Move your Blog from Blogger To WordPress without losing traffic

Congratulations on deciding to migrate your blog! Going from BlogSpot to a self-hosted word press site can seem overwhelming, but take comfort in the fact that people like you do it every day.
HEADS UP: This is a simple walkthrough meant for the blogger with very little content on their Blogger blog. If you have years worth of content or just lots and lots of content I would strongly urge you to hire a professional to assist you in moving your blog. Moving the meat and potatoes of your site is the simple part, but making sure all of the links and all of your subscribers and your feeds don’t break? Well, that takes care that would be specific to each blog.
Before you begin the move you should do two important things on your BlogSpot blog:
1. Make sure you are using New Blogger

If you started a blog on blogger after 2006, you don’t need to worry about this, but if you are an “old school” blogger – you should double check that you have made the switch to the most updated interface of Blogger. The reason is that most importer tools simply won’t work with “old blogger”.
2. Back up your blog
Using the new interface of Blogger: select Settings from the left sidebar and then click “other“. The first item you will see on the new screen will be “Blog Tools Import – Export blog – Delete blog“.

You want to click on Export blog. A screen will pop up explaining a bit about exporting-click on “Download Blog,” and it will save on your desktop.
After these first two steps, you can begin moving on to the remaining steps:
3. Purchase a domain. When it comes to a domain keep it simple.
4. Purchase a hosting plan.

There are many hosting companies out there (and it can sometimes be super easy to purchase your domain and hosting all at once simply). Some host companies will bill you for a year of service and others will charge you monthly – do a bit of research and find a plan that works in your budget.
5. Change your feed.

If you are using Feedburner (it’s pretty great) – just log in and add your new feed (which will come from your new domain)
6. Install WordPress on your new site.

Most host plans have something called one-click install so look for that in your “cPanel” and you will thank me. Simple Scripts and Fantastico are two examples. For increased security come up with a great username and password (hint: don’t use “admin”)
[If you have any issues with set up you should always be able to reach tech support of your host company – hopefully you have selected a host that has a readily available support number. Some companies don’t.]
7. Log in to your WordPress account using your WP login (this will be given to you after you do the install). It will look like yourblog.com/wp-admin.
8.

In the left sidebar look for Tools and click the arrow to reveal the options there. Now click on Import.
You will see that importing a blog from Blogger is listed on the list of blogs that are importable.

Click on the import from Blogger link.

(A pop up will come up inviting you to install the import tool- install it.) Follow the prompts for this install.
9. And this is the part where it can get yikes if you are importing a large amount of content – it’s possible that some of your links didn’t move over in a way that makes them, well, work. There are tools that can help you fix this.

On your WordPress sidebar look for Plugins and click the arrow to see the options there. Select “Add New”. Then search for “broken links” – there should be many options. Install one and activate it and follow the prompts to correct your links.
10. Spend some time making your new WordPress site your home!
11.

When you are ready to direct your readers to your new site log back into your Blogger site and goto

Settings > Basic > Add a custom domain. Enter your new domain here.
12. Next (still in Blogger site) we need to add a bit of code to your HTML. To do this, in your left sidebar select Template and then under the page with an image of your site on it select HTML. A pop up will ask you if you REALLY want to do this.  Click Proceed.

ie: Template > Edit HTML > Proceed
Now you need to place this code after <head> Tag & Save Template:

<meta content=’0; url=http://YOURNEWURL.com/’ http-equiv=’refresh’ />

This will help redirect traffic from your old site to your new site.
13. Check your work: is your feed directing correctly, the links on your new site, the redirect on your old site? Fix what isn’t working.
14. Let everyone know you are moving! Post one final post on your old site, send out a tweet, and a status on your facebook page. Let your readers know to update their URLs if they have you in a bloglist.
15. If anything goes haywire – call an expert stat.

 

If you are facing any problem migrating the blog feel free to contact me. Also, leave your comments below.

 

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