If you want to transfer your blog from Blogger to a self-hosted WordPress blog, you may be wondering how difficult this is. Fortunately, it’s a fairly straightforward process to transfer Blogger to WordPress. It doesn’t require any special tools or technical expertise. Let’s take a step-by-step look at how you can make this transfer.
An Overview Of The Process
When you transfer your blog from Blogger to WordPress, you want to make sure you do it correctly. You want to maintain all of your posts and pages, as well as any comments to your posts. If your blog has any ranking in Google, you want to preserve this. One important consideration is maintaining the structure of your permalinks. If these change, it can mean losing SEO ranking and make it harder for people to find your posts and pages.
You also want to hold onto any subscribers you may have for your Blogger blog. You may or may not want your new WordPress blog to look the same as your current Blogger blog. Some people make the switch for the very reason that they want to use a certain WordPress theme or plugin that make it easier to customize sites. You should, however, be able to transfer your site intact and then make any changes that you prefer.
Do You Have Your Own Domain?
The steps you must take will differ depending on whether you’re using a Blogger.com subdomain or a custom domain that you purchased. It’s easier to make the transfer if you have your own domain. This allows you to maintain your current permalinks for all of your posts. If you currently have a Blogger.com subdomain, you can easily switch to using your own domain. If you don’t yet own your own domain, you should buy one now, change your Blogger account to the custom domain option and then make the transfer using this domain.
Preparing To Set Up WordPress
The first things you need before you can set up your new blog at WordPress is a domain and web hosting. As already discussed, you should first set up your Blogger account with your custom domain. If you don’t have your own web hosting, you should sign up for a plan.
All major web hosting companies have script installers that allow you to do this in a few quick steps. If you’ve never installed WordPress before, you should follow the instructions given by your web host. You will usually find the script installer listed under your cPanel. The most common ones are Softaculous SimpleScripts and Mojo Marketplace.
These script installers make it possible to install WordPress as often as you want, on multiple domains. For now, however, you only want to do one installation, for the domain that you’re using on Blogger.
Clean Up Your Blog
Before making a transfer, it’s always a good idea to do a quick review of your blog. If there are any posts you want to delete or edit, now is the time to do so. There’s no point in starting your new blog with content that’s outdated or doesn’t reflect your current objectives.
Importing Your Blog To WordPress
WordPress makes it simple to do this transfer, as it has a function in place for transferring your blog from Blogger. To do this, you need to look at your WordPress dashboard and click on Tools, then on Import. One of the top choices under Import will be Blogger.
You will then be able to install Blogger Importer, which is a plugin that allows you to make the transfer. You will have to click on a few more buttons, such as Activate Plugin, Run Plugin and Authorize in order to begin the process.
These steps should take you to your Google Accounts page, as Blogger is one of Google’s services. You’ll have to click on a button giving WordPress access to your Blogger account. If you have multiple Blogger blogs, you have to make sure you click on the one you want to transfer to WordPress.
Setting Permalinks
As mentioned, maintaining your permalinks is a serious concern when you want to preserve your SEO and make it easy for people to find your blog at its new location. Now that your blog is on WordPress, you can manage everything from the WP dashboard.
One of the settings on your dashboard is for Permalinks. There are several options for this. If you want your new URL structure to be the same as the one you had on Blogger, you should choose Custom Structure and type in: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html/. This is the typical permalink structure for Blogger. You should, however, check the URLs for your posts and make sure it matches. If not, make sure you type in the proper structure under Custom Structure.
Redirecting From Blogger to WordPress
You want to make sure that your old visitors can find your new site. The simplest way to do this is to install a plugin on WordPress called Blogger to WordPress. Simply follow the instructions under Plugins. You can do everything within the WP Plugin area. Do a search for the plugin you want, then install and activate it.
Once you activate the plugin, you will want to click on Start Configuration. You then must click on Get Code for the blog you’ve transferred. Copy the code that appears. You now must return to your Blogger dashboard. Under Template, click on Edit HTML and replace the existing code with the new one.
If you have any RSS feed subscribers for your Blogger blog, you will also want to redirect them to your new blog. Go to Settings, then Other. Under Post Feed Redirect URL, add your WordPress feed URL, which is simply your new WP domain with /feed at the end. Don’t forget to click on Save Settings before exiting Blogger.
Getting Comfortable With WordPress
Now that you have completed the transfer Blogger to WordPress process, you will have to get accustomed to your blog’s new home. There are hundreds of features and choices on WordPress, so take your time getting acquainted with them. You may want to experiment with different themes, widgets and plugins to get the look of your blog the way you want it. There are also plugins that can help you with SEO.
There are many benefits to having a self-hosted WordPress blog. While Blogger is good for starting out, taking this step will ultimately give you more control over your blog and help you reach a wider audience.