Do you or your client want to shift your/their blog from Blogger to WordPress and move your blog to your own domain name? Are you still confused after having done your share of research?
In this blog post, I’m going to attempt to explain the process of migrating from Blogger to WordPress in a simple step-by-step fashion without losing any backlinks. But before we proceed to that, let’s have a quick look at what is Blogger and WordPress, and their key differences.
What is Blogger?
A blogger by definition is someone who blogs, or writes content on a blog. Also Blogger is Google’s free tool for creating blogs on the web. Here we will explore, the latter- the free tool powered by Google.
It is one of the most popular blogging platforms today, and is usually the first choice for beginners, partly because it is connected to your Gmail account and maintaining it is a hassle-free process.
To set up your blog, all you need to do is login to Blogger with your Gmail credentials, give your blog a name, choose a suitable URL for your blog, get your domain hosted on the free .blogspot.com hosting example: helloworld.blogspot.com, finally choose a template and your blog is ready to be launched in the world of internet.
What is WordPress?
Moving on to WordPress, the other popular portal for hosting website, which in simple words is a Content Management System (CMS).
WordPress is similar to Blogger although having a lot more functions and being complex it’s equally amazing when compared with Blogger. WordPress is subdivided as, wordpress.com and wordpress.org. WordPress.com is similar to blogger, hosting the website as subdomain.wordpress.com or upgrading to the premium version and let WordPress handle the hosting for you.
As for wordpress.org, one of the biggest differences is the hosting provided. Here you host your own blog or website, by downloading WordPress software from WordPress.org and installing on your web server. Unlike blogger it does not suffix .wordpress.org to your domain. Individuals can host their blogs directly gaining complete right of the website. One of the preferred hosting for websites is WordPress Hosting.
To simplify, to set up your blog on WordPress as a CMS on your own hosting, you need to choose a WordPress hosting provider and register domain, install WordPress, then choose a theme and you’re ready to post your first post. Example: helloworld.com
Key Differences:
Although, Blogger and WordPress both are free blog blogging platforms, there are few things that make them stand apart from the other. Let’s have a closer look at them:
| Blogger | WordPress |
|---|---|
| 1. Free to use and hosted on the .blogspot.com domain. | 1. Free to use and can be hosted on any domain (free or premium),chosen from the wordpress hosting provider. |
| 2. Simpler to understand | 2. Complex to understand, as it’s a CMS |
| 3. AdSense and G+ is built right in | 3. Need to install additional plugins eg: Google AdSense etc. |
| Template is common, so your blog is not unique. | As template is custom made, your blog/website looks unique |
| Storage space is unlimited | No such constraints, you can pay and upgrade your plans |
Steps to Migrate from Blogger to WordPress:
Blogger though free and easy to use, can pose many constraints to the user should the user want to gain full control of their website. At a time like this, WordPress is the best option. But the question that arises is, how to move your blog from Blogger to WordPress without losing Google Page Ranking? Here in this post, we cover moving to WordPress.org
Here is a step by step guide:
Part I: Migration
1. Sign up with a good WordPress hosting company to host your blog.
2. Once you’ve signed up and got your new domain name, the next thing to do is installing WordPress on your new hosting account.
3. Next, it is time to move your data from Blogger to WordPress. For that you need to create a Backup of your website.
4. A dialog box pop ups with a ‘Save to your Computer’ button
5. The download is an XML file, and once the download is complete we move to importing this data to the WordPress portal.
6. Import the blog.
7. Once this is done, WordPress will instal the Blogger Importer Plugin. Activate the Plugin and run the importer. After this, a new pop up window asks you to upload a file, upload your downloaded xml file here. And viola! You have successfully migrated your blog to WordPress.
Part II: Permalinks
Now that you’ve successfully imported your blog. What next? Permalinks is the next step that needs to be modified. Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts i.e they are the URL of each post that is on your website, blogger in this case.
http://my-resellers.blogspot.in/2017/08/my-blog.html
To set Permalinks go to Settings >> Permalinks and choose Month and Name as your Permalink structure. This is because your structure should be same as the
To do this follow these steps:
1. Go to Settings >>Permalinks
2. Choose Custom Structure radio button
3. Type /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html/
4. Click Save
Part III: Redirection
Redirection is very important for preserving the SEO of your blog. There are two crucial steps involved in this;
1. Redirecting Blogger visitors to WordPress
2.
3.
In this section, replace the below code:
4. Now once, redirection for Blogger is done we need to take similar steps for WordPress.
a. Login to your WordPress site and go to Settings >>General
b. Change the Site and Home field to your custom domain. Your site breaks at this point but don’t worry. Restart your browser and clear the cache.
c. Login back and you’re set.
d. For updating your URL you can do so using plugins. One of the most used ones is Velvet Blues
e. After installing the plugin, change in your urls.
f. Also install Blogger 301 Redirect Plugin, this plugin helps you to create a blogger to WordPress 301 redirect that takes care of your SEO.
Part IV: Redirecting Feeds
If you had RSS Subscriber feed working on your blog, your subscribers too need to be redirected. All you need to do is go to your Blogger Settings>>Other >> Add Post Feed Redirect URL.
Follow these steps and your transition from Blogger to WordPress will go smoothly. If you have any queries, feel free to write to us.
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