If your Blogspot site is feeling clunky and inflexible, you’re not alone. Many bloggers outgrow Blogspot’s limited templates and functionality over time.
The good news is, you don’t have to start over from scratch. By migrating your content to a WordPress site, you can upgrade your blog from hobby status to a professional site poised for long-term growth.
But is it worth the hassle of switching blog platforms?
Let’s take a data-driven look at why ambitious bloggers choose WordPress over Blogspot. Then we’ll walk step-by-step through how to painlessly migrate your content.
WordPress is the World’s Dominant Blogging Platform, and For Good Reason
WordPress now powers over 41% of all websites on the internet. And market share is rapidly increasing with WordPress adoption growing over 600% from 2010-2020.
Compare this to Blogspot, which is on a steady decline over the past decade in terms of users and market share.
There are clear reasons for this divergence:
Customization Drives Results
The ability to tailor your site’s design and features to your unique audience is key for getting results from your blog.
Studies show blogs with custom designs have 95% more monthly visitors on average compared to more generic looking sites.
With WordPress, thousands of themes and plugins allow full customization freedom. Blogspot only offers cookie-cutter templates.
SEO Advantages
Optimizing your content for search engines is tremendously important for driving organic traffic.
WordPress has SEO advantages like clean code output, customizable URLs, and total freedom over site architecture.
Blogspot can’t compete here, with bloated code from Blogger’s templates.
Growth Without Limits
WordPress sites can scale to enterprise-levels of traffic, revenue and storage needs. Blogspot has frustrating limitations on bandwidth, image uploads and overall storage capacity.
It‘s clear WordPress offers vastly greater potential if you‘re serious about growing an ambitious blog that stands out from the crowded marketplace.
Migrating to WordPress in 7 Simple Steps
If you‘re sold on the advantages of WordPress, let‘s get your site migrated over:
Step 1: Get Reliable Hosting and Register Domain
You’ll need web hosting and a custom domain name for your self-hosted WordPress site. Avoid discount shared hosts prone to downtime. Instead choose a managed WordPress host like WPEngine for flawless performance, security, and support.
Most managed hosts offer a simple setup process or one-click installation of WordPress.
Step 2: Pick Your Theme and Must-Have Plugins
One major benefit of WordPress is total design freedom. Install a premium theme from a quality marketplace like ThemeForest for unique personality. Stay on brand by customizing colors, fonts, and layouts.
Then fortify your site‘s core functionality with security and optimization plugins like WordFence and Yoast SEO. Consider options like OptimizePress to create high-converting landing pages.
Step 3: Export Posts and Media from Blogspot
Navigate to Blogspot’s Settings > Other > Export blog. This may take a few minutes for larger sites. The result is an XML file containing all your posts, comments, images and other content ready for import into WordPress.
Step 4: Import Your Content into WordPress
In your new WordPress dashboard go to Tools > Import to upload the XML file from step #3. The built-in WordPress importer will package and transfer over your entire blog with no heavy lifting on your end.
Step 5: Redirect Blogspot to New WordPress URL
Retaining existing visitors is critical when migrating sites.
First, install the Redirection plugin on your Blogspot blog. Configure it to forward all visitor traffic to your new WordPress URL.
Next, write a post alerting readers of your new expanded WordPress site. Include links making it easy for them to follow you.
Step 6: Upload Any Missing Images
Occasionally images won’t transfer properly from Blogspot. We’ll fix this quickly with the Auto Upload Images plugin for WordPress. It will scan all image URLs on your site and upload any missing ones into your media library automatically.
Step 7: Gradually Phase Out Your Blogspot Account
Avoid immediately deleting your Blogspot account. Give the new WordPress site ample time to establish itself in terms of email list signups, site indexing, retaining visitors etc.
Once your WordPress traffic eclipses Blogspot, then fully shut down the account.
Monetizing Your Shiny New WordPress Blog
The work of migrating to WordPress clears the pathway for meteoric growth. Now the fun begins!
Let‘s look at proven ways to monetize your site and reap the rewards of investing in WordPress:
- Advertising – Easy ad placements through auto-ads or mediation platforms like Ezoic. More advanced bloggers get premium CPMs working directly with brands and ad agencies.
- Affiliates – Promoting relevant products, tools or services related to your niche. Examples: Bluehost for hosting, AWeber for email marketing.
- Products/Courses – Info products, online courses, and virtual summits offer the best margins for established blogs.
- Email Lists – Building an engaged subscriber list delivers long-term income through promotions. Incentivize signups with lead magnets offering valuable resources.
The sky‘s the limit in terms of income thanks to total freedom over site monetization with WordPress.
Lockdown Security on Your WordPress Site
With the flexibility of WordPress comes greater security responsibility.
Follow these best practices for an impenetrable site:
- Always stay updated on latest version of WordPress and all plugins/themes to maintain crucial security patches.
- Research plugins thoroughly before installing. Only choose those that are well-coded and actively maintained. Deactivate and delete inactive ones.
- Install a security plugin like WordFence for firewall protection, blocking bad actors, and scanning malware.
- Make frequent backups locally and off-server to guard against data loss disasters.
Ongoing Optimization for Long-Term Growth
Now that you’ve successfully migrated from Blogspot to WordPress, the real impact begins by crafting a site uniquely aligned to your goals and audience interests.
Continually test and refine design, content types, and features using data and feedback. Prune what underperforms. Double down on what converts and engages visitors.
This cycle of careful optimization never stops on successful blogs. It is the key leveraging WordPress flexibility to stand out from the noisy crowd.
Stay focused on serving your audience – via custom site enhancements for their changing needs – and your new WordPress platform will propel your next phase of rapid growth.
Congratulations on joining the WordPress movement! You now have a professional-grade site poised to realize your blogging aspirations.
