Moving from Wordpress.com to Wordpress.org-any tips?

[ChocsAwayInMyGob]

Hi, my blog is currently a Wordpress.com blog but I want to start making some money. For this I have to self host. Before I got all dot org, has anyone got any words of wisdom that they wish they had known when they were in my position?

Oh I'm IScentYouADay by the way.
iscentyouaday.wordpress.com/

[zanuda]

1. You could take all your content. There is a manual on wordpress.org. Never did it myself but people say it's easy enough.
   
2. Keep your old site. You will post announcements/abstracts of your new articles there. It will help with site promotion. With old articles you could do the same - replace articles with short version, when the old ones are already moved. If you want to spend time for this.
   
3. I would chose free customizable theme with good support/reputation and make it look the way I want.
   
4. Find hosting with good support (if you don't know much how to handle troubles if something happened), the one which is specialized on hosting wordpress sites.
   

The rest is - when you'll have your site running.

[ChocsAwayInMyGob]

Thank you zanuda! Much appreciated.

[fcknits]

Is your new blog up and running, OP?

WP.org is very easy to install - and it's very easy to import blog files. I agree with zanuda re reposting old articles and linking from the old blog though - it'll help your old readers to transfer to the new site and retain the benefit of your previous SEO.

I can't see any problems with choosing particular hosting. All you need is sufficient web space, bandwidth and database support.