The actual transfer of blog content was done in a series of steps:
POSTS AND COMMENTS
- In WordPress, go to Tools > Import. Select Blogger from the list and enter your login information. This should automatically transfer all your posts and comments for you.
SUBSCRIPTION LINKS
- You first need to export your Blogger links to an OPML format. There are several steps to follow, but it’s easy! Go to the Blogger dashboard, click on My Account in the top nav section. This will bring you to a list of your Google products. Click on Reader, then Manage Subscriptions underneath your Subscriptions list. Go to Import/Export and Export your subscriptions as an OPML file. This exported file will be downloaded to your computer.
- In Wordpress, go to Tools > Import. Select Blogroll to import the links you’ve saved in OPML format.
SIDEBAR CONTENT AND WIDGETS
- All remaining content was either transferred manually or reconfigured with new widgets. Part of the fun of setting up a new blog is selecting the features you want.
SUBSCRIBER MIGRATION AND REDIRECTION
- Once I had all of the content transferred, I had to make sure all of my subscribers seamlessly migrated to the new blog address. I also wanted users to automatically be redirected from the Blogger site to my new blog. As I researched solutions, I came across this great guide to migrating from Blogger to Wordpress:
http://www.mamablogga.com/tag/import/
Jordan (a.k.a. mamablogga) covers everything, from registering your own domain name to the final redirection. Several of the steps were of particular significance to me and you can find the details on Jordan’s blog (thank you Jordan!!):
Step #4 — Blogger Feed settings – Jordan suggests setting up a Feedburner account, which I had already done. Back to Blogger Settings > Site Feed to enter your Feedburner address.
Step #7 — Feedburner settings – At FeedBurner, edit your feed details and make sure your feed address is correct.
Step #8 — Wordpress feed settings — Download the Feedsmith plugin from Feedburner and activate it in Wordpress.
Step #10 — Redirect Blogger visitors to your new URL — In Blogger, you edit the Layout HTML by placing this code anywhere after the <head>:
<meta content=’0; url=http://YOURNEWURL.com/’ http-equiv=’refresh’/>
Blogger visitors will automatically be redirected to your new blog! It is like magic!
