All good things must come to an end. (Game of Thrones and the tray of brownies disappearing in my kitchen come to mind.) Sometimes, it’s even time to say goodbye to a WordPress website.
- You’re retiring (Congrats!)
- You’ve hit the lottery and you’re yachting around the world. (Do you need a web designer and her family onboard?)
- You’re moving onto a different venture (Yay for new beginnings!)
If, for whatever reason, your Webflow website is no longer necessary… don’t just leave it to deteriorate in cyberland (and potentially get hacked, leading to possible security concerns). Shut it down with intention! And remove digital clutter while you’re at it. (If you’re like me, this will feel good.)
Here are my suggestions on how to shut down your WordPress website properly:
- Cancel your hosting after you do the following steps…
- Make a backup of your site. You can keep it around for archival purposes should you ever want to restore it, or if there’s a piece of information you might want to access in the future. The idea is to archive the WordPress site in a way that it can be usable in the future should you need it. With WordPress, you’ll want to save 1) the files and 2) the database.
- Save your backup on your computer, on a drive, or in the cloud. Somewhere that’s not your webhost (because you’ll be shutting that down).
- Think about your domain name, and re-route if necessary. While you still have the domain name, do you want to forward it somewhere else? To your social media, or a landing page on your new website that explains the transition? If you’re just ready to call it quits and go off-the-grid, that’s cool too.
- If your domain is on auto-renew, turn it off. Then you can let it expire naturally.
- Now, you can go ahead and cancel your hosting!
Saying goodbye can be hard sometimes and hopefully this ending starts a joyful new beginning.
