This is how you can move from Blogger to WordPress in 7 steps

introduction

 Blogger to WordPress With Google’s Blogger service, you quickly reach the limits of your possibilities if you want to do more with the blog than just write articles. Switching from a Blogspot blog to self-hosted WordPress(.org) makes sense, which can be expanded (e.g. with an online shop, forum, member area, directory and much more) and adapted. In addition, with Blogger you may also risk warnings or fines because Google has not yet offered a contract for order processing (however, many other data protection problems have been solved, see my checklist for Blogspot & GDPR ). In my guide you will learn step by step how to migrate your Blogspot blog to WordPress without tearing your hair out.

1. Order your own domain and hosting

The first step to a self-hosted blog is always ordering your own domain and hosting. I recommend the hosting package CMS Pro from webgo , which offers everything you need for your own blog:

• 40GB of storage space and 1024MB of RAM
• Fast loading times compared to other providers
• PHP 8.0 and http/2
• Free SSL certificate via Let’s Encrypt
• An AV contract that can be concluded directly in the customer area
• The ability to disable logging of IP addresses

As a new customer, you get the first 6 months free of charge and then only pay €4.95 per month (incl. VAT).

Savings tip: If you enter the voucher code blogmojoduring the ordering process (when entering your personal data), you will receive a further 10 € discount. So you only pay €19.70 in the first year. An absolute no-brainer!

2. Install WordPress

Once you have ordered a domain and hosting, it is now time to install WordPress. The following steps are necessary for this:

1. Generate SSL certificate with Let’s Encrypt (can be found at webgo in Webspace Admin under Package Management > SSL > Create SSL , select the domain there and then click on Create ).
2. Download WordPress files in German  as a ZIP file
3. Unzip the zip file and transfer it to your FTP server using  FileZilla  (to the directory associated with your domain)
4. Create database
5. wp-config-sample.php in  wp-config.php and enter access data to the database (database name, database user and password).
6. Go to your domain , which I personally prefer) and follow the installation instructions. Please note that you must include https in the URL!

You can find a detailed guide to this in my article  Installing WordPress: The Foolproof Guide for Beginners

3. Configure WordPress correctly

Before you take the next step and transfer your content from Blogspot to WordPress, you still need to configure WordPress correctly.

For example, you have to do the following:

• Change post name permalink settings (found under Settings > Permalinks > Common Settings )
• Remove Sample Post and Page (titled Hello World! and Sample Page )
• Turn off saving uploads to year and month based folders (found under Settings > Media > Upload Files )
• Removing the pre-installed plugins ( Hello Dolly and Akismet )
• Installing a WordPress theme. You can find a nice selection in my article 29 brilliant WordPress themes for your blog (+tips for theme search!) .
• Install plugins (recommended plugins can be found in my articles on the overall best WordPress plugins and privacy plugins )

4. Import posts into Word Press (with WordPress Importer)

If you have ticked off all the previous steps, it is now time to import your content!

To do this, first install and activate the Blogger Importer Extended plugin .

Now you must first log into your Google account to give the importer access to your data:

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see an overview of all the blogs associated with your account:

You then select the blog to be imported, tick two boxes for Convert formatting and Preserve slugs and click on Start Import .

Now all posts, pages, comments and images are gradually transferred:

Once the import is complete, you can see your Blogspot content in WordPress (found under Pages, Posts, Comments, and Media).

5. Clean up

After importing the content, there is now a lot to do! Now all imported content needs to be checked, corrected and reformatted.

5.1 Reformat pages and posts

Thanks to the WYSIWYG editor in Blogger, your pages and posts imported into WordPress are riddled with unnecessary formatting. If you edit your posts in another editor, such as B. Microsoft Word, and then copied it into the editor at Blogger, Word-specific formatting is also included. This can be recognized by CSS classes that contain mso (you have to switch to the text editor to be able to see these). All this formatting has to be deleted or adapted to the new design (font size, paragraphs, etc.).

Plugins that can help you customize the formatting are TinyMCE Advanced , which adds more formatting options to the visual editor in WordPress, and the  HTML Editor Syntax Highlighter plugin, which highlights HTML code in the text editor for easier customization . Some formatting can be removed globally with a plugin like Search & Replace (be sure to make a backup before use!). However, if you are unfamiliar with WordPress and HTML, I would recommend going through article by article and adjusting the formatting manually.

5.2 Categories and Tags

So that your visitors can find their way around your blog better, it is now necessary to classify your posts into categories and, if necessary, clean up the imported keywords. You can find both categories and tags in the sidebar as a sub-item under “Posts”.

5.3 Menu

Now you should create a menu in which you can classify your categories, important pages (about me page, imprint, data protection declaration, cooperation, etc.) or important contributions. Do not forget that the imprint and data protection declaration should be accessible with one click! You can do that under Appearance > Menus . Remember to set the position of the menu in the theme in the menu settings at the bottom, otherwise it will not be displayed.

5.4 Images

Unfortunately, the importer does not download images in the size you uploaded them to Blogger, but in the size in which they are included in the article. With your new design, it may be that these are displayed too small. Therefore, you should also check your pictures and upload them again if necessary.

6. Redirect Blogger posts to WordPress posts

If your new WordPress blog now looks presentable (at least for the most part), it’s time to redirect your Blogspot blog to your new blog. To do this, install and activate the Blogger To WordPress Redirection plugin . Now go to Tools > Blogger To WordPress Redirection and click on Start Configuration . You will then be shown the blog from which you imported the posts and click on Get Code . Now you will be shown a code that you have to copy (completely!): Copy the code into your Blogger template under Design > Edit HTML . Please delete all code in the template before inserting the new one. Now just click on save design and the forwarding is active!

7. Check redirects

Finally, you should use a sample of 5 or 6 posts to verify that your post URLs are redirecting from the old blog to the new one. Simply enter one of your old URLs into the browser and see if it ends up with the corresponding post in the new WordPress blog.If not, repeat step ,Enjoy your new WordPress blog!