I recently decided to move one of my WordPress Blogs to a new hosting, it’s a simple move where the domain and site content do not change. These are the steps I followed for a quick and easy move
- Backup your WordPress database using phpMyAdmin
- Download/Upload all your WordPress files using FTP
- create a new database in your new hosting
- Edit wp-config.php
- Import your WordPress blog to your new Database.
for more details, Checkout HostGator complete guide here
in case you wish to start fresh and just to copy the content of your blog to the new hosting, test and then direct the domain to the new site, you need to install WordPress on the new hosting, install theme, plugins and then export/import your Blog Content. in this case when you change the DNS to point the domain to the new hosting, you will have to change the domain URL in WordPress.
Backup tip!
I had issue with my FTP backups, I looked for an easy way to backup my files and found the WordPress to DropBox backup plugin that has been created to give you piece of mind that your blog is backed up on a regular basis.