You may have noticed a “few” changes around here at On-Screen Closet. I took a leap of faith and got a full blog makeover! This has been a long time in the making. From starting off on WordPress.com to taking a scary step and becoming self-hosted, it feels like I’ve gone through a metamorphosis in the blogging world.
Honestly, a huge weight was lifted off my shoulder. Olivia from Blogerize contacted me back in October about updating my site for free. Needless to say, I was hesitant at first. Revamping my site was always in the back of my mind, but I didn’t have the bandwidth, resources or time to do it on my own. This was also my first time hearing of Blogerize so I was afraid of handing the reigns over without doing some serious research.
The Blog Makeover Process
So research is what I did. Once I become comfortable with the idea, I went for it and began emailing back and forth with Olivia. The coolest thing about this process is that Olivia never once rejected my ideas. She made a serious effort to include me every step of the way (and believe me, boy did I email a lot). It didn’t matter if the request was something as simple as tweaking font colors to more complex ideas like the benefits of a full width slider versus a grid. Having Olivia as my point person made my blog makeover experience feel a lot more personal than I was expecting. The fact that it was free didn’t hurt!
I felt involved every single step of the way. Originally, I was skeptical about moving from my safe cocoon at WordPress.com to the more independent world of self-hosting. I wasn’t very well-versed in the differences between .com vs. .org, but I am 100% glad that I did make the final choice to self-host. When it came to transferring my content, Olivia and her team took care of everything.
Did my blog makeover cost anything?
My blog layout design was completely free. Yes, I paid for self-hosting storage but I’ve been paid back in full with the amount of control I have over my blog. In just a few days, I went from knowing little to nothing about self-hosting to being able to play around with coding and plugins to bring my vision for my blog to life. I even built off of some of the ideas that Olivia and her team had for my blog to make it 100% fit my blog’s overall vibe.
If you’re unsure about self-hosting and have no idea where to start like I did, spend some time researching bloggers that you know and trust to get a sense of what you’re looking for. Also, join facebook blogger support groups so you can get advice in real-time and feel more comfortable with what the process involves before you commit to anything. If Blogerize hadn’t approached me, I don’t know if I would’ve ever taken this huge leap.
But now I’ve never been prouder of what I do. New blog, who dis?
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