First of if you search around the web for advice on how to move a WordPress blog you’ll probably get a recommendation to backup all the site files and databases, transfer the site files, and then restore the database on the other server.

While this works, I think it’s unnecessarily complicated, especially if you are transferring a small site (i.e., with 300 posts or fewer, and no special sections like a forum). Not to mention that playing around with databases is always tricky, and if you are not tech-savvy you might screw things up.

A better and simpler solution in my opinion is to use the Import/Export feature on WordPress. Here’s the step by step guide:

1. Login via FTP to your old (i.e., the one you are moving from) WP install and download the whole /wp-conten/t directory.
2. Login to your old WordPress dashboard and use “Export” function (located under “Tools”). Choose the “All Content” option, to export both posts and pages.
3. Put a fresh WP install on your new server/hosting plan.
4. Delete the /wp-content/ folder on your new server, and upload the one you had downloaded from your old server.
5. If you had changed the “Permalink Structure” on your old server, do that as well on the new one.
6. Now login to the WordPress dashboard on your new server and use the “Import” function (again under “Tools”) to import all your posts and pages.
7. Check that everything is working fine by opening the homepage of your new WP install (you can do this using the IP address of your hosting account). If everything is working fine update the nameservers of your domain name to point to your new server).

This method is easier in my opinion, and it has one big advantage: you start with a clean install, meaning that any hacks or compromises you might have had on your old WP install will be gone.

Next week I’ll post about moving larger WordPress sites. Those might not work with this method because your export XML file will be too large, and you might not be able to upload it via the WordPress import feature.

Over the years I played with and tweaked my WordPress plugins trying to achieve a good performance level, and below you’ll find the tips I learned along the way:

1. Use a Cache Plugin

Serving cached versions of your pages is one of the most efficient ways to speed up your site and to reduce the CPU and memory consumption on your server. Also, if you are not using the W3TC plugin yet I highly recommend you switch to it, as it works much more efficiently than the other plugins available.

2. Remove All Unnecessary Plugins

Unless your site absolutely relies on a plugin to work I would recommend removing it. Sure, you might need to lose a functionality or two, but in the long run this will keep your site running fast and securely. Keep in mind that it’s possible to hard code what some plugins do, as well. For example, instead of using a plugin to generate a list of “Popular Posts” on your sidebar you could create the list yourself with raw HTML. Instead of using a contact form plugin you could simply write a paragraph on your “Contact” page including your email address there. So on and so forth.

3. Pay Special Attention to Post-Level Plugins

On most WordPress sites and blogs, the bulk of the traffic goes to the posts. The homepage, the category and archive pages receive around 20% of the overall traffic, if that, while the posts receive 80%.

This means that plugins that act at post-level will consume most of your resources. Examples include plugins to change SEO aspects of your posts (e.g., All in One SEO Pack), plugins to display related posts and so on. As a result you should put an extra effort to either remove or optimize those plugins (more on that below).

4. Consider Substituting All In One SEO Pack

The All in One SEO Pack plugin is certainly one of the best SEO plugins around, but it’s also pretty intensive on the resources of your server. For small sites this won’t be a problem, but once your traffic starts growing you might start to feel it.

A good alternative is called Greg’s High Performance SEO. According to the author All in One SEO Pack outputs 2000 lines of code per page load/view, while Greg’s plugin output only 700 lines.

In my opinion the main benefit of those SEO plugins is the ability to customize the title tag. If that is the most important factor for you as well you can be even more extreme and use no plugin at all. Instead use the piece of code below to create optimized title tags for your posts:

<title><?php if (is_home () ) { bloginfo(‘name’); }
elseif ( is_category() ) { single_cat_title(); echo ' - ' ; bloginfo(‘name’); }
elseif (is_single() ) { single_post_title();}
elseif (is_page() ) { single_post_title();}
else { wp_title(‘’,true); } ?></title>

5. Consider Substituting YARPP

Along with All In One SEO Pack there’s another plugin that is very popular and yet very resource intensive: YARPP (Yet Another Relate Posts Plugin).

One alternative you can consider is the Efficient Related Posts plugin. The main difference is that the database of related posts is updated only when a post is created/updated, while other plugins tend to build the list on the fly, whenever a post is loaded.

6. Optimize Your Database Tables

As with any dynamic content management system, great part of the work your WordPress site does is related to getting, storing, removing and updating information on its database. That’s why optimizing your database tables can affect your site’s performance.

A nice plugin you can use for this purpose is WP-Optimize. It will remove your post revisions, clean your comments (e.g., spam and deleted ones), run optimization queries and so on.

Then around one year ago I started hearing about a new cache plugin, called W3 Total Cache. I didn’t bother to actually test it, as WP Super Cache was doing its homework.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of my sites started to open slowly due to the amount of traffic they were receiving. After exchanging some emails with the HostGator support folks they said I should try W3 Total Cache.

I did, and really surprised me. I still think WP Super Cache is a great plugin, but W3 Total Cache is even greater. The difference in loading times after I installed it was visible.

On top of that the plugins comes with more customization features, including the ability to cache database calls, to use server accelerator plugins, to integrate a CDN solution if you have one and so on.

I’ll be switching from WP Super Cache to W3 Total Cache on all my sites now, and I recommend you to do the same if you are not using it yet.

Do you struggle to organize your blog posts in advance? I did too for my first two years of blogging.

I’ve got a background in journalism so when I started blogging I knew the importance of having an editorial calendar and planning my blog posts in advance.

I’ve also created clear topics on my blogs because it helps my readers see what information they can find on my blog and get there fast.

But despite my best intentions I didn’t have a good way of planning and scheduling my blog posts.

In fact it was a real rigmarole.

First I created my editorial calendar in a text document then I constantly had to switch between that and WordPress to work out what I was posting and when. It caused a lot of time-wasting and many grey hairs.

Until finally I discovered there is a better way. Namely the WordPress Editorial Calendar plug-in which was created by Zack Grossbart.

Here’s what I love about the WordPress Editorial Calendar plug-in:

1. It makes planning blog posts easy

Now I can view my editorial calendar with up to five weeks of blog posts at a time and even schedule further ahead than that by clicking ahead to the next month. I can see at a glance which blog posts are already scheduled to be published and when as well as which posts are still drafts and need to be finalized.

2. You can see your whole editorial calendar on one screen

Instead of having to browse through all my draft posts now I can see them all on one page. This is a huge benefit for me because I have a lot of draft posts. Some of them are just headlines, others fully fleshed blog posts waiting to be edited and everything in between.

3. It’s easy to reschedule blog posts.

The editorial calendar is drag and drop so if I’ve got a blog post scheduled for Tues 24th I can just drag it over to Tues 31st and that’s when it will be posted.

4. It helps you structure your blog content

I can see all scheduled posts at a glance so it’s easy to see if a specific topic is missing or if I’m writing too much about one topic at the expense of others. There’s also an option to quick edit and change blog post titles, content, and publishing times if I need to.

5. It allows you to be more creative

I don’t waste so much time wondering what I’m going to post and when so that frees up more time for doing what I love best – writing top content and coming up with compelling headlines.

The Drawbacks of the WordPress Editorial Calendar plug-in

The editoral calendar has limitations but not many. The most annoying thing is that draft posts you created before installing the plug-in don’t automatically appear in the calendar. Once the plug-in is installed the best option is to use the editorial calendar to create your draft posts.

But heck what do you expect?

It’s free! It’s simple to use and it works.

Is the WP Editorial Calendar Right For You?

Check out the five minute slideshow to find out more and you can even log into the handy sandbox where you can play around with the plug-in and make sure it’s right for you before you install it.

I recommend you check it out, liberate yourself from struggling to plan your blog posts and free up your time for more creative blogging.

What do you think?

About the author: Annabel Candy is a web designer, web copy writer and travel fiend with three children, two blogs and one husband. She has British and New Zealand passports and lives in Australia. Her blogging adventures started with the popular travel blog Get In the Hot Spot. Annabel now shares her blogging tips for writers and small business owners at Successful Blogging.

I have been blogging for quite a while, and most of this time I used WordPress, as most of you guys. While I still think WordPress is an awesome platform, recently I rediscovered Blogger (not the free hosted service, but the CMS you can to host your own domains). I found that it has got many new features over the years, and that it might actually be an option to host some of our projects. In this post I’ll highlight those features.

1. GUI Interface for Customizing Blog Layout

You get an easy to use GUI (Graphical User Interface) to customize the Theme/Layout. You can customize the Site Layout width, background colour, background image, font size, font colour, font type, number of sidebars, sidebar placement location (left, right), footer, etc. If you know to hack the code, you can customize your site even more.

2. Stats

Blogger offers Detailed Visitor Statistics – Per hour, Per Day, Per Week, etc from within the dashboard. They also show country wise, OS wise, Browser wise split up of audience visiting your blog. You can register your Blogger blog with Google Analytics to get detailed stats reporting, if you wish.

3. List of Following Blogs/ Friend Connect

When you click the profile of a Blogger user, you can see the list of Blogs followed by the blogger. A Blogger user can also see the List of Blogs (and posts) they are following, from within their dashboard. So, there is no need to go to Google Reader to read your favorite blogs. You can even display all your followers using a Friend Connect Gadget in your sidebar. This makes it easier for everyone to read other (perhaps related) blogs and connect with other bloggers. Blogging, is all about connections!

4. Variety of Gadgets

WordPress calls these Widgets. In Blogger there are 1161 Gadgets (the last time I checked) available for showing off in your sidebar and even in the footer. Some innovative Gadgets include Display Image, Slide Show, List of Planned Events, Games, Daily Quotes, Daily Images, Aquarium with Fishes, etc.

5. Google Translate

There is a Sidebar Google Translate Gadget that enables your blog visitors to Translate your blog, without leaving your blog.

6. Native Adsense / Amazon Affiliate Integration

You might not want to monetize your personal blog now. But you might want to do it after 1 or 2 years, as I did. Both Adsense and Amazon Affiliate Network are fully integrated with Blogger and once you are approved in either program, its easy to monetize your site from within Blogger.

7. Blog list with their Latest Posts in Sidebar

Its possible for you to list the blogs you follow in your sidebar. Actually, there is one sidebar Gadget that links to the latest post published by all the blogs you follow and enables your readers to visit other blogs, if they like any of the post titles. Of course, others might come to your site like this too (from other blogs).

8. Own Domain & Email in your Domain

Both Blogger and WordPress.com allow their users to upgrade to a custom domain (Your own URL – yourname.com, instead of yourname.blogspot.com). Of course, this needs to be done at additional cost – Around $10 per year. But for that money, Blogger gives you a free Google Apps account. Among other things, you can use this account to create up to ten email addresses with your own domain like name1@yourdomain.com, name2@yourdomain.com, etc.

9. Support for Different Languages

From within the post editor, you can type in more than 50 languages! Its actually Transliteration – You type in English and it automatically gets converted into the script of the chosen language.

10. Blogger Dynamic Views

This is actually an upcoming feature in Blogger and if you are not aware of it yet, you should see this awesome video.

About the Author:ES is the author of an Indian Musical Blog. You can read more about why he chose Blogger for hosting his Musical Blog instead of WordPress on this post.