This more than a post from me, I hope it becomes a discussion between all of us here today.
In the last two weeks I have received multiple emails from some dear bloggers asking me about my experience with WordPress.
Here is one of the emails:
” Hi Desiree!
I’ve been a follower of your blog since last summer and find you to be so inspirational.
I remember reading about your switch to wordpress and was wondering if you could offer me some advice.
Did you use Blogelina?
I think that’s what I remember reading. Also, did you have her select your host or did you use your own?
I want to switch but am pretty nervous, I don’t know much about wordpress.
Can you tell me what the cost are to switch other than the monthly hosting fees and transfer fee?
Thank you so much in advance for any advice you can offer. 
Thanks. “
Isn’t she sweet?
I know how she feels.
picture source
I remember how terrifying it was for me to do the switch!
As I mentioned on my first post about this topic my greatest fear was to lose my work, your comments and my followers.
I am sure many of you feel the same exact way.
So I am going to try to answer her questions and please feel free to jump in at any time…
I would really appreciate it if you add your input.
Did you use Blogelina?
Yes!
First however I tried to make the switch myself.
Why?
The truth is because I didn’t know who to ask.
I spent endless hours on the Internet trying to figure out how to do it.
When I thought I had it all figured out I cut the umbilical cord.
It did not take long for me to realized that not everything from Blogger transferred with me.
PANIC is the only way I can describe how I felt.
Then one of my sweet readers recommended Blogelina.
I decided to trust their experience and knowledge and I have to admit that $85 sounded
more than REASONABLE to me for them to do the transfer for the second time.
This time however was done perfectly.
After few emails my site was running properly, all of my comments, post and
even my RSS was back.
Based on my experience with them I will recommend their services to anyone.
They have been FANTASTIC to me and those have been
the best $85 I have ever spent.
Did you have her select your host or did you use your own?
I had my own BUT I would recommend for anyone to shop around.
Email other bloggers you trust and ask them openly who they use and if they are happy with their provider.
Can you tell me what the cost are to switch
other than the monthly hosting fees and transfer fee?
Your monthly fees will depend of the plan you choose and the provider you decide to go with.
Besides the hosting fees I spent the $85.00 and another $100 for my theme.
{ You can get free themes, I chose to purchase one }
My Advice
Make sure you transfer because YOU WANT TO DO IT not because other people are doing it.
WordPress has a ton of benefits. In my case my pageviews increased substantially after the transfer.
However in Spain people say that ” not everything that shines is gold”
This is a perfect saying for WordPress.
After you switch you have become a blog owner and with this comes responsibilities.
picture source
You need to backup your blog and take care of maintenance.
If something breaks you have to fix it or pay someone else to do it for you.
This is the only downside of WordPress for me.
As I said in my first pot, owning a home is GREAT bur renting has it’s benefits
specially if you don’t know how to fix a toilet.
{ wink }
To switch was scary and I have to be honest with you I still feel like peeing my pants when things don’t work perfectly
but I personally think I did the correct thing making the transfer.
Now, I would love for you all to leave your comments.
I hope you share your opinions.
If you have transferred tell us how you feel, do you have any advice, any recommendations,
what do you like better Blogger or WordPress.
Just feel free to speak your mind since I hope this conversation can help anyone that is anxious about
transferring their precious blogs.
Happy SUNDAY!
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20 Responses to From Blogger To WordPress. Chapter 2
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I am Desirée, the heart behind
The 36th Avenue.
I am a mamá X 4, a thrifty shopper,
a fabric lover,a paint brush best friend
and a never ending makeover believer.
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I, too , used Tanya at Blogelina.. I did my comparison shopping and looked into doing it myself. BOY am I glad I didn’t. I thought I knew a lot with my blog. I have learned how much I still need to learn since Tanya did the switch week before last. But I am enjoying the learning and the whole process and the OWNERSHIP of knowing it’s up to me to make it the amazing blog I want it to be!
I’m glad I came across your post. I am also trying to switch to wp because of all the trouble I have seen other bloggers experiencing lately. Thank you so much for sharing.
Mandy
I made the switch to self-hosted WP a few years back and couldn’t be happier! I love that I own my content, and if there is an issue, I can’t get shut down without my permission. It seemed like for a few weeks, I kept seeing posts on Twitter like “Oh my gosh Blogger, what is going on?” I love plugins, the widgets, themes, and the other immense options with WP!
SEO – search engine optimization (the inner workings of how search engines find a site) has a major web-crush on wordpress, and not so much with blogger. Kind of strange, since google owns blogger, right? But for whatever reason, WP is like a super magnet for SEO, while blogger is just your everyday refrigerator magnet.
Hope that helps.
Which basically translates to, if Desiree and I both post a tutorial on “painting a red desk” – search engines will be drawn to Desiree becaues she hosts on WP, not to me, because I host on blogger. So Desiree’s tutorial might show up on the first page on google, but mine might be several (million) pages back. Make sense?
Really? I didn’t know about this. Great info thank you so much for your comment Amanda!
I made the switch from multiple blogger blogs into one main self-hosted wordpress blog a few years ago. I’m very tech savvy but it was not the easiest process ever. If you’re not much of a techie, it’s definitely worth it to spend $85 to have someone else go through the hassles. Just make sure they get the plugin which redirects your already ranked blogger traffic to your new blog. I think it’s called Blogger to WordPress.
I think that page views often increase when one switches to WP because of the powerful natural SEO integration of the WP framework. Plus I think that google ranks pages higher in the end if they’re on their own domain.
One other major plus for me by switching to my own domain was that advertisers and sponsors take you far more seriously. I got significantly more interest from companies as soon as I completed the move.
I’m not a serious blogger at all. I started a blog on Blogger a while back as part of my venture into the digital scapbooking world. I found the layouts pretty easy to customize with my limited amount of coding knowledge. I like my blogs to be “pretty” ( I come from the years of diaryland!) and just use them as a place to jot down some random journaling, maybe some pictures, and never really thought much of trying to make money at it (until recently!) A few months ago, I decided to give WordPress a go, just to see if there was much of a difference….and I LOVE WordPress. I love the picture gallery, I love the different tools you can use, I ADORE the phone app, and I too loved the fact that I could make some of my posts private. The whole interface is so much more sleek and stylish and functional. I however, did not like the fact that I had to pay to customize the look of my blog. It annoyed me so much that I switched back to blogger! HOWEVER, if I were to be in the “blogging business” and intended on paying for a service of any sort, I would most definitely switch back to WordPress in an instant!
And as far as your increased traffic once switching to WordPress, it might have something to do with the main page, where they post the links to the most recently updated blogs? I picked up a couple of random followers on my wordpress blog in just the few short months I had it, and I really never posted that much (or about anything of importance!)
So in short I feel, if your just a casual blogger, posting a few crafty ideas, or family updates every now and then, Blogger works just fine. But if you are in the blogging business, it’s definately worth the extra money to go with WordPress!
Crystal,
Thank you so much for your comment.
Hi Everyone, Desiree thanks for the great candid advice! I’m VERY new to blogging and am currently on blogger. I’ve spent some time researching a switch to word press and was so thrilled to see this post of yours. I guess the benefit of being so new in my case is that I can make lots of adjustments now before my blog expands and gains great followers. THANK YOU DESIREE, the timing of your post was perfect for me.
I am on wordpress right now, but am using the .com free stuff and am thinking about making the switch to the .org in order to be able to post ads. I am worried about that extra responsiblity though, as I am no computer expert. Does Blogelina handle that kind of a switch as well??
I just moved part of my Tumblr Blog to WordPress and love it because of the “widgets” they offer – from google analytics, social media sharing, and the list goes on and on. I especially like the SEO ones where I can make sure I have the right URL, page title, etc… Most importantly I road tested a ton of amazing themes to make sure they matched by limited ability!
I am so glad to read this today. My new WordPressblog goes live today and I am so excited and nervous. I paid byaimee to do it. Although I feel I could have, I was so worried about screwing something up. Thank you or the honest opinion.
I’ve been wondering about this for a long time. Thanks so much for the advice and reference to blogelina! So your page views went up after switching to a word press site? That is interesting do you know why that is?
I’m not sure why but it did happened.
I’ve been on blogger since 2004; a couple of years after that, I switched to wordpress, because it had the ability to make some posts private, and I needed that at that point. Since then, I’ve moved back to blogger. I did the move both ways (to wordpress and back again) by myself.
The main reason I am loathe to make the move away from blogger is the fact that I like seeing that little “on blogger since July 2004″ on my profile – I’m not a prolific poster, but I think it gives me some kind of credibility for people to know that I’ve been here for almost 8 years.
Having said that – I am curious to know why you would get double the page hits through wordpress versus blogger – that is tempting in and of itself (sometimes, although I blog for my pleasure not because I want huge numbers, but it might be kind of satisfying to see my blog numbers increase). Do you have any explanation for the jump in viewers?
I don’t. Maybe it has nothing to do with WordPress, maybe it was just the right time.
Switching blog platforms is always scary
Everything looks beautiful…Hang in there! Remember, if we don’t change we don’t grow 
Have a beautiful new week! xoxox
Hi Desiree! I am in the process of making the switch to WordPress. I found a great book…How to Move from Blogger to WordPress And it’s pretty good. I also decided to learn as much HTML and CSS as I can so if it breaks, I might have a small clue of how to fix it…and I want to customize my child theme, so I joined lynda.com, which has a ton of tutorials on coding languages, photoshop and other design programs! It is amazing and is very reasonable. I’ve probably spent more than $85 so far, but I feel much more confident going forward. It’s a scary prospect, but I think I am BOLD enough to take it on!
Having said that, I think $85 is a steal to hire a professional! With all of the changes Google is making, I am really glad to be moving away from them. I do feel as if I were “buying” my own home…. Thanks for the post! It was nice to hear your experience!
Thank you so much for those links!
I will check them out!