How To Switch From GoDaddy? A Great Alternative Is GreenGeeks

After using GoDaddy for years, it became too expensive. So we started looking for a GoDaddy alternative. And we found a (really) good one: GreenGeeks.

Not only did we end up saving a lot of money, but our search results improved. A lot.

How to Switch From GoDaddy (For Better Search Results)

Here’s the thing: if you host a website with GoDaddy or WordPress dot org, they want you to pay extra for search results.

You may think that when you sign up for your cats with hats website that people will magically beat a path to your door, but it doesn’t work that way, my friend. If you’re on page 10 of the search results, your target audience has no idea where to find you, especially if you rely on customers that don’t live in your city.

There are too many websites competing for attention. Even for cats with hats. If your website isn’t communicating with the Google search engine directly through SEO or some kind of HTML markup, Google will ignore you. It’s true.

And your GoDaddy or WordPress website using the terrible Jetpack plugin won’t communicate with Google very well or hardly at all. That’s on purpose. They want you to buy more stuff. They want you to pay extra for stuff that should be included.

GoDaddy is the Worst.

We recently had a client that was using GoDaddy and on a rainy Monday morning they came into the office, fired up their computers and found that at midnight on Sunday night GoDaddy sent them a message saying they were suspending their account because they had too many backups!

Their website was down. And GoDaddy had restricted access so that they could only access their files through an FTP program that was not compatible with their firewall. That’s a real burn.

Imagine that: you store your backups on your site that you pay a lot for, and then your web hoster decides you have too many backups.

That’s a true story.

Driving Traffic with Social Media

One solution to appearing higher in search results is to try social media to drive traffic. It works really well. It’s what we do here at Sky Alphabet. But you really want to do both: drive traffic using social media and do as much SEO on yhour site as possible. 

The fact is, if you’re a small business with no website experience and you buy a standard website builder for GoDaddy or WordPress, you’re not going to gain any traction with the search engines unless you buy consulting services from them. And we’d bet that’s not the reason you signed up with GoDaddy!

This Article Explains How to Get What You Really Want By Switching From GoDaddy

First off, switching from GoDaddy is not hard. It feels unfamiliar but it is very straightforward.

We researched the topic thoroughly before switching. There was a lot of research. And then we made the leap to GreengGeeks here.

Signs You Have To Switch From GoDaddy to GreenGeeks:

• You’re paying higher rates every single year until hosting your little website has become ludicrously expensive
• GoDaddy has suspended your account for reasons you do not understand
• You have the tiniest e-mail inbox with zero security (a bigger one costs extra)
• You don’t have enough e-mail addresses
• Your hosting is getting more expensive by the year (GoDaddy adds more and more costs)
• They send you expensive extras you don’t understand (such as an SSL certificate)
• Their documentation is complicated and you’re not sure if you need it (Managed DNS)
• Terrible or non-existent search results (you pay extra for “search visibility”)
• Hacked documents that were supposed to be private! Their “website builder” is insecure but they don’t tell you that when you sign up. And then you know only when it’s too late.
• Fake traffic reports that show you are getting 5,000 visitors a month when actually you are getting 20 visitors.

If you experience more than two of these, it’s probably time to switch.

Okay: Your Life Is About To Improve.

Two weeks after switching from GoDaddy we started SHOWING UP IN SEARCH RESULTS.

Do you know how exciting that is? After years of tweaking our Google Analytics with zero results it’s a new ballgame, folks. Now we get dozens of calls every week.

We’re not doing anything differently than while we were with GoDaddy. But now we literally have 275 new searches from Google this week. All because we switched. Now we have control over our website.

First, we found a new hosting provider. A good, cheap one.

Basically our new hosting provider is the same as GoDaddy. But better. And cheaper.

But my friends, we are not writing this because someone is paying us to write it. No Sir and No Ma’am. We are writing this so we can pass on our hard-earned first-hand knowledge to you and give our fellow website builders and small business owners a chance to reclaim their rightful place on the internet. Because you don’t have a chance with GoDaddy.

But you do have a chance to reclaim your rightful place in the internet with a company called GREENGEEKS.

I know. Weird name. But GreenGeeks is great. Really.

Here are some quick stats about GreenGeeks, the company we switched to from GoDaddy:

1. They are carbon neutral. Hence the green. They are the greenest web hosters in the world!
2. They are a bunch of geeks. Hence the geeks. They are actually pretty nice geeks, too!

GreenGeeks.

Third, we asked them every dumb question under the sun about how to switch and all the steps along the way. They did not treat us like morons.

They did not instruct us to ask our “network administrator.” Don’t you hate that? That was Microsoft’s downfall back in the day, we are certain. Who has a network administrator except the biggest companies?

No friends, they stayed on the phone with us for sometimes 20 minutes and walked us through everything. Even on Saturday. And often on Sunday.

We are true fans of GreenGeeks and I know that you will be, too, once you switch from GoDaddy to GreenGeeks.

Okay. I know you need a lot more info.

Remember, we moved our www.skyalphabet.com domain from GoDaddy to skyalphabet.com hosted by GreenGeeks and we’ve never looked back. We should’ve done it years ago.

Ready to switch?

Click here to go to GreenGeeks or keep reading.

First of all, decide if you are going to have GreenGeeks transfer your website for you.

It’s free. They will handle the transfer for you. This works if you have a WordPress site, too.

You can have them transfer your website by going here. Just tell them that you have a website you want them to transfer it for you AND you want the Sky Alphabet rate. It is 25% of the price of GoDaddy. Cheap.

Things to know before you transfer

Your website has two components (and maybe even three):

1. The hosting

2. The domain name registration

3. The SLL certificate (for HTTPS)

To start the process, go to Greengeeks and buy a hosting package. It’s cheap. Like $150 for 3 years. Make sure you buy an SSL certificate. It’s $45/year. (GoDaddy charges $180). The SSL certificate makes your site “secure.” It’s important.

Then Log in to your GoDaddy account. Go under Domains and request a Domain Transfer. Request a code.

Make sure your administrative contact information is up to date — that’s where they get the info to send you a code.

Log into your new Greengeeks hosting account and Request a Domain Transfer.

Enter the code.

That’s it for the hosting part.

Once your domain is hosted on GreenGeeks and your website is up and running, then Point GoDaddy’s name servers to Greengeeks. After that, you can transfer the domain registration from GoDaddy to GreenGeeks. There’s no hurry to transfer the actual domain name. We still haven’t transfered our domain name to GreenGeeks. One of these days.

To sum up…

Remember that hosting is distinct from domain name registration.

Get the hosting package, then get the code from GoDaddy. Then, ask Greengeeks to do the transfer and make sure you get an SSL certificate – HTTP sites are really out of vogue. Point GoDaddy’s name servers to Greengeeks.

Then you can transfer the actual domain name to Greengeeks.

Then you can close your GoDaddy Account.

Other Tips If You Are Building A New Website (Instead of Moving)

You know what Google recommends? Ditch the pages that don’t perform well. The ones that get no traffic. If you are building a new website this is a good opportunity to ditch the dead wood.

Here’s how we managed the transfer from GoDaddy to GreenGeeks after deciding we would kill the old site:

1. We signed up for a three year plan with GreenGeeks. The cost for three years was the same as one year with GoDaddy. Nice!
2. We told GreenGeeks our plan was to build a new website and decommission the old one. They sent instructions on where and how to build the new WordPress site. Their instructions were clear.
3. After we built the new site — it took about a week –it was time to launch it. We logged onto GoDaddy and went to the “Manage DNS” section where we pointed GoDaddy’s nameservers to the IP address GreenGeeks gave us. It worked like a charm.
4. Once we could access the new site from a phone (it took about 3 hours for the site to “propogate”) we submitted it to the search engines using a tool in the GreenGeeks cpanel. For free. GoDaddy wants extra for that. Thanks GreenGeeks!

If you believe GoDaddy charges too much, switch to GreenGeeks.

It’s easy and your search results and wallet will thank you for years to come.

Related

We have written many articles on SEO and social media. Here are a few:

Effective social media strategy

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