Need help with transferring from Blogger to WordPress? You can hire me.

The query of migrating from Blogger to WordPress has been a bit of a trouble to many bloggers out there, probably because a.) scared of how much work would it be b.) complicated c.) worried about the content, comments, subscribers, etc.

Let me get you this straight: moving from Blogger to WordPress isn’t that hard as moving your family to another planet.

It’s like when you first signed up on Blogger, how did you feel?

A little overwhelmed, right? So it’s the same way as WordPress.

The only difference is, you have to transfer your content from your Blogger account, but with the introduction of newer tools within each platform, and more with the given tools provided by your web host provider.

Chances are you can get to have your blog transferred easily without the sweat.

As long as you have the right tools and resources, you will be fine.

Hence, it’s the main reason why I created this tutorial.

This step-by-step guide is created especially for non-coders – including the things you need to know, the necessary tools you need to install plus the resources that will help you gain back your traffic.

Everything is included here to make sure you don’t lose anything!

8 Steps To Moving From Blogger to WordPress

Purchase Web Hosting & A Domain (5 mins)
Install WordPress (5 mins)
Import Blogger Content To WordPress (5-15 mins, depends on how many posts and pages you have)
Configure Necessary Settings On WordPress (10 mins)
Install WordPress Theme (10 mins)
Redirect Blogger To WordPress (10 mins)
Importing Feedburner RSS Subscribers (5 mins)
Installing Google Analytics (5 mins)

Here’s a trick so you don’t get overwhelmed: Do the first 2 steps on the first day, then take steps 3 to 5 on the second day – these steps won’t affect your current visitors and current Blogger site. And then when your WordPress is ready to launch, do the last 3 steps to redirect your visitors to your new WordPress blog. Make sense?

Please don’t be intimidated by this post. In fact, there’s only 5 steps you need to take! It may look longer because of the demo images (which I had to include to make them easier to understand, right?).

Important Things You Need To Know

This tutorial is written specifically for those who do not have their own custom domain yet. If your domain is still like this: name.blogspot.com, this guide is for you.
You may lose some traffic, but you should gain it back after 4-6 weeks (see resources).
If you follow the steps carefully, you will not lose anything except your GFC (Google Friend Connect) widget, but Google discontinued this feature anyway.
After the migration, you have to change your Blogspot URLs to your new domain on your social accounts such as Google+ account, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Never delete your Blogger account. It will delete all your images. Plus, you have to redirect Blogspot visitors to your new site.
You can keep your images hosted on your Blogger account.

Okay, that’s all for now. Ready yet?! Let’s get started!

Migrating From Blogger to WordPress

Step #1: Purchase web hosting & a domain

Head to BlueHost (click here for a discount) and click the “Get Started” button from their homepage.
Sign up for web hosting account and a domain name. Enter your desired domain name and hit “Next”.
Fill up all the required fields with your info and select an account plan.
Create a strong password to prevent hackers from accessing your account.

Note: If you’re unsure which plan to choose, you can select any of the first three (12 month, 24-month, or the 36-month.). You won’t need a pro plan for now unless you have a big traffic. You can always upgrade later. You can uncheck the rest if you want , though I recommend getting a Domain Whois Privacy as this will protect your contact info from being displayed to the public.

Step #2: Install WordPress

Log in to your Bluehost web panel. Select “cPanel” from the top menu.
Click “Hosting” menu then click the “WordPress” icon under “Website Builders” area.
Now hit the “Install” button.
Select which domain you want WordPress to install to, then click “Check Domain” .
Read the terms and conditions then hit “Install Now” .
Wait for about 2-3 minutes to complete your installation. Click “View Processes” then click on the “View Credentials” link.
Once it’s completed, access your new WordPress using the given login details, which should look like this:
Now you should see your dashboard. Looking neat huh?

Yay! You’ve completed step 2. You’ve installed WordPress by yourself! Isn’t that so easy?

Okay now, onto the next step:

Step #3: Import Blogger Content to WordPress

In this section, we’ll import your posts, comments, and users from your Blogger account to your new WordPress site. Here’s how:

A: Importing posts, comments and users.

On your WordPress dashboard, click “Tools” from the left navigation of your site > then select “Import”.
Select “Blogger” from the lists.
Click “Install now” to install the plugin.
Click “Activate Plugin & Run Importer” .
Hit “Authorize” button
Allow Access.
Now select a blog you want to import, then click “Import” button. I’ll import my paulinecabrera.blogspot.com.
Wait for the import to complete, usually a site with 300 content + around 1,000 comments takes about 10 minutes or so, but it also depends on your internet speed too.
Once the import is done, click “Set Authors”
Click “Save Changes” .
Once done, you’ll be redirected to all your posts imported from your Blogger.

You will have to copy the “pages” manually from your Blogger to WordPress. To do that, take the following steps:

Log in to your Blogger, then go to “Pages”.
Click on any page you want to move to the new site. Select “HTML” to get the code and copy everything.
Now open another tab on your browser and login to your WordPress dashboard.
At the left navigation bar, go to “Pages” > “Add New”
Click “Text” to enable HTML editor and paste the copied content from Blogger. Make sure to enter a title then hit “Publish” button.
Repeat the same steps for the other pages.

Yay! You’ve completed another step. Now you have all your content from your Blogspot.

Step #4: Configure Necessary Settings on WordPress

In this section, you’ll need to modify some settings to keep your blog secured from hackers and to make it search friendly.

As I’ve mentioned in Blogger vs WordPress article, WordPress can be easily hacked if not configured properly. Thankfully, when you’re with Bluehost, they do most of the job such as generating authentication keys, preferred URL setup, change of admin username, automatic upgrade, etc. Now let’s do the rest:

A: Modify Permalinks + Activate Askimet

Modify Permalinks to make your URLs search friendly: Go to “Settings” > “Permalinks” > Select “Post Name” then “Save Changes” .
Activate Akismet plugin to eliminate spam: Go to “Plugins” > “Installed Plugins” > “Activate Akismet” . Once the it’s activated, you have to sign up for an API key here, then go back to the plugins page, click “Activate your Akismet Account” and paste the activation code.

B: Install Essential Plugins

Here’s a list of plugins we’ll have to install (instructions after the list):

WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin: Make your site SEO friendly.
WordFence: This plugin will help you set your WordPress security to the highest level.
BackUpWordpress: Use this to back up your WordPress Database using this plugin.
Limit Login Attempts: This will block a user from logging in to your site after a specified number of login attempts.

To install those plugins, go to “Plugins” > “Add New” then search for the plugin > click “Install Now” > “Activate Plugin”

Step #5: Install WordPress Theme

Before launching your WordPress site, you’d want to customize your theme first to make your blog presentable. You can either use and edit the already-installed themes or install another new theme. There is 2 parts in this section. Part 1 is installing a theme and Part 2 is customizing your theme content.

Part 1: Install A Theme

I’d personally prefer using one of the installed themes as a starter. I would use the “Twenty Twelve” one. The decision is up to you so I’m giving you 3 different options on how to activate and customize WordPress theme.

Option #1: If you decided to use the Twenty Twelve theme (my suggestion), do the following steps:

Go to Appearance > Themes
Activate “Twenty Twelve”
Now, click “Customize” if you want to change the theme settings.
You may change the site title, tagline, colors, header image, background image. You can leave the Static Front Page for now.

Option #2: If you decided to use another theme from WordPress, follow these:

Go to Appearance > Themes
Click “Add New Theme”
Search for a theme
When you find the theme you want, click “Install Now”.
Click “Activate” and view your site.

Option #3: If you decided to use another theme from premium sites:

First, you need to find themes from sites that sells Premium themes, you can find some quality ones here:

ThemeForest (Premium, Personal Favorite)
Elegant Themes (87 Themes for $37)
ThemeShift
StudioPress (Premium)

Once you download a theme, go back to your WordPress dashboard and follow these steps:

Go to Appearance > select Themes
Select “Add New Theme”
Hit “Upload” link
Then choose file then hit “Install Now”
Click “Activate” .

Alright! Wohooo! You’ve installed a theme! Now we need to customize it to make it more pretty! Let’s move your widgets from Blogger to your WordPress blog. Proceed to the part 2:

Part 2: Customizing Theme

To customize your sidebar widgets, go back to your WordPress dashboard. Click “Appearance” > “Widgets”
Drag any available widgets to the “Main Sidebar or (Sidebar)” section.
You can use “Text” widget if you want to add your own HTML. For example, your buttons, affiliate links, social media links, etc.
Create a menu if you haven’t. Then add a menu: go to Appearance > Menus
Under the “Links” navigation, you can add new links to your posts/pages/categories

Now you’re all set and ready to redirect your visitors to the new site!

Step #6: Redirect Blogger to WordPress

So now you’re ready to launch your WordPress site, it’s about time to redirect your visitors to your new site.

Here are the 2 major reasons why you must to redirect your Blogger to WordPress.

This will automatically redirect your Blogger visitors to your new WordPress site so your visitors won’t have to “manually” click anything on your site to get to the new site.
Google hates duplicated content so having your content in two different websites can get you penalized.

Okay, let’s get started:

Go to “Plugins” > “Add New”
Search for “Blogger To WordPress” by RT Camp (make sure the author is RT Camp!)
Activate the plugin
Once activated, click “Tools” from the left navigation bar > select “Blogger To WordPress Redirection”
Click “Start Configuration” > hit “Get Code” button
Now copy the generated code and paste on your Blogger Template.
To paste the code,
- Login to Blogger account using a new window.
- You need to make a back up of your current template first, go to “Template” > “Backup/Restore” > Download full template. You can save it somewhere on your computer. Once you the download is done, click “Close” button.
- Now we need to paste the code, click “Edit HTML” button from the navigation bar located at the left side of your screen.
- Replace the whole code with the new one. Right click your mouse > Select All > Delete then CTRL + V to paste the given code.
- Click “Save Template” .
To test if the redirection is working right, view your Blogger blog (name.blogspot.com) and see if it takes you to your new WordPress URL.
- You can also view your posts from Blogger and see if they are being redirected to the new site.

Woohoo! You have moved!

Step #7: Importing Feedburner RSS Subscribers

To keep your subscribers, do the following steps:

Login to your Feedburner account (use your Gmail/Google credentials).
Click on your Blogger site’s feed. My Blogger’s feed name is Pauline Cabrera.
Click “Edit Feed Details”
Change the “Original Feed” with your WordPress “Feed URL”, which should look like this: http://www.yourdomain.com/feed/ then click “Save Feed Details”. Take a look at my before & after:
Now we will have to redirect your feed from Blogger to WordPress, login to your Blogger account.
Go to “Settings” > “Other”
In the “Post Feed Redirect URL” field, add your Feedburner “Feed Address” (important: it should FEED Address, not the Original Feed) which should look like this: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChosenName. Here’s mine:

Step #8: Installing Google Analytics

You should not forget to install Google Analytics. You need to track your traffic to see how well your performance is, and so you can figure out what’s working and what’s not. Your analytics will help you track your visitors, number of views, new vs repeat visitors, bounce rate, top referrals, etc. Here’s how you can install Google Analytics:

Part 1: Create account for the new domain

Login to Google Analytics (use your Google credentials).
Click “Admin” located at the top right navigation bar.
Under Account section, click “Create New Account” .
Fill up the fields to start the setup including Account Name, Website Name, Website URL, Industry Category & Reporting Timezone.
Now copy the tracking code given and paste it on your WordPress site. Proceed to the part 2 for instruction.

Part 2: Paste the tracking code to your WordPress blog

To paste the code, follow these steps:

Go to “Appearance” > “Editor”
Click “Footer (Footer.php)”. Scroll down all the way to the bottom until you see this code: < /body >, then paste the tracking code before < /body> Here’s how it should look like:
Click “Update File” button and you’re done!

Voila!! You’ve joined the bandwagon! Congrats! How’d ya feel? Now you can take a rest then come back and read the resources listed below 😉

What to do next?!

You’ve fully migrated! You’ve transferred your content, installed essential tools and plugins, and imported your subscribers but you know that’s not all.. You still have some assignments to do. If you want to increase your traffic and wants to be a WordPress pro in no time, take a look at the resources below!

How To Drive More Traffic To Your WordPress Blog: tips + resources to drive more traffic to your blog.
What to do after WordPress Installation: what to do after installation? we may have done some of the essential things, but you may find some other useful tips here.
WordPress Lessons for Beginners: need I say more? familiarize yourself with WordPress FAST with these tutorials!

Got no time to do this yourself? You can always hire me!

If you have any tutorial suggestions or questions, please feel free to comment down below!

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How-To: Moving From Blogger To WordPress