There are many reasons someone will want to migrate a WordPress blog from one host to another, your blog auto grew your current web hosting, high renewer fees, high monthly fees, you just don’t like them anymore, etc.

Whatever is your reason for ditching your hosting company, in this post, I am going to share with you how to migrate a WordPress blog from one host to another.

In this example, I am going to move my blog from WPX hosting to Hostgator, this does not mean that Hostgator are better, I love WPX hosting, but they can be a little bit expensive for most people so in that case, I recommend starting with cheaper hosting like HostGator and when you make some cash move back to WPX Hosting.

Before you move your blog, you will need an account, if you do not have one click on the back below.

How To Migrate WordPress Blog from One Host to Another Host

Step 1: Backup your WordPress files and database

In order to back up your files, just log in to your account, go to Backups, then select the website you want to back up, you can either download the backups that you already have in your account or you can create a new one.

Step 2: Download all the files into your computer

Click on file backup and on database backup to download both files into your computer.

Step 3:Add a domain to your new hosting

If your domain is not added to your hosting, you can add it, the first thing you need to do is to log in on your Cpanel (most hosting use it), locate the domain section then click on the addon domains Icon.

On the next page, you will see a page when you can add your domain name and then click add domain.

Step4:Upload the files into the new hosting

After you finish adding your domain name, just go back to your Cpanel, this time click on File Manager, then select the domain name you just added.

Go on and click on the upload icon, then you will see the window like the image below.

Click on Select File, go and locate the directory where you saved the files in step 2, select them and the upload process will start. This works best for smaller blogs for bigger blogs I recommend uploading your files using Filezilla.

After the uploading is 100% done, click on the go back button, then right-click on the file and then click on extract.

You will need to provide the path, this is the direction when you want your file to be located, we want them at the root domain, just type your full domain including the extension after the .com or.net or whatever your domain extension is.

Then click on extract.

Step 5:Create a new database

To create a new database, go back to the home page of your Cpanel and then click on Mysql Database Wizard. You don’t have to be technical to do this.

The first step will be to create the database name, just give it any name. Copy the name of it and put it somewhere (notepad, word, etc), then click Next.

The second step would be to create a user name and the password, make them you save them in a document, we are going to need them.

The last step will be to add the user and the database, all you need to do is to click the checkmark on all privileges and then scroll down and click on that button to finish the process.

Step 6:Upload the database

Now we need to upload the database. All you need to do is to go back to the home page of your Cpanel and then click on phpMyadmin

Select the database you created in step 5, then click on import.

Select the database file we downloaded in the second step.

Do not change anything, just follow the steps. When it is done go to the next step.

Step 7:Update database password and username

After finishing uploading the database, go back to the Cpanel home page, click on the File Manager, select the domain name we are moving files, locate a file with the name wp-confing.php.

Right-click the wp-config.php file, locate DB_NAME and change the database name ( the one inside ‘…..’ without removing the ‘..’,

Do the same for DB_USER here is where you put the username you created when you were creating the database.

and lastly, change the password, you change this by replacing the password that is inside the ‘…..’ after the DB_PASSWORD

Step 8:Update DNS

Now we need our domain name to point to our new host, this is why I always recommend registering a domain name using a different company, in this example if we had registered our domain name with WPX, it would be very difficult to change the DNS.

If you have registered your domain name at Namecheap this is what you can do.

Log in to your account, select the domain name you are moving to, and click on manage.

When you bought the new hosting, they sent you some information and one of them is the DNS information, most of the time there are two, ending with anumber.yourhosting.com. Just copy that information and paste it as shown in the image below and click the checkmark.

It will take up to 24 hours to point to the new hosting, I recommend doing this transfer at least three days before your plan in the old hosting ends.

Final words

Congratulations, now you’re fully IT certified and ready to apply for any IT job ( I am joking). This is how you migrate a WordPress blog from one host to another with zero downtime.

Your visitors won’t even notice that the blog when moved, thank you for reading, if you want to learn more about making money online or blogging please subscribe to the form below so that I can send you updates anytime I have a new post.

If you want to make real money online you need to build your email list, this is going to be the best asset you can have, in this post, I am going to share with you how to turn your blog into a list building machine and how you can use that list to make more money online.

What is a list?

A list is a collection of personal information ( in our case will be an email and a name ) of the people who are interested in what you have to offer or say.

What is list building?

List building is the process of collecting personal information ( email, phone, location, etc) from people who are interested in your service or product.

What we do is that we offer something they need in exchange for their email address and sometimes a name and email address, and we will store that information into a software call and autoresponder.

What is an Autoresponder?

An autoresponder is software that has two main functions, first, to store the contact you collect from your prospects, the second function is to send these people automated mails, this emails will include tips and advice about our niche.

In those emails we can include links to products and services, these can be our own or affiliate products, and when those prospects buy we will make money.

Which autoresponder is the best?

There are a lot of good autoresponders out there, I tried most of them, for me ActiveCampaign is the best and it is what I use. 

For bloggers, I will recommend ActiveCampaign or Covertkit, if you want to do pure affiliate marketing, then pick Aweber.

How does the list-building process work?

You create a video, a pdf, a course, or audio, when you teach people how to do something, for example, it could be how to build your email list in just 7 days for make money online blog, how to manifest money in 24 hours for manifestation niche, etc. You create an opt-in form where you offer them that information in exchange for their email.

When they opt-in you send them a download link to get the thing that they opted in for and introduce yourself, you can send them emails about yourself and your business.

Imagine this, you have 2000 people in your email list, you find something that you think the product will help them to solve their problem, you write an email, and 300 of them open your email, and just 30 of them buy that product, you make $30 per sale, that is $900 for a single email.

I know people with a lot of subscribers and they make a lot of money, for those who are starting out you should aim for at least 1000 subscribers in the first 6 months. With 5000 subscribers you can make a full-time income.

If you do not want to send them emails about products or services, you can send them the latest blog post or a digest of them, you can send them to your youtube channel or a podcast if you have them, just do not abuse and try to sell them everything you find online or send them millions of emails per day, remember these are real people with real problems, never spam them.

How to turn your blog into a list building machine

Now we know what is list building let us dive into the process of turning your blog into a list-building machine.

Create more great content

You need to find out what type of content your readers enjoy the most, create more and better content of that type.

Find out what type of content gets more views, more social shares, and more engagements, these metrics will be your guide into creating great content.

Do your research make sure that the information you provide is solid, practical, and actionable, people will start to see you as an authority in the niche and they will subscribe to your email list.

Offer them an ethical bribe

Find what is the problem most of your readers are facing, find a solution for it, and offer it to them exchanging with their email address. I know most bloggers who just add a form that says join my mailing list, this is better than nothing but you can go one step further and say get this guide to solve your problem, just let me know where I can send you the download link, the second way is better.

Increase traffic to your blog

If you have a great blog with great content but no one visiting it, you will never get subscribers, if your blog is new and you’re not getting enough traffic, you can increase traffic by participating in social media, Facebook groups, forums, doing SEO, etc.

You can learn more about driving traffic for your new blog here.

Add sign up forms into your blog

If you have great content to your blog, you advertise it and get a lot of traffic and you created great content to give away but you do not have a signup form in your blog, you won’t get any subscribers.

Where there are going to sign up? In the next section, I am going to explain where you can put your sign-up form in your blog to get subscribers.

Where to put your sign up form on your blog in order to build your list

I am going to share with you five places you can put your option form in order to increase your email list subscribers.

On top of your blog before content

You can put your form on top of your blog, just below the logo and before the main content, for me, this is the highest converting spot, you will get more subscribers since this will be the first thing they will see when coming to your blog.

The negative aspect of this is that it will push your blog post further down the line and this might anger some of your visitors.

How to build this

In the image below is the opt-in form from one of my blogs, I build it using a free plugin but that plugin has not been updated for ages it does not work as it used to be.

You can have someone design it for you and add it to the code of your theme in Fiverr or you can buy a theme that supports these kinds of opt-in forms. With thrive themes, you can build an opt-in form like this.

Inside your blog post

You can put your sign-up form anywhere inside your blog post, you can decide where do you need to put your form.

All you need to do is to create your form inside your autoresponder, after you finish they will provide you with a code and you can add that anywhere you want.

If do you use ActiveCampaign you can read their guide on how to create forms here.

For me, I like to add a signup form at the end of a blog post. I use a plugin called post layout, I copy the code from my autoresponder, I post it on the layout and it will show at the end of every post.

This is an example of the form that I created inside ActiveCampaign and added to my blog.

Or If you scroll down to this post you will find another form like this.

Add a form to the top right corner of your blog

Another great place to and an option form is the top right corner of your blog. I did this when I was starting but I do not do it anymore.

I know a lot of people who still have this, and they are having great success with this, you can create a form using your autoresponder and then add a code there, you can add a direct code or you can use a plugin to do this, most autoresponders nowadays have plugins that can help you to place sign up form in your blog.

Create a pop-up

Another great way to capture email subscribers is by using a not intrusive pop-up, this is a small sign-up form that will show up when the visitors have been to your blog for a certain amount of time or they show an intention of leaving your blog.

I use a free plugin called sumone, which you can find in the plugin inside your WordPress, all you need is to install it and activate the plugin.

Then go to forms, create one select your goal, and form type, put your headline, the content, and call to action, indicate where do you want them to go after joining, connect to your autoresponder and then click save

Create a squeeze page

You can create a simple squeeze page, the main function of this page is just to collect emails, you can include the link to the squeeze pages inside your blog posts and when your readers click those links, they will go to the squeeze page and have a chance to opt-in.

There are many free WordPress plugins that you can use to create a squeeze page, if you can code you can create using HTML or PHP, or you can use a page builder.

I use Clickfunnels to build all my squeeze pages, as I think they are the page builder in the market.

Here is an example of the page I built using Clickfunnels.

Final words

That is it, this is how you turn your blog into a list building machine, list building is the most important task you need to do if you want to build a long-term online business. Do not go overboard though build one or two types of these forms and use them to build your online empire.

There are millions of blogs created every day, but very few of them get real traction online. The main reason for all the failing blogs is that they do not have content or they produce content that no one wants to consume.

The real secret to having a successful blog is that you need to create great content and the content that people are looking for, do not create content for the sake of creating it. That is why in this post, I am going to share with you, how to find content ideas for your blog.

Two types of content for your blog

Before you write a single word for your blog you need to know two types of content you can publish on your blog.

The money content

This is the content in your blog that when someone reads it and decides to take action you will make money, this content includes, the sales pages( could be your own product or a link to an affiliate offer), your leads capture pages ( when people join into your email list, you can make money by using the power of email marketing, and your review pages( these are the pages when you review a specific product or service.

The money content is very difficult to get traffic because everyone wants it and the competition is very fierce especially if you want free search engine traffic( for new blogs), so the solution is to combine this type of content with what I can traffic content.

The traffic content

This is a type of content that people are not looking to buy anything when they search for it, but they have the same problem that your money pages can solve.

For example, if someone types in google, How to lose weight before summer, there are looking for a quick weight-loss method, but if you write content with that keyword, it will be difficult to rank this there is a lot of competition.

but if someone types in google how many calories are in a banana, this is a person who is either fat or does not want to get fat, this is a low competition keyword, you can produce content and rank easily and in the content link the first content.

One gives you money another gives you traffic and if you keep doing this many times you will be able to rank for both.

This is the type of content you need to publish in your new blog, after people and google start to trust you, you will be able to rank any type of content.

How to find content ideas for your blog using Semrush in 6 steps

There are many tools that you can use for this, but for me the best tool right now is Semrush.

I use Semrush for finding content ideas, looking at what my competitors are doing, checking broken links on my site, checking my social media growth, etc, this is a great tool to have.

Step 1: Get a Semrush account

Just go to semrush.com or click on the image below, add your blog domain name and then click start, if you do not have a blog just click join.

They will take you to the registration page, it is straightforward,  just put your name and email address, they will send you a verification code to verify your email, after that they will ask you few questions to know you, they will offer you a free trial ( I recommend it, credit card needed, it is for seven days, it is enough to find all content ideas, you can cancel at any time).

Step 2: Search for your main keyword in the search bar.

After login in, you will find a search bar, just type your main keyword, your main keyword is that keyword that you used to build your blog, if your blog is about manifestation, just type that and hit search.

Step 3: Click on Keyword Magic Tool

On the left hand of the page, you will land in step 2, you will find the keyword magic tool, click on it to find suitable keywords for your project.

Step 4: Apply filters for keyword difficult

Semrush just updated their keyword tool and it is even more accurate than before, if you have a new blog, I will recommend picking the very easy option and check the results.

After filtering them out I was able to get 1670 easy to rank content ideas, if I create a piece of content a day, it will take me 4 years and 6 months to create contents around those searches, this is real information that people are searching in United Stated alone, in the whole world the number is bigger.

Since 1670 keywords are too many for me, I decided to and one more filter. If you click on the advance filters, a small window will pop up, in this example, I wanted to show only keywords with more than 6 words.

These are what we call long-tail keywords, longer phrases mean people are searching for specific information, and if you can provide that information in front of them they will go to your blog and consume your content.

After applying the second filter, I got 381 very easy to rank keywords. Imagine each day you wake up you create one piece of content from that list ( it can be a podcast, youtube video, or a blog post), six month from now you could be earning a good income and one or two years you can quit your job and do this full time.

Step 5: Export the keyword list to excel

After reviewing your keyword and if you’re satisfied now you can export them to an excel document and save them on your PC.

Just click on the checkmark on the keyword tab to select all the keywords and then hit export, it will download them to your pc.

The problem and workaround

If you have a free account, they will find all the keywords but they will show you just 10 results for free, and if you want to export them, a popup message will come that ask you to try their paid version.

The workaround I found is to take the Semrush free trial, in those 7 days you will be able to do all the keyword research you need, save those on your PC, and cancel your account before the trial ends and they will not charge you anything.

Create content around the ideas you got, and in the future when you start making money you can come and pay to have a pro account if you wish, if you can afford it now,  I really recommend this tool.

Step 6: Click on the related tab for more keywords

If the number of keywords you got in the above step is not enough for you, you can click on the related tab, the tool will find all the keywords that are related to your main keyword and bring them to you.

You can apply the same filters as we applied in step 4 and when you find your keyword you can export them to excel as in step 5.

An alternative way you can use find content ideas for your blog

If for any reason you do now want to use Semrush, I will recommend using a free tool called keyword shitter.

In order to find content ideas, just go to https://keywordshitter.com/.

You will see a page like the one below, write the main keyword for your blog, and then click on hit keywords.

Leave it for few minutes, magically it will generate a lot of keywords that you can use to create content for your blog, for example, you can see 624 keywords on manifestation, just use those keywords to create content and then post the content in your blog.

You do not have filters here, what I do is to copy those keywords into excel then use excel filters to reduce the one or two words phrase keywords, then I will have a list of my keywords.

In both methods, I usually print the list of my keywords, and each day I will pick the keyword to work with and put a tick on the keyword.

Final words

That is it, this is how to find content ideas for your blog, the strategies I shared in this post work the same way if you have a youtube channel or a podcast, you know people consume content in a different way and you just need to match their intent.

My recommendation is to create one blog post per day, be consistent, in 90 days you should have 90 blog posts and you will start to see sales coming in. After 180 days the income should be able to pay some bills and after one year you can make a full-time income just from one blog.

The reason why many people do not make these figures is that they do not focus, they will try for one month and when they do not get results they will just quit and say it does not work. Hope that is not you.

Can you make money blogging online in 2021? I get this question many times, the simple answer is yes, you can still make money blogging in 2021 and no the blogging is not dead.

You know many people spread myths that blogging is dead or it is saturated, I am here to tell you that it is not true and I am going to share with you how you can earn full-time income blogging in just 4 steps.

1. Pick a topic to write about. 

The first step to earn a full-time income blogging is to find a profitable topic to write about, the good news is that almost any topic you will be able to find an affiliate product to promote and make a full-time income.

You can start a blog about weight loss, raising kids, how to deal with divorce, the law of attraction, and so on, I have three niche blogs and all of them are generating income.

As a word of caution do not start multiple blogs when you are starting out and do not write multiple topics in the same blog, pick one topic and create one blog and concentrate all your effort on that.

2. Create a blog.

Now it is the time to create a new blog, I know you might think that you are not good with technology, guess what most people are not and they create stunning blogs thank WordPress.

In order to create a blog you need a domain name and hosting, if you’re new to this, I will recommend getting all of them from one place, this will eliminate a lot of headaches.

For a domain name, it can be related to your topic or just your name, one of my blogs is mashabikiwaarsena.com and I attract a lot of visitors there.

Also, you can get your hosting from Bluehost. If you are under budget this is a great service to start with.

3. On your new shiny blog, write lots and lots of great articles about your topic.

So let us say you chose to write about weight loss (one of the niches I recommend). You would
write lots of great articles about how to lose weight, different methods of losing weight, diets to lose, etc.

In order to get ideas on what are the titles for your content, I recommend using a free tool called keyword shitter.

Go to https://keywordshitter.com/

Type your main topic and then click shit keywords, then see the magic happen.

What will happen is that the tool will start to give you different keywords people are using to search your topic, as you can see in weight loss I was able to pull 441.

 All you need to do is to take one of these topics each day, write a good informative article on that keyword and post it to your blog, post it on your social media and repeat the same the next day, if you do this in 6 months you will have 180 articles and your blog will be getting a lot of traffic, if you write two articles per day in 6 months your blog will have 360, that is huge.

If each of these articles will generate just 3 visitors per day you will have a blog with more than 1000 visitors per day, if you monetize correctly you can make considerably income and in one year you can start earning a full-time income.

4. How to make money from your blog

There is a lot of ways to make money from your blog, you could just add an Adsense code, Google Adsense will be placing ads on your blog and you will be making some cash, even though I make money from Adsense this is not my favorite way to make money online from blogging.

My favorite method of making money online is by promoting other people’s products aka affiliate marketing.

On your blog, recommend products that your readers would like. So if you are writing about weight loss, you could recommend products that help people to lose weight.

To recommend these products, link to them on your site (called an ‘affiliate link.’) When someone clicks on it and buys it… YOU get a big cut of the sale. Pretty cool, no?

That is it, this is how you can make a full-time income from blogging, if you have any problem or question let me know in the comment section below.

Creating a custom home page for your blog is important if you plan to collect leads for your business. And for WordPress users, this can be done very easily.

By default, WordPress shows your blog posts on the homepage. However, as a business website, you may want to create a more engaging homepage that helps users find what they need and boost your sales conversion.

In this article, I will show you how to easily create a custom homepage in WordPress. We will show multiple methods, and you can choose the one that’s easier for you.

What is a homepage?

A homepage is a default introductory page or the front page of your blog. It is the page that appears when someone enters your blog’s domain name in their browser’s address bar.

Why do you need a customized home page?

Depending on the purpose of your blog or website, having a home page has the following advantages:

Increase leads.

You can add an opt-in form on the homepage of your blog, your homepage is the most visited page on your blog, the more visitors you get, the more leads you will get.

Generate more revenue.

If you have your own product or an affiliate product, you can mention it on your home page, since it is the most visited page on your site there is a chance of making more sales this way.

Get more email subscribers.

If your purpose to use the power of email marketing to your business you can start collecting emails from your home page, you can offer something your prospects need with their email address and then you can use email marketing to send them tips and products recommendations, this way you will make more money.

Have a primary focus on your services.

If you’re a writer, speaker, you have a course or service to offer, you can introduce it on your homepage and it will get more exposure.

The structure of the home page

There are many ways to structure your home page, for me, I like it simple, on top of the home page I will have my blog logo, and the links to important pages, for example, the resource page, the squeeze page, and the service page.

In the main content of the home page, just introduce yourself, tell the visitors what do you have to offer and how they can get it. If it is possible include a picture of yourself or your product. That is it.

How to create a custom homepage for your blog

Now that you know the structure of your custom homepage, let’s start designing the custom home page for your WordPress site.

Method 1. Create a Custom Homepage using WordPress pages.

This is the simplest method to create your home page, just login into your blog, click on new then click on the pages, give a name to your page, I will just call it home. Start writing the content of your home page.

Method 2. Create a Custom Homepage using Page Builders

This is the easiest method to build a custom home page, there are a lot of page builders out there but for me the best one is Clickfunnels.

They have a lot of built-in home page templates, you just pick the one you like the most, you edit it according to your needs, then you publish it on your blog.

In order to connect Clickfunnel with your WordPress blog, all you need to do is to download the Clickfunnels WordPress plugin and select your homepage.

Learn how to download and install the Clickfunnel plugin here.

Add Your Funnel Step Into WordPress

1. From within your WordPress Dashboard, navigate to the ClickFunnels plugin and click Add New.
2. Under Choose Page Type, select Home Page.
3. Under Choose Funnel, select the funnel you wish to connect.
4. Under Choose Step, pick out the funnel page in the funnel you want.
5. Click Save Page.
   

As an alternative, you can also try Elementor. It is also an immensely popular WordPress page builder plugin. It also comes with drag and drops templates and an easy-to-use interface.

Method 3. Use Fivver to create your homepage

Did you know that for just $5 someone can create a homepage for you, some of them they will even configure the whole blog for you with just $5 or $10?

This is possible by using Fiverr.

First Step: Register for a free Fiverr account.

Second Step: Search for homepage

Step Three: Find someone who can design your page, explain what do you want, find a page that you can emulate and provide it to them and what content do you want, they will do it for you in less than 24 hours.

One recommended guy you can use.

When you receive it, now go to the next step.

How to Select a Custom Page to be Used as Homepage in WordPress.

Before you select the home page, create a second, blank page by going once again to New → Pages → Add and call it something like “News,” or “Blog,” or “Posts” — a name that will help you remember that this is the page on which your posts will appear, then same it. Then click publish.

You can make any page as your front page just by following simple steps:-

1. Log In to your Website DashBoard.
2. Go to Settings -> Reading.
3. In Reading click on “Static Page”
   
4. Select your home page and your Post page there.

How to add your pages to the menu

After creating your pages, you can add them to a menu, this can appear on the top, on the bottom, or in the sidebar of your blog.

It is also important to make sure the site’s menus correctly display the new front page and blog page changes.  From Settings, select Appearance>Menus. Select “Create a New Menu,” from the available options, which can vary by theme.

From all available pages, select the ones that should display in the site’s menus, including the new homepage and the blog or post page that were just created. Click Save Menu to update menu settings to reflect the new structure.

That is it, this is how you create a custom home page for your WordPress blog, go on and create your home page, add a lead capture form in it and start building your online business.