How to transfer your Blogger site to WordPress (without having a nervous breakdown)
Way back when, I used to have a Blogger site called Peps Around the World. The site chronicled my crazy adventures living in Japan, and then my move to California and my first experiences in the US of A. Thankfully I killed that beast a long time ago when I started 30 Day Books, and the evidence has been destroyed!
I have since discovered WordPress for blogging, and will likely never go back to Blogger. I had no desire to switch all my posts and content from Blogger to WordPress, but if I had, geez, I know what a pain in the you-know-what that can be! I know that the fear of losing all of those hard-earned subscribers and images and posts is a truly terrifying thought.
Since launching Authorlicious, several people have asked us how to export their blogger sites and content over to WordPress, and Brandon has become quite the expert! He assures me that it is possible to import posts and comments fairly easily (since WordPress has a Blogger importer) and you can keep your subscribers too (with additional tools). It isn’t possible at this time to import pages, but that shouldn’t be too much of an issue since you’ll have much fewer pages and you can easily copy and paste the content into WordPress pages.
I’ve invited Brandon to write up a step by step guide of how to make the transition as painless and smooth as possible. As always, email us (him!) if you have any further questions about the process.
Hi all! Brandon here. This method of importing Blogger – WordPress preserves your links, subscribers, comments and blogposts.
Set Up Your New WordPress Site with Hosting & a Domain Name
1. Get a domain name if you don’t already have one (e.g. 30DayBooks.com.) Getting a domain name like YourDomainName.com will be around $10 dollars a year, and often times domain companies (domain registrars) will have special discounts for the first year. Domain names are available from companies such as Blue Host or Media Temple. It’s better to get a domain name from the same company you are hosting your site with (see #2) to ensure a streamlined process down the road, so you may want to check out hosting packages before deciding on a company to get your domain name from.
[If you have already have custom domain for your blogger – i.e your site is www.awesomeauthor.com as opposed to awesomeauthor.blogspot.com – then you can keep the domain, and point it to your new WordPress site, rather than your Blogger site. You will do this through the company that you registered the domain from.]
2. Get hosting for your site. We recommend Blue Host, Media Temple and WP Engine, and all three offer easy installation for WordPress.
3. Install WordPress to your hosting account. Login to your control panel and follow the instructions to install WordPress. This shouldn’t take more than 5-10 mins with the hosting companies listed above, which all offer 1-click installation.
4. Install your new theme to WordPress
Move your blogposts, comments and keep your subscribers
5. In WordPress, go to Tools –> Import. Select Blogger from the list and install the Blogger plugin. Enter your Blogger/ Google login info and allow access to your account. Click on the “Import” button next to your blog. This will import all of your posts and comments to WordPress. If you don’t see anything moving after you click the button, you can restart the process by clearing the information with the button at the bottom and restart.
[One thing the WordPress Blogger Importer doesn’t do is import images. You can either a) Keep your images on Blogger and they will continue to show up (since your posts are already pulling them from Blogger) or b) see number 6 for importing images from Blogger to WordPress]
6. To keep your subscribers, your followers can get your RSS feed with a re-direct (link). Google has retired Google Friend Connect for none-blogger sites in March 2012, so unfortunately we won’t be able to have that widget displayed on the sidebar. But the good news is with the re-direct, the followers can continue to receive your blog post updates through RSS feeds.
5. Unfortunately, some of your links won’t work anymore because Blogger and WordPress convert post titles into URLs differently. To avoid this problem, use the plugin, Redirection (same one as above). Activate it and you can then easily track and redirect individual broken links.
6. You may also run into some problems with redirecting permalinks with a different structure. To overcome this, you can install the SEO Blogger to WordPress plug-in which allows a redirect. You can also import your photos using this plugin. You can also use Cache Images to move your images from Blogger to WordPress (instruction).
Change over the URL: the final steps to move your blog
Note: This applies if your hosting company and domain registrar are different. For example, if your domain is registered with GoDaddy but you’re hosting with Media Temple, then you need to tell GoDaddy where your new site is. Otherwise, if your hosting company and domain registrar are the same, you can skip this step.
7. Once your new WordPress site is ready, it’s time to point your domain to your new site! You can do this by modifying the NameServer, or updating the A record on your domain DNS, both from your domain registrar. Your hosting company should have more information on this, and will likely be able to help if you run into any problems. This process can take a few hours up to a day for it to take effect so don’t panic if nothing seems to have happened.
Voila!
Thanks for the awesome article Laura! Next time someone asks me how to do this I’m going to direct them to this page :). If you need anything from us here at (mt) Media Temple, I’m sure you know we’re available 24/7 through phone, chat or Twitter. :)
Drew J
(mt) Media Temple
Social Media Team
@twitter-684983:disqus
Thanks Drew!
Hi Brandon,
Great post. I’m pretty good at doing things on the computer, and I’m sure that I’d be able to do most of this by following your instructions so thanks on that! My question is, what is the benefit to moving from blogger to wordpress? I’ve been debating whether or not to do this. I’m still in the beginning stages of launching my author platform (with tremendous advice from Laura – your dedication is awesome!) so I don’t have things like a domain/server yet. Is it possible to keep working out of the free Blogger or WordPress sites? And, I know that you said anyone who’s singed up for posts via RSS feed will be transfered, but will that work the same for people who’ve signed up with email?
I’m at the point i think where i need to make a decision before i have too many posts to move and adjust pictures and such. Any thought would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Hi Indigo,
Thanks! The biggest benefit for using WordPress for me has been control. For example, you can customize the site and add new features to it with the endless plugins available for WordPress instead of waiting for Bloggers to add them. I also like the WordPress community, it’s supportive and comprised of lots of none-technical creatives. We volunteered at WordCamp (http://2012.seattle.wordcamp.org/) Seattle last year and had a blast!
But on the other hand, having your own WordPress site does require a bit more work. You’ll have to learn to deal with hosting, domain, updating WordPress and plugins, and playing with various options. When you have more control, you have more responsibilities as well.
For people who signed up via email, is this through a FeedBurner email signup? If so, it’s essentially driven by RSS and people will still get the emails. If not, they most likely won’t be getting emails since you don’t have access to the email addresses.
Hope this helps!
Brandon