Blogger Sucks. Wanna Move to WordPress?

I’m seeing a lot of “Blogger sucks” posts in my feeds as many are frustrated with the new login system and inability to leave links in comments from non-Blogger/Blogspot blogs, as well as other whines and gripes about the new changes to the blogging platform.

Here is a step-by-step instruction to help you move to WordPress or WordPress.com, the free blog hosting service.

Where Do You Want to Go?

You must first decide whether or not it is time to move from a free hosted site to a self-hosted site for your blog.

If you’ve been blogging for a while and you want more control over your blog’s design and flexibility, then I recommend you choose to “rent space” with a web host for a monthly fee and install the full version of WordPress.

If you are happy with free and don’t want to control every detail on your blog, then choose the free blog hosting service, WordPress.com, and join almost 2 million other happy bloggers and a fascinating and diverse community using the latest cutting edge WordPress version.

Then either install WordPress on your self-hosted site or sign-up for a free blog from WordPress.com.

To set up a self-hosted version, see the requirements for a web host, information on hosting WordPress, what to do before you install WordPress, and how to install WordPress. You can also have WordPress installed for you for free by a team of volunteers who are experts in installing WordPress.

See Also

YouTube Video Idea Generator

Before beginning, I recommend that you backup your Blogger/Blogspot blog and export it as an XML file as another backup, just in case.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Moving From Blogger to WordPress

1. 1. Stop and Look at Your New Blog: When the blog is set up, look at the blog to see the first post, a Hello from Mr. WordPress with one comment. This is the default Theme and look of your blog.
   2. Basic Set Up: Log into your WordPress Administration Panels and do the following:
      • Go to Manage > Posts panel and delete the first post.
      • Go to Comments and delete the first comment.
      • Go to Users/Profile and enter in the information about you in the appropriate forms.
      • Go to Options and enter information about your blog in the appropriate forms.
   3. Import for Blogger: Go to Manage > Import to begin the import process for Blogger. All post content, comments, and categories are imported.
   4. Fix Images: Images, unfortunately, are now hotlinked to your Blogger/Blogspot site which Blogger will not allow. Images need to be uploaded again to your new WordPress blog.In the full version of WordPress, there are a variety of WordPress Plugins for images, photographs, and graphics to speed up the process of uploading multiple images. Once uploaded, you can use the fast search and replace in WordPress MySQL database method to change the URL to the images to their new address, however, WordPress may sort and date the URL to your images, so do this with extreme care and backup first.

      WordPress.com only permits uploading one image at a time, a tedious and time-consuming activity, so consider adding only the images you really want and need to minimize the effort. Edit each post with the image in it, uploading the image at that time and changing the image location to the new one.

   5. Test your blog: View it and move around viewing the different posts, categories, archives, search, and other pageviews. Did everything work?
   6. Fix Intrasite Links: Intrasite links, links from one blog post to another on your blog, will now send readers to your Blogger blog. If using the full version of WordPress, you can use the search and replace in WordPress MySQL database method for fast changing of the links. WordPress.com bloggers must change these manually or let them go.
   7. Select Your Blog’s New Look: Now, go to Presentation and start experimenting with various WordPress Themes. If you are using the self-hosted version, check out the WordPress Theme Viewer to start.
   8. Setup Your Blogroll: Go to Blogroll/Bookmarks and edit and change the blogroll to add your favorite blogs.
   9. Alert Your Blogger Fans of Your Move: On your old Blogger/Blogspot blog, leave a “forwarding address” in a last post. Alert those on your blogroll, favorite fans, and others about the new location.
   10. Activate Comment Spam Protection: If you haven’t, activate Akismet or choose another comment spam fighting tool.
   11. Be Patient Waiting for PageRank: As for PageRank and SEO, don’t worry. You may get better and faster results with WordPress, but be patient. It takes a few days to months to catch up. Just keep blogging.
   12. Start Playing With WordPress: Start playing around with your new WordPress blog. Consider adding WordPress Plugins for full versions of WordPress from the WordPress Plugin Directory and the WordPress Plugins Database. Start playing with WordPress.com Widgets or WordPress Widgets for your full version.

It’s important to use the Default WordPress Theme during the Import process and do not activate any WordPress Plugins until after the import process is complete. This keeps the process simple and restricts tracking down bugs, flaws, or mistakes in the process only to the imported content and not the Theme or Plugins.

More on Moving from Blogger to WordPress

For more information on moving from Blogger to WordPress see the following, though not all instructions and tips may apply to the latest version of WordPress or Blogger. Also, be warned that many who switch to a new self-hosted site take advantage of money-making opportunities with their new host for promoting their services. Take time to research your own hosting service properly.