Hi! This tutorial is going to show you how to move your blog from Blogspot to a self-hosted WordPress account. If you’re still debating whether you should move, check out my 3 reasons why I think WordPress is better than Blogger.
The actual move is really easy, but the prep and after work takes a little more time. Moving your blog is very similar to moving house (sticking with my renting vs. owning analogy). You pack boxes, clean, and sometimes you paint before you move in (sometimes after). Once that’s done you drive across town to your new place. That was the easy part. Then you unpack and set up your new place!
In blog language, the move from Blogger to WordPress looks like this:
- Purchase a hosting for your blog
- Install WordPress
- Upload a theme
- Clean up your Blogspot Blog
- Adjust settings in WordPress
- Move the content
- Set up the blog
- Redirect links
Purchase hosting for your blog
The first step to moving your blog to WordPress is to purchase a self-hosted server for your blog. For people just starting their blogs, I recommend getting a Blue Host or Just Host starter or plus plan. If you’ve been blogging a while and already have a good amount of traffic I recommend using more advanced hosting: Blue Host WordPress account or SiteGround.
Install WordPress
WordPress is very simple to install on your sever. You can go to WordPress.org and download a .zip file and then install that file on your cPanel. Or, you can login to your cPanel by visiting yourblog.com/cPanel and use the WordPress installation button. No coding, no learning curve, just a “one click” install. Once installed, go and adjust your general settings.
Add a theme to your blog
A WordPress theme adds additional structures, functions, and visual display to your WordPress Blog. I recommend Genesis themes because they are beautiful, responsive, HTLM 5 current, cleanly coded, and SEO enhanced. If you need help choosing a theme read my tips for picking out a great theme for your blog. Or, here is a post on my top 5 favorite themes.
To upload your new theme, log in to your WordPress dashboard by going to yourblog.com/wp-admin. Then, navigate to Appearance – Themes – Add New.
Clean up your Blogspot Blog before moving it to WordPress
First, you want to head over to your Blogspot blog and make sure everything is cleaned up. No point in moving garbage. Delete or publish any files in the drafts section of your Posts. That’s about all you need to do.
Adjust settings in WordPress before moving your content from Blogger to WordPress
By now you’ve purchased your self-hosted server and installed WordPress. Log in to your WordPress account by visiting yourblog.com/wp-admin. Before you move your content over, you need to adjust some settings inside WordPress. PLEASE do not skip these steps.
Images
I transferred this example blog over several times, to get this tutorial just right. (You know how food blogs test their recipes a few times before posting them, it’s like that but I didn’t get any yummy treats.) The first time I made the transfer, the images were horrible! They were so blurry. After doing some research, I found this response from the plugin creator:
By default, the Blogger-WordPress plugin we are going to use sets all of your pictures to the Medium size file. In order to keep image quality, here is what I did: from your WordPress dashboard go to Settings – Media and then set the Max Width to something ridiculously high (or, if you know the max width/height of the images now on your blog, set it to that). 1500 is usually good enough. You can always adjust this later with the Thumbnail Re-generator plugin. By making this adjustment your pictures will not be smashed/condensed/blurred when you transfer them from Blogger to WordPress.
Import Blogger to WordPress
Now it is time to move your Blogger content over to WordPress.
Install the Blogger to WordPress plugin
First, you need to install the plugin used to move your content. On your WordPress dashboard go to Tools – Import. Click the top link, Blogger. This will import your tags, posts, images, and comments. It doesn’t import pages, but those are easy to set up after the move is complete.
Click Install Now
Once the installation is complete click Activate Plugin & Run Importer.
Import
To start the import, click Authorize (Google will also ask for your approval).
Now that everything is set up, it is time to click Import.
Depending on the size of your blog, it could take a long time. This blog took about 20 minutes. (You can read our blog, or browse our Pinterest page while you wait.) 😉 This particular Blogger to WordPress transfer froze a few times, so I had to restart. It picked up where it left off from and didn’t have any problems.
Eventually, you’ll get this message:
I told you the actual moving part is easy! Go ahead and review everything to make sure it transferred.
Convert Categories to tags
One of the advantages of WordPress is the ability to have categories and tags. In this post, we talk about the difference and how to use them. To convert some of your Blogspot categories to tags, install the Categories and Tags Converter plugin by following the same process above. Once activated, you can use the plugin by going to Tools – Import – Categories and Tags converter. For this blog, we left anything tagged with Crafts, Recipes, Dinner, Breakfast, Lunch, Family, Holidays, and Decor as categories and then converted everything else to tags.
We then went and made Dinner, Breakfast, and Lunch subcategories of the category Recipes. To create subcategories, go to Posts – Categories and then click on the category you want to make a subcategory.
Add pages, set up menus, and add content to your sidebar.
Now that your content has transferred over from Blogger to WordPress, and all the technical stuff is taking care of, you can finish setting up your blog! First, go add pages and menus, and then add content to your sidebar.
This blog uses the Metro Genesis Theme. Your blog won’t look exactly like the theme demo until you get everything set up nicely.
Once everything is set up how you’d like it is time to redirect your links and traffic to your new site.
Redirect links from you .Blogspot url to your new domain name
Now that your content is on WordPress, you want to make sure that your visitors end up on your new blog and not on your Blogspot blog. To do this, we are going to use a plugin to redirect the traffic. Go to Plugins – Add New and search for “Blogger to WordPress”. Select the plugin called Blogger to WordPress that is by rtCamp. This plugin is different from the first Blogger to WordPress plugin we used, it only redirects traffic from your Blogspot blog to your new blog.
Install the plugin and then activate it.
Once activated, click the Start Configuration button. Once your Blogspot blog appears under List of Blogs, click Get Code.
Copy that code and head over to your Blogspot account for the blog you are transferring. Then, go to the Template page.
Once on the Template page, back up the Blogspot site. To do this click the backup button in the top right corner and follow the instructions.
Now that your site is backed up (just in case!) it is time to edit the HTML.
From the template page on your Blogger dashboard, click Edit HTML.
Now, delete everything in the HTML box. I know it’s scary, but it’s okay: you have your new blog on your own server and you just did a back up, you won’t lose anything. Once deleted, paste the generated code from plugin. Click save.
Head back over to the Blogger Redirection plugin on your WordPress dashboard and click Verify Configuration.
Now, any time someone clicks on a link with your old Blogspot URL it will redirect them to your new blog.
The move from Blogger to WordPress is now complete! Not only do you have a great looking blog but it will also help your SEO, allow you monetize your blog, and give you full control of your blog.
We’d love to see your new blog! Leave a link to the blog your just moved from Blogger to WordPress and we’ll check it out!
Jenn says
March 11, 2018 at 5:32 pmHello! This was SO helpful! I too have the issue of blurry images from blogger to WordPress. I had uploaded everything to WordPress and then I saw your comment on that…is there a way to unload and reload content? I tried to just reload after adjusting my settings and that didn’t seem to work! Any ideas would be helpful! Thank you!
Kristie Hill says
March 12, 2018 at 6:08 amHi Jenn. If you imported your content already, the only way I’ve found to unload and reload is to have your hosting company clear your WordPress installation and start all over. Only ideal if you haven’t already redirected everything.
Sara says
January 25, 2018 at 1:28 amHi Kristie,
I just wanted to thank you because your article helped me to solve an upsetting issue I had while importing my blog to WordPress. Most of my images were blurred.. and I have more than a hundred, since I’m an illustrator! I just changed the wordpress media settings like you said, before importing the XML.
Thanks!
Sara
Kristie Hill says
February 2, 2018 at 6:16 amYay! This is an old tutorial, but I am so glad that the image trick still worked for you! It was definitely my biggest frustration when I started moving blogs over.
Christina says
October 14, 2015 at 8:45 pmHelp! I get to the page where is should ask me to authorize but instead it says:
Howdy! Upload your Blogger Exported XML file and we’ll import the contents from it into this site.
Choose an XML file to upload, then click Upload file and import.
Choose a file from your computer: (Maximum size: 50 MB)
What do I do?
Kristie Hill says
October 15, 2015 at 10:36 amHi Christina, looks like they completely updated the plugin last month (I’ve been out on maternity leave, so didn’t notice they updated).
Follow these instructions to download your google XML file
Once you’ve saved it to your computer, you can follow the instructions provided by the Importer plugin.
You can then continue my tutorial at the section convert categories to tags
Cassie says
August 30, 2015 at 10:16 amHi Kristie!
I can’t tell you how helpful your site is! I’ve been parked here for days researching moving from Blogger to WordPress – it’s so intimidating!
Is there a way to begin working on building the WordPress site (customizing the theme, organizing the site, etc.) before actually moving? I can’t even login to the WP admin because it keeps redirecting me to GoDaddy (where I originally purchased my domain for Blogger). If I do it myself I’m sure it will take make a while, and I don’t want my Blogger site to be out of commission until the WP site is ready…
Kristie Hill says
August 30, 2015 at 9:09 pmYes! Who is your hosting with? You will need to set up WordPress on a temporary domain. If you have Bluehost, you can easily do this when you use their WordPress install- it gives you the option to install WP on a temporary domain. If you are using someone else foe your hosting, you may need to contact support and ask them to set WordPress up on a temporary domain foe you.
Then, you will import your blogger blog, get the design set up as you like it, and THEN redirect your URL to you new location and go live!
Let me know if you have more questions/need further help!
Vanessa says
July 1, 2015 at 10:42 amOmg! This was extremely helpful. I’ve been thinking about switching for a while now, and the way you described the entire process here doesn’t seem too bad..
I do have one question.. If I want to transfer disqus blogger comments to wordpress, how do you recommend I go about that?
Thanks!
Katie Sparks says
June 25, 2015 at 12:42 pmThank you SOOOOO much for this tutorial! I am transferring my blog now. Just signed up with Bluehost (using your affiliate link, yay!). Installing WordPress now and then I’ll be buying Genesis (with your link of course!). Thanks so much for this. I feel so much more confident doing this on my own now!!
Kristie Hill says
June 25, 2015 at 1:27 pmHi Katie. This tutorial is slightly out dated. Instead of using the blogger importer plugin, you need to use the Blogger Importer Extended. Search for it in plugins. Then, follow the same steps.
Lisa Fedeson says
June 1, 2015 at 9:59 amHello! I am trying to import from Blogger to WordPress and I cannot. I get the message “You’re being redirected to this article because the application you’re using uses OAuth 1.0, and we only support the newer OAuth 2.0 at this time.” What can I do? How can I get around this? Is that even possible? I don’t want to have to start over, completely, but I guess I will have to if I cannot get this figured out. I’m not much of a tech person, so I rely on your blog posts a whole lot.
Thanks -Lisa
Kristie Hill says
June 1, 2015 at 1:18 pmHi Lisa! Yes, this post is outdated, as noted in the top bar I am still looking for the best solution to the blogger importer plugin. I think I have found it though! Instead of using the Blogger Importer plugin, go add the plugin “Blogger Importer Extended” It has worked for me. Other than the plugin, everything else in this tutorial is the same. Good luck, let me know if you have any other questions.
Chelsea @Life WIth My Littles says
April 11, 2015 at 10:03 amHey Kristie! I have a quick question. So all of the pins from my site have the URLs already published, and I’m just worried I am going to lose those all because the URLs for my wordpress site might be different. Will the plugin you suggest at the end cover that? Like if someone clicks a pin from my blogger blog will it get redirected to the right wordpress post, even if the URL is different? For example, the url for my blogger post is http://www.lifewithmylittles.com/2013/08/25-things-to-do-before-your-baby-is-born.html but when it gets generated on wordpress it is showing as http://www.lifewithmylittles.com/25-things-to-do-before-your-baby-is-born.
Kristie Hill says
April 11, 2015 at 1:32 pmHey Chelsea, the blogger redirect is working, but since you changed the permalink structure of your blog you will need to redirect that too. Here is how I do that https://yoast.com/change-wordpress-permalink-structure/
(or go into your permalinks and change it to CUSTOM: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html
Gerry keaton says
March 25, 2015 at 4:57 amThank you for sharing valuable information. Nice post. I enjoyed reading this post. The whole blog is very nice found some good stuff and good information here Thanks
Kristie Hill says
March 25, 2015 at 9:51 pmThanks Gerry!
Poornapragna Gudibande says
March 20, 2015 at 6:39 amHi,
This post was really helpful. I was struggling with poor quality of images after importing from Blogger to WP. Your instruction on how to retain image quality when you transfer was fantastic and it really worked after i reimported it as per instructions in this post. Thanks so much.
Best regards,
Poorna
Kristie Hill says
March 20, 2015 at 12:51 pmGlad it worked for you. It is so frustrating to have blurry images.
Iulia Gulia says
January 23, 2015 at 9:42 pmThis may seem like a really obvious question, but what do I do with my Blogger site once I’ve transferred everything to wordpress? Shut it down? Make it private? Delete posts? I read somewhere that Google doesn’t like duplicate content, but I’m not sure what that actually means.
Kristie Hill says
January 24, 2015 at 12:43 amI emailed you insrtuctions:)
Poornapragna Gudibande says
March 20, 2015 at 6:40 amHi Kristie,
Can you also send me these instructions?
best regards,
Poorna
Kristie Hill says
March 20, 2015 at 12:51 pmThe step where you redirect your blogspot blog to WordPress takes care of your blogger blog. Scroll to the section that says, “Redirect links from you .Blogspot url to your new domain name”
Iulia Gulia says
January 21, 2015 at 8:32 pmThank you so much for posting this tutorial. I’m transferring my site this weekend and am pretty nervous about it, but this tutorial is very helpful! I do have a question. If I already own my own domain name (even though I’m on blogger), do I still use the rtCamp Blogger to WordPress plugin to redirect my traffic or should I go through my host to just point my domain to WordPress?
Thanks!
Kristie Hill says
February 12, 2015 at 1:36 pmI actually use the blogger 301 redirect if the blog has a custom domain name.
Kristyn says
January 20, 2015 at 6:59 amI’d like the labels I’ve used in Blogger to become my categories in WordPress. When I move the content will I lose the labels and have to categorize all my posts again?
Kristie Hill says
January 20, 2015 at 8:27 amWordPress has categories and labels. When you come over to WordPress, all of your labels will become tags. You can use the Categories converter plugin mentioned in this tutorial to convert some of them to categories. I recommend trying to only have 5-10 categories.
Kristyn says
January 20, 2015 at 9:37 amThanks! I’ve read the tutorial several times but still managed to miss that. I swear, moving my daughter to college was less of a worry than moving my blog has been for me!
Kristie Hill says
January 20, 2015 at 1:34 pmIt’s okay, keep asking questions. You got this. A few other tips, I recently discovered this plugin that is really helpful. Maintain Blogger Permalinks It has saved me several times! It automatically fixes the permalinks to match your blogger ones.
I don’t know if you’ve checked out my quick guide, but I added a few more instructions for moving your blog when you have a custom permalink.
And lastly, if you haven’t yet, you should check out Genesis themes, they have a few that are created for real estate!
Winning Agent Pro Theme and AgentPress Pro Theme (aff links)
Gennie says
January 15, 2015 at 6:06 amI am just about ready to make the move over to a self-hosted WordPress site, and this is SO helpful to me! Thank you so, so much!!!
Kristie Hill says
January 15, 2015 at 3:58 pmI’m glad you found it helpful, feel free to tweet me or email me with any questions along the way! [email protected]
Sage says
January 12, 2015 at 4:13 amGreat tutorial! I recently migrated my blog (www.sageandsimple.com) from Blogger to WordPress and couldn’t figure out why my images were so pixelated. Your info helped me to sort it out quickly, without have to manually update close to 500 posts’ worth of images!
Thank you!!!!
Kristie Hill says
January 12, 2015 at 2:55 pmOh good, I’m glad it fixed it for you! You did a great job setting up your theme. Love Genesis, especially Brian’s new social sharing icons!
Stefan says
October 22, 2014 at 1:32 pmHi Kristie,
great article. I had exact the same blurry pics after importing from blogger. I want to try a re-import, but blogger import plugin wouldnt import again, although I deleteted the old posts. How can I re-import my blogger posts?
Thanks so much!!
Kristie Hill says
October 22, 2014 at 2:17 pmHi Stefan! I’m trying to remember how I re-imported. Did you already refresh your list and clear account information in the Blogger-Wordpress area?
Stefan says
October 22, 2014 at 2:21 pmHi, thansk for answering so quickly!
I refreshed the list and also cleared the account information. I even deleted the posts hoping importer would start now – it does not ;(
Stefan says
October 24, 2014 at 9:02 amHey,
yes, I managed to get my posts back.
Per the developer of the “blogger importer” plugin it should have worked after deleting all the posts AND emptying the trash (unfortunately I didn`t clear out the trash, so it did not work for me. I got their feedback a little too late).
What I did instead was getting the “wordpress reset” plugin, did a database reset and started all over again. That was ok for me as I just started my blog, it would have been a big hastle and pain in the ass if this blog were pretty old and filled with content.
For the blurry pictures – this was due to a setting in my WP settings/media (max picture max size was 600 px or something, some of my pics were way bigger -> WP shrunk and thus blurred them). After setting those import settings to a way higher number of pixels my re-imported pictures just look as awesome as they did before ;))
Thanks again for your help!
Kristie Hill says
October 24, 2014 at 1:41 pmI’m glad it is all working!
Stefan says
October 24, 2014 at 2:38 pmone last thing which is bothering me – the format is quite ugly and squeezed now. If I remove all formats and try to do my own format and update the posts there wont be any changes, still squeezed. Unfortunately I am to lazy to repost 130 new posts, any tool or hints you know of which might be helpful?
Kristie Hill says
October 30, 2014 at 1:34 pmHi Stefan! You definitley shouldn’t have to re post! Can you give me a post example that is squeeze?
Just to clarify, it didn’t improve when you removed all formatting?
have you tried different themes?
Stefan says
October 30, 2014 at 5:04 pmHere is an example:
http://dermessing.com/backcountry-mount-shasta/
Even when I clear the format in the editor it shows up like that. I found a kind of easy going way going into the html modus, put in some , update the post, go back in visual mode and somehow my format is back. The only thing I still have to do is clearing up the space between the pictures. And here it is still not 100% nice as I sometimes get 1 space line in between and sometimes 2 space lines. It is nothing really bad but still not 100% nice looking (although I could live with that) – here is an example of the 1/2 spacing thing (and yes, I know about “shift + enter”):
http://dermessing.com/mont-blanc-aufstieg/
But thats ok, it is working for new posts and thats most important…
Thanks again so much,
Stefan
Breanna says
September 17, 2014 at 2:53 pmHi Kristie!
Thanks for this awesome tutorial! I’m loving your blog- it’s fantastic. We’re moving to wordpress! We have a beta website setup until we can get everything transferred. Is there a way to redirect traffic to WP from blogger without changing the permalink format? I would like to keep the URLs with just the post titles. Can we still use the plugin you suggested?
Thanks, Breanna
Kristie Hill says
September 17, 2014 at 4:02 pmHi Breanna. I’m with ya! I would much rather have my posts be with out the long blogger URL and .html on the end.
The redirect plugin will still redirect links to you new posts, even if the links are not the same.
Check out this image: https://rtcamp.com/tutorials/blogger-to-wordpress-redirection-plugin/attachment/6/
That’s what the plug in does.
Changing the permalinks to match bloggers format makes it so that you are maintaining permalinks, instead of redirecting. I should probably clarify that in the post.
Kristie Hill says
September 17, 2014 at 4:27 pmHere’s an example for a little more clarification: Say someone clicks on a pin to your site before you moved to WordPress
-If you set permalinks up exactly the same: the link will go directly to your new site
-If you only redirect the links: they will go to your old site and be redirected to your new site. They aren’t going to see the old site since you’ve set up a redirection on it, but it might take an extra second to get there.
Katie says
July 5, 2014 at 1:07 pmHi! Thanks for this great tutorial. I’m going to be moving my blog over to WordPress pretty soon, but in the meantime I’m trying it with a dummy blog. The problem I keep running into isn’t addressed here- the spacing between paragraphs is not importing correctly. Where there is a space between them on Blogspot, there is not in WordPress. I’ve tried everything I can think of and nothing is fixing it. Do you have any ideas?
Kristie Hill says
July 5, 2014 at 10:04 pmHi Katie. Unfortunately, old blogs on Blogger used funky coding for spacing and it doesn’t move over very well to WordPress. People with newer blogger blogs don’t usually have this problem. I haven’t found an easy fix for the problem well.
You could read this response from the plugin author. It is a bit technical though.
If you want, you can send me a link to your test site so I can see what type of spacing problem it is. Feel free to email it to [email protected]