Migrating from Blogger to WordPress was a huge leap for me. If I were to use other adjectives, I would use huge, immense, serious, and gigantic.
I graduated from the roller coaster of deciding whether to finally move or not to the point of the actual move.
If you have been a blogger friend of mine, you know how stubborn I was with Blogspot. You may not see me expressly talk about my deep love for Blogspot on my blog because I always advocate using what works best for you; that is, if Blogspot works best for you after considering its pros and cons, go for it.
I don’t subscribe to following the popular opinion just because It would be best to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both Blogger and WordPress, compare these to your current stage as a Blogger and your goals, and then make an informed decision.
I have had people who went for WordPress from the beginning of their blogging ride. I have also had (including me) who preferred to play safe, minimize costs and stay with Blogger.
Blogger was a great platform for me until…
Many people have complained about its primitiveness compared to WordPress, which I agree with.
Another complaint is how difficult it is to design and have a beautiful blog without learning to code.
You will have a basic blog with stunted functionality, but if you want a blogger blog with a stunning design and great functionality, you either have to learn some coding or outsource it to a blog designer. By the way, I can do that for you.
But what’s so special about Blogger anyway?
1. Blogger is very cost-effective –
Imagine that I don’t have to think of hosting every year. All I have to renew is my domain name. Also, contacting a professional designer is just once in a very long while.
Apart from the domain name, my investment is a one-time expense.
2. It is effortless to use
I know of clients who want “plug and play.” Take care of everything else; I want to be able to log on to my dashboard, post, and connect with my readers. With a blogger site, it is damn easy. You only need to write and publish as long as your blog is set up.
3. Nobody has hypertension over hosting issues.
You see, if you are a Blogger looking to have tons of traffic, quality hosting can be quite expensive. On Blogger, you don’t have that hypertension.
Some people usually want to cheat the system. They go for low-quality hosting, a.k.a. untrustworthy Nigerian hosting, but it usually ends up so bad that some have had to forget their blogs.
I am tempted to mention names here, but I will restrain myself now.
I checked a friend’s blog some hours ago and realized it’s down. I don’t even want to imagine how sad she will be right now with the Yeye Nigerian host she is using.
She’s repeatedly complained and thinks their customer service is deplorable! One of these hosting platforms is everywhere gallivanting, doing Ads, and sponsoring shows, but its platform is so frustrating.
Why did I Migrate My Site From Blogger to WordPress?
Some people have already seen the changes. Some knew right from the beginning of the process. Many questions are thrown at me right, left, and center (especially given that I love Blogger).
I still love Blogger very much, but here is why I had to migrate from Blogger to WordPress.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
For those who are unfamiliar with me, I’m a blogger who specializes in SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Earlier this year, I began working as an SEO Analyst, which helped me better understand SEO practices. I had to be put on probation for a while as I had a lot of technical SEO to learn. I would say I was an intern in the sense of that word.
Since then, I have learned a lot on this job. I have internalized what I have gained as experience and applied it to my blog. I later discovered, however, that Blogger is stiff in many areas of search engine optimization.
Take, for example, the permalink structure. In simple English, this means the URL format. It’s so stiff that custom editing only comes after the permanent ‘month’ configuration.
Root domain name/2018/04/post title
Your URL structure is fundamental for your posts to rank better. I wanted to optimize without the stiff nature of Blogger’s permalinks.
It’s important to mention that there are more than 200 ranking factors. Your permalink structure happens to be one. If other things are good and you edit your Blogger’s permalink well, you can still rank well and even above your competition.
I have entered professional blogging, and I would like to experiment with many things and elements. WordPress, I must say, is the foundation of professional Blogging and search engine optimization studies.
Blogger’s Https provision was becoming very annoying.
This is where you will have to conclude that my migration from Blogger to WordPress is more technical than otherwise, lol. Being the tech girl sometimes causes me to forget how to do simple things like relax and write content.
So, it seems that Blogger was not going to move forward technical-wise. Their HTTP blogs were blocked by Spectra Net and some other internet providers.
Their SSL feature was the same! Google owns Blogger. This same Google is mounting pressure on webmasters. They are favoring sites with https over those without.
I understand the need to get sites more secure and the enforcement by making its compliance a ranking factor (still SEO talk right here, sighs), but why they aren’t making their platforms the best of this in this regard is baffling.
Yes, I get it; free comes at a price. I so get it. I mean, with free hosting, free this, free that, free SSL, I get it, but if they want to make some features premium, they could go ahead and do that so that we get the best of that feature.
I am not the only one mad at this particular issue.
I am hoping to add some more functionality.
I want to add e-commerce in the near future. I want all of its features, and I want them to be plug-and-play.
You can have a store on Blogger, but some stiff third party will be involved. I don’t know if I also want to begin to code my store into existence. I want easy and swift.
With WordPress, I can do that easily. There are also other functionalities that Blogger may limit me for.
With Blogger at the time, I had everything I needed until I began to think more professionally.
I needed an excuse to rebrand (again)
So, a while back, I decided to post about blogging, social media, and other blogging resources that would help bloggers grow faster.
Before I made the switch, I sought opinions. While a smaller fraction of people wanted me to consider sticking to lifestyle generally, a larger fraction were all in for blogging posts only.
I made the switch but realized that it might have been a mistake. Yes, engagement increased, but my audience dropped drastically, which is most expected of niched blogs.
Some of my fanatical readers (I am so blessed, honored, and grateful to have these many) spoke up. Even the ones who initially supported my going all into blogging posts said they would not mind having lifestyle posts back in.
After considering this and realizing we are on this journey together, I reincorporated my lifestyle content. I am not writing my blog for myself only. Since it is an avenue for me to express myself, what use is the platform if I am not connecting with my readers?
While switching from Blogger to WordPress, I also decided to push the re-branding. I made some of the major categories clearer and more pronounced. You can see that with the static sliders just before the blog feed.
How To Migrate Blogger To WordPress Without Losing SEO?
How I migrated from blogger to WordPress
1. Hosting
So, the almighty hosting. See, I can’t afford to have hosting that will make my blog up today and down tomorrow. So, I decided that if I did WordPress, I would do it right once and for all. There is no need for an aka gum attitude that will stress me out.
I always had Bluehost in mind, but I was sold on Hostinger the first time someone talked about them.
I had read reviews from many reputable sites online, and the closest alternative to Bluehost for them was Hostinger. I decided to give this a shot, and I must say that the service has been so excellent. Whenever I hit the chat button to chat with them, they are with me almost immediately.
To begin with, choose a dependable hosting service. This is crucial and cannot be emphasized enough. Opting for low-quality hosting defeats the purpose of using WordPress.org.
Another great hosting service I use for my clients is WpxHosting. It is also the most affordable and high-quality. Regarding uptime, it is 24/7/365.
You should go for them if your site is fairly established!
As soon as you begin the process, every step is extremely easy, so anyone who is smartphone literate can do this.
Click here to get started!
2. Blogger import and redirection
I backed up my blogger files and imported them to WordPress. After that, I did a redirection. The process took two days as I had to wait for my DNS to propagate before starting a redirection.
Here is the summary of the process!
1. Set up your WordPress site: First, you must set up your WordPress site. Install WordPress on your hosting account and choose a theme that closely matches your Blogger site’s design. As an experienced web enthusiast, I hosted various blogs on WordPress but found Hostinger to be the best in terms of service and money.
2. To export your Blogger content, Go to your Blogger dashboard, click on the Settings tab, select Other, and click on the Export blog button. Then, save the XML file to your computer.
3. Import your Blogger content into WordPress: In your WordPress dashboard, go to Tools > Import. Select the Blogger option and follow the prompts to upload the XML file.
4. When importing your Blogger blog is finished, you will be taken to a new page that asks you to assign a user to the Blogger post. If you are the only user on the site, simply choose your name. Otherwise, select an appropriate user from the drop-down menu to attribute all the posts to and save the changes.
5. Afterward, head over to your WordPress dashboard and click on Settings > Permalinks to ensure that your links are configured in the same format as they were on Blogger. Your links were likely arranged like this:
Note: If your website is experiencing good traffic, it is advisable to maintain the same permalink structure. Changing permalinks will move all posts to new URLs, and the old URLs will become 404 pages.
This can negatively affect your ranking and result in a decrease in traffic. Therefore, it is best to stick with the existing URL permalink structure. Alternatively, you can use redirection as another option.
6. Set up redirects: To ensure that your old URLs still work and redirect to the new URLs on your WordPress site, you need to set up redirects. To establish redirects for all your old URLs, plugins such as Redirection or Simple 301 Redirects can be utilized.
7. Update your internal links: After importing your content, you need to update the internal links to point to the new URLs on your WordPress site. You can use a plugin like Velvet Blues Update URLs to update all the links at once.
8. Submit your sitemap to Google: Finally, you need to submit your new sitemap to Google to let them know about the changes. Use the Google Search Console to submit your sitemap.
3. Design
I installed my theme and began redesigning my blog. It was fun—oh my, so fun. Design lights up my face as it involves a lot of experimenting. I installed the necessary plugins and set up other essential things, and here is my first post using WordPress.
So guys, there it is, why and how I switched from Blogger to WordPress.
If you would like me to do it for you without having you lose your blog files and rankings, I am just an email away via the contact page!
So tell me, if you are a Blogger, what blogging platform do you prefer? Blogger or WordPress, why?
This post contains affiliate links. Buying through them helps me earn more money, but it costs nothing extra from your end.
Thank you.
P.S.- If you need me to work with you to get your blog to a better, sweeter spot, email me via the contact page.
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