I’ve been wrestling with the idea of going self-hosted for awhile now, but I was reluctant to invest in it. I finally decided to take the plunge after a little research and it was not without hiccups. With a little googling and exploring around forums and blog posts, I figured it out. That’s why I present to you my guide to switching from Blogger to self-hosted WordPress on HostGator.
Get a Hosting Plan
This is probably the easiest step, once you commit to it! I chose to go with HostGator because it was pretty affordable and offered free migration if I chose to go that route.
Install WordPress
Most hosts actually make this pretty simple. HostGator uses a one-click installation and all you do is enter your name, email, and domain.
Set Up WordPress Admin
This is where it gets tricky if you have a domain connected to your old Blogger blog like I did. To do this while keeping the Blogger blog up while you’re configuring everything and transferring your posts over requires a temporary URL.
Finding Your Temporary URL
The temporary URL in HostGator is actually different than a lot of the tutorials I found online, which is why I struggled a bit with this. The general format for this is http://gator####.hostgator.com/~yourhostgatorusername. Note that this username is your HostGator username, NOT the one you set up as your WordPress username.
Setting Up a Temporary URL in HostGator
- Go to your cPanel and find where it says “myphpadmin” and click on it
- This brings you to a page that shows you your databases
- Find “wp_options”
- Under “wp_options” find the rows that have “siteurl” and “home” in the “option_name” column
- Edit the value in the “option_value” column to be the temporary URL you determined instead of the URL you are currently using on your Blogger blog
Now you should be able to access your WordPress dashboard using your temporary URL and proceeding it with “/wp-admin”, which is what you need to get your site ready to launch without sacrificing downtime.
Import your Blogger Blog
Luckily, there are various plugins that can help you with this: Blogger Importer and Blogger Importer Extended–which you can install to your site to help you migrate. I preferred the interface of Blogger Importer Extended but it would continually be stuck on a message saying that it unexpectedly stopped and it never actually imported everything or could determine that I was trying to start fresh. So I turned to the Blogger Importer, which required the export file that you download from your Blogger blog that houses all of your blog’s contents. This can be found in the Blogger settings under “other”. Just be sure that everything transfers over correctly and switch the categories to tags using another plugin that you can install by searching that very phrase.
Configure Theme and Add Plugins
Before you go live, find a theme you like! Most of them are at least semi-customizable, so use that to your advantage especially if you’re like me and can never find exactly the perfect theme. Also navigate to “Plugins” and add any relevant plugins that you need. A must is Blogger 301 Redirects, which lets search engines and such know that those pages can now be found in their new place. It can also handle the weird extension that Blogger uses on mobile so that there are no errors on mobile. From there it’s mainly a matter of what other plugins you want to use. I currently have one for Pinterest, an SEO one, a spam comment detector, and a security plugin, just to name a few. WordPress itself also has Jetpack which is great because it gives you features of a wordpress.com site on your self-hosted wordpress.org site.
Reverse Your URL Changes
Once you’re ready to launch, repeat the process of the temporary URL configuration and replace it with your domain.
Point Domain to HostGator
If you don’t own your domain through HostGator, you’re gonna need to point your domain to your new HostGator hosted site. To do this you’ll just need to add your nameservers on the domain. Your nameservers can be found on the same sidebar that you found part of your temporary URL on.
After you’ve done this, you’re ready to go live! At this point your domain should no longer work on Blogger but the .blogspot.com URL should point to your new site. Hopefully this helped you if you’re trying to make the switch!
