Migrate from Blogger to Wordpress

I've migrated my wordpress.com blog Lifeasplay to self hosted wordpress at play.fit2thrive.co.uk. The next step is migrating my blogger sites to self hosted wordpress.

I started with the same plugins as my other site. Then looked to import from Blogger.

I'm starting with competitiveurge.co.uk. I search for export blogger to wordpress.

So here's the process I'm using to migrate.

• How to Switch from Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Rankings

Importing the posts went pretty easily

Update Wordpress

For each new wordpress install I created my first task was to update it to the latest version. I consistently found that I would kick off the install process and no progress would occur. I would just see the message downloading wordpress.

What should happen is that the page slowly fills with all the completed update tasks and then an upgrade complete message appears. This generally didn't happen. The quick fix I found was to install another plugin and then come back and update wordpress. I reasoned that the update process was either not configured correctly first time or caching faulty data. Updating a plugin reset the process and it worked fine after that.

I don't know if this is specific to my hosting. I'm surprised I had problems with such a basic process as upgrading a fresh install but I share this incase it helps anyone.

Pages

These weren’t imported  by the importer so I just created and moved them myself.

Settings

general/basic

Copy the site name and tagline from blogger to wordpress

Theme

I need to find something suitable. My http://thecompetitiveurge.blogspot.co.uk/ template had a specific image.

Redirection

I need to finish the redirection part of the guide. I adjusted the permalink structure. Now I need to adjust the blogger template to redirect to http://compete.fit2thrive.co.uk/

Statistics

How do I get them from blogger?

Promotion

Promotion and redirection is the same for my self hosted wordpress site

• Directories:I signed up competitive urge with a bunch of blogging directories. These need changing
• social accounts: Adjust my blog url on sites like favebook. twitter, gplus

Migrating from wordpress.com to self hosted wordpress

I've migrated my wordpress.com blog Lifeasplay to self hosted wordpress at play.fit2thrive.co.uk so I thought I would share the process.

To make the process smooth I follow the excellent guide Going self-hosted: my step-by-step guide for wordpress.com users.

The extra details I would add are the plugins I have installed. Being a newbie to wordpress I'm going with the basic plugins I've been recommended. If you are like me I though this would be helpful. Most of these were recommended by the majority of people, books and blogs I consulted.

Plugins 

• Jetpack: An amazing plugin that seems to do everything
• All In One SEO Pack

From the book word press for beginners

• Google XML Sitemap 
• wp dbmanager 
• contact form 7 
• wp policies: Pages are hidden by default. Add them to the theme footer. The Plugins main page tells you how 

Security

Wordpress isn't very secure by default. A friend suggested these plugins to lock it down.

• BulletProof Security 
• Look-See Security Scanner 
• WP-Sentinel 

Promotion

What I still have to do is tell the world my blog has moved

• Add to blog lovin and the other blog sites I have registered with
• Submit the site xml through Google webmaster if the plugins haven't already done this.

Planning my blog migration

I like to plan and experience has shown me this saves a ton of pain later. My blogs have become really important to me which is why I am moving them in the first place. Of course I have a specific plan in mind and I have to talk to my new hosting company to see how best to achieve it.

Aidan from TSOHost emailed yesterday with the nice and professional mail

Thank you for your order, please let us know if you need any help in future.

This is why I went with them. So this morning I have replied to mail with my first set of questions.

I've included the text of the mail because you may have similar questions. It feels weird to share because it feels private but then I realised it's not. It's the future of this blog and all my others. This blog may become fit2thrive with my others being divisions of it e.g. play.fit2thrive.co.uk and compete.fit2thrive.co.uk. 

What I actually end up with may change but you may be interested in my current vision. I like it when others share their plans about their blogs, apps and things so I'm doing the same. I haven't gone into all the detail yet. I thought I would let that come out in time. 

So here is the mail I sent them. 

Thanks Aidan,

I've got multiple blogs to import so I'm picking the easiest first leaving the hardest until last.

My first task is to migrate my existing blog lifeasplay. It's a wordpress blog and I need to migrate it to wordpress on my tsho hosting. There are a few questions I have first

1) Sub domains: I want lifeasplay to be a subdomain of my main account with the url play.fit2thrive.co.uk. Before I do anything like install wordpress I want to understand how you guys achieve this.

Do you point subdomains at:

1. specific directories on the same server
2. separate servers or instances 

This then leads onto questions about how I will set up wordpress. Will I have multiple instances to maintain or just one instance.

I assume this is a common question so I would prefer your lead on achieving this best on your site.

2) Free migrations. Do I simply tell you what I want and you sort it out or do you need more from me. I'd like to see how you guys set things up atleast once so I can use this as a template for later. It would get me started much faster.

I believe you will need login details for the sites to migrate. I can supply these when needed.

I'm just starting the conversation first.

regards

colin