13 comments

• 

  VMaryAbraham

  7 months ago

  Congratulations, Daniel!
  
  This is something I've been thinking about doing (and agonizing over) for months. Since, unlike you, I'm not blessed with a "programmer's heart," the whole prospect of shifting from blogger to wp seems daunting. Are there any guides you used that you'd recommend? Alternatively, are you available for consultations? :-)
  
  - Mary
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  I'd be happy to help, Mary. There are a few major points to focus on, the rest can fall into place after the move as you have time.
  
  1) Choose a web host that automatically installs WordPress for you and install it to the root directory of your web space. I chose tubu.net and while I had some initial headaches it's working pretty well now and it's hard to beat the $10/year price ($9 with a discount code).
  
  2) Import your posts from Blogger to Wordpress. There's a feature in the WP control panel under Manage->Import that is supposed to slurp up all of your Blogger content automatically. That didn't work for me so I used a slightly more complicated method outlined by Brad Linder:
  

  If your new site is hosted by GoDaddy or another web host that blocks imports from Blogger, just go to Wordpress.com and create a new, free blog that's hosted by Wordpress. You should be able to import your posts this way, and then go to Manage -> Export in the control panel to save your blog as an XML file on your desktop. You should be able to import this file into your new hosted blog without any problems.

  
  3) Pick a WordPress theme other than the default Kubrick theme. You can find plenty at the Wordpress site. Installing this will require some basic knowledge of FTP. If that's a problem let me know and I will do it.
  
  Good luck!
  reply
• 

  VMaryAbraham

  7 months ago

  Thanks, Daniel. You make the whole thing sound almost pain free. I've noticed the tubu.net has become quite popular of late. Is it just the price or are there other benefits?
  
  -Mary
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  it's the $9 package as endorsed by Chris Brogan. Everyone else lookns
  to me $5/mo. I'm sure there are other low-cost providers I just
  haven't seen.
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  Once you get your WP blog running and your posts imported there are a few other important things to do.
  
  4) Modify your feedburner feed to point to your new blog. If your site is anything like mine then most of your readers are coming in via RSS and not going straight to the blog anyway. Install the Feedburner Feedsmith plugin and it will walk you through the process.
  
  5) We need to figure out a way to preserve some of the search engine mojo your existing blog has already built up. It will be somewhat difficult because your current links all end in .blogspot.com and any new WP blog you set up won't be on Blogspot. Worst case we can put something in your blogspot template that redirects everything to your WordPress front page. Something like this might be painful but I agree with Chris Brogan's advice here:

  Get your own unique URL. It matters in the long run, especially should you choose to change hosts. For instance, if you move off a blogger account at *.blogspot.com , you lose all link equity and page rank for that domain. This means you’d have to start again from scratch. Already in that position? Make the switch now.

  reply
• 

  VMaryAbraham

  7 months ago

  Daniel -
  
  To be honest, this is the part that worries me the most. That Google ranking feels like a precious commodity. I've got about 175 posts in my archive and a fair amount of site traffic. And, a lot of that traffic seems to come via Google searches. It's the issue that stopped me from moving over earlier. Ironically, the longer I wait, the harder it gets.
  
  - Mary
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  We should be able to set up some redirects to send old links through
  blogger to your new site. Maybe I can try that on my own site as a
  test.
  reply
• 

  VMaryAbraham

  7 months ago

  That would be great. It's a shame to walk away from the equity you've built in your blog. If there's a reasonable way to preserve it, we should definitely do it.
  
  - Mary
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  Here's a guide for automated per-post redirects from blogspot to wordpress. They claim it will preserve your SEO ranking!
  
  I think you ought to go ahead and buy a domain name and set up your new WordPress blog when you get the time. Once you get it running ok, try and flip on this blogger redirect and see how it goes!
  
  Edit: Hat tip to Filination for the link. There's a bit of background here if you need more explanation of this particular 301 redirect process. It's certainly not something I'm familiar with.
  reply
• 

  VMaryAbraham

  7 months ago

  Thanks so much, Daniel. The $60m question is whether a non-programmer can actually do all of this. I guess we'll find out soon enough. I'll keep you posted.
  
  - Mary
  reply
• 

  entmike

  7 months ago

  While I have no recent basis for comparison from one blogging application to another, WP was pretty easy for me to set up. I do like that their are tons of themes and plugins available and the fact that's all written in PHP means I can write in my own terrible code as I see fit.
  reply
• 

  Daniel J. Pritchett

  7 months ago

  There are certainly some reasons to use other platforms, I just wanted to jot down the good things I'd experienced in moving from Blogger to WordPress. I'm guessing my new host will have less uptime than Google, for instance.
  
  Amen to the PHP stuff. Consider making anything cool you write into a plugin, Mike!
  reply
• 

  car hire bruges airport

  1 month ago

  Thanks, Daniel. You make the whole thing sound almost pain free. I've noticed the tubu.net has become quite popular of late. Is it just the price or are there other benefits?I really appericiate your ideas & i am totally with it.
  reply