Hooray! I finally migrated my website from Vistaprint to WordPress! It only took a few years, thousands of extra dollars, hundreds of hours of frustration and dozens of sleepless nights (I say this tongue in cheek). My Master 29/11 Lifepath is about creating healthy relationships despite early life trauma and division – I’ve been learning this the slow way, especially in my business!
July 2023 update – My site had a one-off revamp from Web Vision Solutions (Ilana van Geijn, a Master 22/4 life path). I still regularly consult with Andy Henderson, he’s great (and a 30/3 life path who sees 11:11). Find your life path
In the hope my pain can be your gain, here are:
5 Reasons I Left Vistaprint for WordPress Hosting
1) Vistaprint promises much, and delivers little. They constantly upsell you when you log into their site, with special offers that no doubt, lose them money but create a monopoly and addiction to their services. I joined them because they ‘seemed’ cheap, but learned the hard way, you’ll pay for that decision time-and-again fixing all the bugs that crop up. Discounted business cards are never worth grey hair and wrinkles!
2) Their website templates are decades out of date. When I started my site in 2011, many people had basic websites, especially in my industry of psychic readings. However, as WordPress took over the internet, Vistaprint couldn’t keep up, so my site’s spent years looking like a third-hand pair of jeans. Just posting a blog took me multiple attempts, as the fonts and spacing kept changing randomly. It’s hard to believe I didn’t give up sooner.
2) Even basic tracking (Google Analytics) and plugins don’t work on Vistaprint sites. You also can’t trust their SEO and site counter reports. They reported my site getting millions of hits, when it was sometimes 10x less than that. This is so disappointing. My website would also go down without notice, or revert to previous versions? What a joke.
True Story: Before I decided to migrate the site in July (as I won’t have time once my new baby arrives), I logged into my site. To my horror, it had reverted to the 2012 version (see photo)! When I asked Spirit why, I remembered a promise I made to myself back then. I had was recovering from a breakup on 11.11.11 and moved into someone’s garage as a temporary measure. I started the blog to write about my ex, never imagining it would become a popular hub for 11:11 and Master Number 11/22/33 numerology. Truthfully, Vistaprint was never meant to be a long-term solution either. This IT hitch was the sign I needed to put my foot down. And yes, it happened during Mercury retrograde! See my post Can Spirit Talk Through Technology? Phone, Radio and PC Wake Up Calls
3) They make it REALLY hard for you to leave. Just Google ‘migrate Vistaprint site’ for the horror stories. Many people have to cut and paste every blog post and page, instead of being able to automatically migrate the information, which is the industry standard. This is like moving house using a broken wheelbarrow, instead of two men and a truck. It’s taken me years, and various companies to bring over my 220+ posts safely, and I lost my images in the process. Thank goodness there’s a business called nice4web who helped me with the blog move.
4) Vistaprint’s email system doesn’t work on mobile phones, so I couldn’t answer customers on the go. Plus, you have a chance of losing messages when you migrate to another host. In fact, the first time I called Vistaprint, they said there was no way to back up my 5000 emails before moving to WordPress (!) Luckily, my husband Kris Anderson (a fellow psychic reader and IT guru) was able to save them in Outlook. However, during the current Mercury Retrograde (a great time to eliminate energy vampires), we accidentally erased hundreds of messages because Vistaprint saves email folders on their server. That means when you export to Outlook, you can easily lose your folder contents if you use the IMAP protocol – it will automatically delete your emails. If only I’d saved them to my PC first.
5) Vistaprint customer service is basic, and they rarely reply to complaints online. Despite paying them monthly for your domain, they make you pay again when you change hosts – see this post on their customer service forum with many disgruntled customers. Admittedly, once I decided to leave, it only took a week, but I needed to hire Andy, a WordPress expert to push through the result. I couldn’t have jumped through those hoops on my own.
Conclusion – Don’t Sell Yourself Short
Vistaprint is like a good-looking guy at a bar who promises you the world, but doesn’t turn up on your fourth date because he’s moved country, then calls you when he feels like it. Don’t fall for their sales tactics – I recommend working with a local website designer instead. I’m so happy to have found Andy Henderson from In A Day Training & Consulting via his Meetup Group Brisbane Business Club.
Not only is Andy a whip-smart 30/3 Lifepath (The Communicator), who explains everything he does clearly and simply, he also sees 11:11 and has a passion for helping small business owners (including healers) to beat the big guys through intelligent marketing. Find your lifepath
Andy not only taught me how to create a WordPress site, his suggestions for my pricing and business model have already earned me almost as much as I’ve paid him. That’s a lot more than I can say for Vistaprint. Even though we are still working through hiccups like spam comments and bandwidth overload, it feels like I am finally building a house with bricks instead of toothpicks.
Most people would have left Vistaprint the first time their website crashed. I didn’t, because I had low self-esteem and deep money blocks until very recently. Part of me wanted to remain small, so no one could find me, and I had an alibi (i.e. my unreliable website) for not being more successful. I kept putting up with bad behaviour because I was used to abusive relationships and bullies. It never occurred to me that I was worthy of more than what I had.
However, after having Forrest, getting married, taking the White Light Essences (Ian White has been a great inspiration), fixing my right ankle injury from 2005 (thank you Helena Wilson Massage and Sand from The Footprint Connection Reflexology), and doing the Money Love course with Lotus Kruse, I’ve realised life is priceless and my business is beautiful. No more hiding out! It’s time to help even more people discover their lifepath and gifts. Thank goodness, I’ve finally seen the light at the end of the Vistaprint tunnel.
Recommended Links
In A Day WordPress Training & Consultancy (Call Andy on 0403 023 223) Please mention this blog 🙂
Haha – I just realised today is Andy’s birthday!! What perfect synchronicity, no wonder I had to post this thank you.
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