Blogging 101: Moving from Blogger to Wordpress

I believe one of the best moves I made as a blogger was moving from the Blogspot platform onto WordPress. I enjoy having the many customization options and the SEO is amazing within WordPress. Those two reasons alone were enough to motivate the move, not to mention the fact that no one else owns my content on a self-hosted account. Although my server may go down, they cannot shut me down the way that Blogger can simply because they do not like something I have on my blog. That is a bit refreshing to note after seeing a few fellow bloggers get their Blogger accounts shut down for no apparent reason in the past few weeks. Therefore, I wanted to share with you how easy it really is to make the switch.

transfer blogger to wordpress

Moving from Blogger to WordPress in 5 Easy Steps

As easy as it sounds, the first step is actually one of the hardest. You need a host. Why is this hard? There are so many out there and it can be tough to decide. Personally, I use HostGator {shameless affiliate link provided} and absolutely love their customer support. I have had a few hiccups when it came to huge traffic surges but was able to get it resolved fairly quickly. {I guess that is what happens when you “get too big for your britches” and have to upgrade your account.} I have also heard good things about both BlueHost and DreamHost. Do your research and get a host!
Most hosts come with an easy one-click install of WordPress. You should be able to log into your C-Panel, find the WordPress button, and install without much ado. Once you have set it up simply log into WordPress.
The first thing you need to do is set up your permalinks. You want your new WordPress links to match the post structure from your Blogger posts. This will help minimize broken links and redirects. Unfortunately, there will still be some broken links since WordPress automatically deletes words such as “and“, “the” and “of” and so forth. But, by setting the permalink we are getting a good head start on the process from the beginning. Therefore, find Settings > Permalinks and then click Custom Structure. Paste the following in the box:
```
/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
```
Now you are ready to transfer your posts and comments. On the left side of your WordPress dashboard, find Tools -> Import -> Blogger. Click on the word Blogger and a box will pop up for the importer plugin. Click the red install button and move to the next screen. You will then need to Activate and Run the importer. You must authorize the plugin as well as grant it permission to work on Blogger {Google}. Once you grant access you will be taken back to WordPress. You should find a list of blogs you are currently hosting on Blogger. Choose the blog you are importing and click the “import” button next to its name. The plugin should now run and begin importing your posts and comments {it does not import pages}. Note: If you have more than one author you may have to add users through the author mapping link. Then you just hit save! It should have imported your Blogger blog over to WordPress. You can check to confirm.
Finally, you need to let Blogger know you have moved. Go back to your Blogger dashboard and click Settings -> Publisher -> Custom Domain. Type in your new domain and hit save. Next, go to Layout -> Edit HTML and paste this code into the <head> tag for search-engine safe redirection:
```
 <meta content='0; url=http://newURL.com/' http-equiv='refresh'/>
```

Check your domain and make sure everything is pointing to your new WordPress blog! You did it! If you find you still have broken links, try a plugin like Redirection or something like it to redirect individual links {Plugins -> Add New -> Search}. The last thing you need to do is transfer your feed. On Blogger you can go to Settings -> Sitefeed and enter your new FeedBurner address. And then on FeedBurner, you simply click edit feed details and enter your new feed URL. Finally, do not delete your old Blogger blog.