at least $50. You do not have to change your design.

There are several options for web hosting.  Below are the 3 sites that have been recommended to me:

1. Host Gator (my hosting)
2. BlueHost
3. Go Daddy

While you’re saving for a move from blogger to wordpress, visit Blogging with Amy & Savvy Blogging for invaluable tips and tricks.

Want to make a pretty background for your Twitter page?  Madame Deals shows you how to create a custom Twitter background for FREE! 

Are you following The Coupon Challenge on Twitter?  You can get all these fabulous deals & more straight to your Twitter feed!

NOTE: view this in full screen by clicking on the right hand corner.

This is what Amee did:

1. Down Load Jing it is free! This is how you use Jing in case you missed last week.

2. Grab a screenshot of something on your blog that you would like to make your background on Twitter

3. Save the image

4. Open your twitter account

5. Click on Profile

6. Click on Design

7. Change Background image (Tile or not)

8. Choose the file you created using Jing or your screenshot tool

9. Then you can change your design colors

10. Save

11. Click on Home to see your handy work!

*My twitter background was designed by Beth with Two Monkey’s & a Washtub.