Intro:
Blogging on wordpress and blogger has evolved from a casual hobby to a powerful tool for personal expression and business growth. As your blog matures, the need for more robust features, better customization options, and enhanced control over your content becomes paramount. This often leads many bloggers to transition from Blogger to WordPress, a move that can significantly elevate your blogging experience.
WordPress, known for its flexibility and extensive range of plugins, provides a superior platform for bloggers seeking to expand their online presence. However, the migration process might seem daunting, especially if you've been using Blogger for a long time. Fear not! In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps to smoothly move your blog from Blogger to WordPress, ensuring you retain your content, SEO rankings, and followers.
By the end of this tutorial, you'll have all the tools and knowledge you need to make a seamless transition, allowing you to take full advantage of WordPress's capabilities and set your blog up for long-term success. Let’s dive in and start your journey towards a more versatile and powerful blogging platform!
Please Note: When we refer to WordPress in this guide, we're specifically talking about self-hosted WordPress.org, not to be confused with WordPress.com.
Why Should I Move from Blogger to WordPress?
WordPress.org is the well-known platform powering about 43% of all websites on the internet, renowned for its flexibility and extensive customization options. It also provides complete ownership of your website, enabling you to add features essential for growing and monetizing your blog. It also has beginner and advance features for creating and managing a blog. One of those feature advance features include full blog customization and extensive SEO optimization capabilities to help your site rank higher in search engine results.
Blogger, on the other hand, is a popular platform created by Google that allows anyone to create a free blog using their Google account. While it’s a great starting point, many users soon discover its limitations in terms of functionality and customization.
Now Let's get started!
Step 1: Export Your Blogger Blog
Next, you need to export your content from Blogger. Log into your Blogger account, go to the Settings, and find the "Manage Blog" section as shown in the screenshot. Click on "Back up content" and download the XML file containing your posts, comments, and other data. This file is essential for importing your blog into WordPress.
Step 2: Sign Up for WordPress Hosting
To begin your transition from Blogger to WordPress, the first step is to sign up for a WordPress hosting service. A reliable host ensures your website is fast, secure, and always available. Popular options include Bluehost, SiteGround, and WP Engine. Choose a plan that fits your needs, register a domain name if you don't already have one, and complete the hosting setup.
Step 3: Import Blogger to WordPress
Now that you have your Blogger content, it's time to import it into WordPress. Log into your new WordPress site, navigate to the dashboard, and go to Tools > Import.
Select "Blogger" from the list and install the Blogger Importer plugin. Activate the plugin and upload the .XML file you exported from Blogger. WordPress will handle the rest, importing your posts and comments into your new site.
Step 4: Setting Up Permalinks
Permalinks are the URLs of your posts and pages. To maintain SEO rankings and user experience, you need to set up permalinks that closely match your Blogger URLs. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Permalinks and select a URL structure similar to your Blogger format.
Customizing the permalink structure helps ensure your readers can still find your content easily.
Step 5: Set Up Redirects From Blogger to WordPress
To avoid losing visitors and SEO rankings, set up redirects from your old Blogger site to your new WordPress site. This ensures that anyone visiting your old Blogger URLs is automatically sent to the corresponding WordPress pages. You can use a plugin like "Blogger to WordPress Redirection" to simplify this process. Follow the plugin instructions to generate and implement the necessary redirects.
Step 6: Moving Other Content From Blogger to WordPress
Besides posts and comments, you may have other content like images, pages, and widgets that need to be moved. Manually transfer any remaining content by copying and pasting from Blogger to WordPress. Ensure all media files are uploaded to your new site, and recreate any important widgets using WordPress’s built-in widget options or plugins.
5 Things To Do After Migrating Completely From Blogger to WordPress
Once the migration is complete, there are a few more tasks to finalize the transition:
1. Theme Customization:
Choose and customize a WordPress theme that suits your blog’s style.
2. Install Plugins:
Enhance your site’s functionality with essential plugins for SEO, security, and performance.
3. Check Internal Links:
Ensure all internal links point to the correct WordPress URLs.
4. Notify Followers:
Inform your readers about the move and provide the new site URL.
5. Monitor Traffic:
Use tools like Google Analytics to track your traffic and ensure everything is running smoothly.
By following these steps, you can successfully move your blog from Blogger to WordPress, taking advantage of the platform's powerful features and flexibility to grow your online presence.