How to Simply Migrate a Blog from Blogger to WordPress? You’re thinking about moving from Blogger or from any other non-hosted blogging platform to self-hosted WordPress, but you’re still in doubt. No worries. What if I say, I’ve been in this particular situation during the last 4 months?
Yes, I ran my Blog and started to take my blogging career seriously less than a year ago, but since April or May, I’ve been thinking a lot about migration to WordPress. Yes, I have actually my domain name, which I used, while I was with Blogger, so all the readers and subscribers were coming through this link www.fashion-confession.com. But at this time I had no hosting, that's why I was using Google services for this reason.
I would say the decision to move is a very hard decision for many reasons. The time it has taken and the learning curve is the two big “yes” for blogging. So I was preparing for this migration a really long time. I’ve read a dozen articles and spoke with a lot of people about that, because, you know, it’s some kind of a brand new level for your Blog. I’ve always resisted the argument to move because it will help you to grow your network and so, but actually you just have to make the move because it is the right decision.
The last and the most convenient thing about migration was my statistics, which shows me the numbers that speak better than something else. By that time I had around 100 posts on my Blog and a lot of comments. But if you ever heard about moving from Blogger to WordPress, you’ll probably understand me that the most painful part in this entire thing is that you will lose all the comments you have (because it is Google, baby). So I decided, the sooner I move to self-hosted Blog the lesser comments I will lose. And the other interesting reason, that forced me to do it as soon as possible, was the change of Google’s Terms of service because it actually relates to claiming ownership to what you write on your Blog. Funny, huh?
So as long as I already had a domain, it was for me quite tricky to buy a hosting. I bought my domain several years ago before I seriously started to blog, so it was just for fun. And it became for me a real problem because I had to transfer my domain to my new hosting provider for making my new self-hosted Blog work (just FYI, a self-hosted means that you install the blogging software on your own web-server without any third party involved). So to say, the main problem for me was not to transfer my Blog from Blogger to WordPress (btw, anyone can do it by themselves), but to connect my hosting-provider to my domain. But the positive thing for those of you, who do not have their own domain, is that it’s quite easy then for you to migrate your Blog. And I will show you how to do it in several easy-to-follow steps.
Domain and Hosting
Once you have taken the decision to migrate, make a list of what you have to do. And most importantly, calculate the approximate expenditure that you might need it. Yes, it might be quite pricey, but remember, it’s just a self-investment, so go ahead. So at first, you will need to have these two things: Website hosting and domain name. After that, you have to find such a WordPress theme, that you would like to use. There are a lot of companies, who provide very nice semi-custom templates.
The main and the most painful (well, only for me) part of this migration is to transfer your Blog data and to connect your domain to your hosting. Normally, it will be done automatically after you've bought a hosting package+domain.
Ask for Advice
Looking back at this very hard and very frustrating experience and this way, that I had done alone, I can say with confidence that it was worth it. With no doubts! And if you’re still not sure about migration from Blogger to WordPress, just remember one simple thing — it is one of the important investments in your blog success so far. So go for it!
Hope, this post will help you to make a right decision and to move forward. I’m happy to answer all your questions in my comments’ thread below. Feel free to ask and remember — there is nothing impossible to do, so just do it!
Support Documentation
As I mentioned before, if you already have a domain, well, then I hope your provider has a special WordPress synchronizer, which saves your time and nervous system. Unfortunately, I had to do it all by myself, because, firstly, I have already had a domain, secondly, my first hosting provider made me wait more than two weeks and, truly say, the customer service and support were horrible. So I had to terminate the contract and find another hosting provider. When I found him, I had to do all the MySQL installations and to deal with PHP database all by myself. But I’ve learned one important lesson, when you deal with all the stuff alone and finally exactly figured it out how it all works from the inside; it is really motivating because you understood that you could do actually much much more. And the easiest part from all of this, after all, is to set up your Blog Template (haha, just kidding).
So one more good advice, before you start the migration —backup your Blogger blog including the XML template, blog posts and comments just to be on the safe side. And the hardest part WordPress will do by itself — it an easy one-click option for importing blog posts and reader comments from Blogger into your new WordPress Blog.
