Migrate your Blogger website to WordPress quickly and professionally

The Arab web today has become full of many websites in all specialties and different fields, from personal blogs or even shopping and advertising sites, but some of these sites operate on the Blogger platform and the largest percentage operate on the famous platform WordPress, so what is the difference between them? If you are a website owner, how do you transfer the Blogger website? 

To WordPress quickly, professionally and without errors?

This is what we will learn about in our article today. What is Blogger and WordPress?

Why do you need to convert from Blogger to WordPress?

What do you need to move your Blogger website to WordPress quickly?

The cost of converting the website from Blogger to WordPress How to transfer the Blogger website to WordPress The best alternatives to WordPress that you can use 1- Wix website 2- Weebly website 3- Shopify website Mistakes that must be corrected when transferring the website from Blogger to WordPress Conclusion Frequently asked questions - Is Blogger or WordPress better?

– Why should you worry about moving your Blogger website to WordPress? What is Blogger and WordPress? Blogger: It is a platform affiliated with the famous Google company. It specializes in creating websites and personal blogs with ease. It was first launched in 1999, and what distinguishes it is that it is free for everyone and enables you to create visual and audio content and write articles.

What distinguishes the Blogger platform is the easy availability of free templates, in addition to the superior protection that Google provides for all blogs on that platform, in addition to providing a professional control panel that enables you to modify every part of your site with complete ease via html codes. During your use of the Blogger platform, you can continue with a free domain that Blogger Company provides for you, so the website link will be sitename.blogspot.com with the word sitename replaced with the name of your site, or you can easily purchase a paid domain and link it directly to your site on the Blogger platform. One of the wonderful things about this platform is that when you reach a certain level of monthly visits to Souq, the platform notifies you of your application to the famous Google AdSense service in order to achieve profit through advertisements within the pages of your articles and the main page of the blog, and in most cases, getting your site accepted into Google AdSense is very easy through Blogger.

WordPress: It is currently one of the most famous open source electronic content creation scripts on the web, whether the Arab or even foreign web, the first version of which was actually launched in 2003, knowing that the WordPress system is built on the famous programming language PHP and its databases are linked via the MySQL service. As for talking about the features of the WordPress platform, they are truly endless, as they can be customized and shaped into any site you want, whether it is an electronic shopping site, personal blogs, a car buying and selling site, or even video viewing platforms. All of this is done through a set of templates or so-called Themes, in addition to a set of add-ons that can be installed easily called Plugins, so it is always desirable to transfer the Blogger site to WordPress  by website owners on the Internet.

WordPress sites currently represent 90% of the sites on the Internet due to their ease of dealing with them and also the availability of a very professional control panel and countless themes and add-ons, whether free or even paid, with the availability of millions of explanations on the Internet about solutions to problems that you may encounter one day. As for search engine optimization, or what is called Seo, WordPress provides better search engine optimization with many SEO add-ons such as the Rank Math add-on or the famous Yoast add-on that helps you achieve the required conditions in every article you publish on your site to reach a better ranking in search engines, especially Google.

Why do you need to convert from Blogger to WordPress? In fact, we need to transfer the Blogger website to WordPress due to the lack of support for add-ons or so-called Plugins on Blogger and thus the weakness of the site modification process in addition to the very limited options regarding blog design and templates. WordPress is also characterized by a large number of updates, as every time you find a new version of WordPress, it can be updated automatically with the click of a button within the control panel. Note that the currently available version of WordPress is the sixth version, which carries many features and developments over previous versions.

Another disadvantage of Blogger blogs is the possibility of Blogger closing your account and blog at any time if the platform deems that there is something that violates its policy or its own terms. Therefore, your effort on the blog and all of your articles may disappear at any moment without any warning. As for the WordPress platform, you alone are in control of your site and it cannot be closed on its own. You can also take a backup copy of your site whenever you want, through more than one method, either through plugins designated for that or even by taking a backup copy of the Cpanel hosting control panel.

What do you need to move a Blogger website? 

To WordPress  quickly? In order to transfer from a Blogger website to WordPress, you must first make sure that you have the basic things described below, which are: 1- The name of your website or domain: such as site.com, with the word site replaced with the name of your website and the .com extension with any other extension you prefer. You can buy it online for approximately $12 or less if discount coupons are available from many sites, the most famous of which is Namecheap.

In box No. 1, write the name of your desired website next to the extension you prefer, such as .com or .net. Then press the button Website No. 2 and complete the payment and purchase process for your domain. 2- Hosting: Hosting your site is the warehouse on which you will store your site’s data. Hosting includes many types such as shared hosting, VPS, and full servers or what are called Dedicated Servers. If the site is in its infancy, we advise you to use shared hosting with the availability of a Cpanel control panel to save money, and it will serve the purpose. You can also purchase it from the same site namecheap by clicking on shared hosting. 

And choose the plan that is appropriate for you, as in the picture below. 3- Connect the domain with hosting: At this stage, you need to connect the domain name that you purchased with your hosting, and this is done through a connection called DNS, or for short, it is called the Name server. Here you have two options: either to contact the support of the domain and hosting company to do the connection process, or you can easily enter the domain settings yourself via the word “Manage” next to your domain name, as in the picture. After that, we come to the box. Name servers and we choose Custom Dns from the list as shown in the image below. After that, two fields will appear under the name Name server 1, in addition to Name server 2. We write Name Server as the hosting company gave us in the first and second fields if the hosting is from outside the Namecheap website that was explained, noting that if the hosting is from the same company Namecheap, you can choose number 2 from the list, which is Namecheap web hosting DNS.

After completing these steps, the process of linking your site will be completed successfully and the site will be ready for use and control via the Cpanel control panel. The cost of transferring the website from Blogger to WordPress. Regarding the cost of transferring the Blogger website to WordPress, it is divided into several parts (domain - hosting - transferring content or website). Regarding the domain, you can buy it within the range of $12 per year or less if discount coupons are available from the company through which you will purchase.

As for hosting, there are hundreds of companies that provide shared hosting services, the prices of which may range between ($25 to $50) annually, and each company differs in features from the other in terms of the space available to you and the bandwidth, as well as the type of server processor and server location as well. It is preferable to choose a server location close to the Arab world if you are targeting Arab visitors. The last point is transferring the Blogger website to WordPress with content. You can do this for free after following our explanation mentioned below, or if you do not prefer to start the process of transferring the website yourself, you can seek the help of an expert from service-providing sites such as the Khamsat website, and the cost will be in the range of $25 or more depending on the seller you have chosen (it is preferable to choose the seller with the highest ratings).

How to transfer Blogger website 

To WordPress 1- Download WordPress on the new hosting: Your WordPress script must first be installed via the control panel (Cpanel) by entering the control panel and entering the username and password first, as in the picture (the link to enter the control panel is sent to you by the hosting company with the username and password in the email address that you registered with on the site). After entering the CPanel control panel, many options will appear in front of you. Then go to the bottom of the page and click on the word WordPress as in the picture. 

After that, we click on the word Install now and it will take us to the WordPress download settings page as follows. This page is very important and represents the main settings for your WordPress blog. Box No. 1 must be sure to choose the https protocol in order for the site to work with the security certificate associated with the domain, which is one of the necessary conditions for any site currently. Box No. 2: We place the domain link or our domain name directly, preferably without adding www, as shown in the image below.

Box No. 3: represents the version of WordPress that you want to download to your site. It is preferable to choose the latest version available for you in this list and in our explanation dated today. The latest version is 6.1.1, which is what was chosen. Box No. 4: The name of your website or blog in general is written in Arabic. Box No. 5: Write a brief description of your site or blog, preferably not too long.

Box No. 6: The username represents the site owner, or meaning the site owner’s membership. Choose the name you prefer. Box No. 7: Choose a password for site admin membership. It is preferable to choose a difficult password (letters, numbers, and symbols) to protect your site from hackers later. After writing all the required data mentioned in the image above, we go down to the bottom of the page and click on the word Install now to begin the WordPress installation process as in the image below.

2- Taking a backup copy of your Blogger blog: We first open your blog on Blogger, and then we go to the word Settings from the right menu, as in the picture. After clicking on the word Settings, we go down to the bottom of the page until we find the word Blog Management, and we click on the word Keep a backup copy of the content below, as in the picture. After that, a confirmation message will appear to us to take a backup copy of your site. We then click on the word Download, as in the picture. 

After clicking on the word Download, we will notice that a file has been downloaded to your device in xml format. You must keep it in a path that you know well on your device because we will use it later in the process of transferring to the WordPress blog. 3- Adjust the WordPress blog settings: First, to open the WordPress control panel for your site, we write the domain name of your site and then add wp-admin to the link as follows: site.com/wp-admin) 

  (With the word site replaced with the name of your site, you will then open the page for writing the username and password that we chose during the download of WordPress previously. We enter it and then press enter to open the WordPress control panel as in the picture. We now come to a very important step to ensure that the old archive is not lost on Google, especially if your blog is on old Blogger and visitors come to it. We do not want to change the form of the links upon transfer, so we must customize the form of the permanent links from within the WordPress control panel for our new site first by entering Settings and then permanent links as in the picture. After that we choose the word custom combination and then add the following code inside the existing rectangle as in the picture and then click on the word save changes at the bottom of the page /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html 4- Start the transfer process from Blogger to WordPress: 

In order for the process of transferring the Blogger website to WordPress to be completed correctly, you must ensure that the structure of permanent links is set in the previous step, exactly as in the picture. After that, we enter the right menu and click on Tools, and then click on the word Import, as in the picture. After that, we come under the word Blogger and click on the word Install Now. Then, under the word Blogger, we also click on the word Run Importer, as in the picture. After that, we click on the word Choose file and select the xml file that we downloaded previously as a copy. Backup of the Blogger blog in the first step, as in the picture. Then we click on the Upload File button and import it as shown in the picture. Now the content transfer will take approximately 15 minutes to 30 minutes until the entire content is transferred from the Blogger blog to WordPress. After completion, your site will be completely ready for use on WordPress, and you can then download templates and adjust your new site as you wish without any restrictions.

The best alternatives to WordPress that you can use. In fact, there are many alternatives to WordPress blogs that are preferred by beginners and those who are looking for the easiest ways to create personal blogs and websites with the click of a button. We list for you the best and most popular ones on the Internet. 1- Wix website. This platform is the most famous in the field of creating websites and blogs in its various forms, as it contains a large group of ready-made templates that you can choose between with ease via your own control panel. This platform also features an easy and simple user interface for beginners in this field.

The Wix platform contains more than one plan that you can subscribe to, some of which are free and some are paid, but what is wrong with the free plan is the presence of obligatory advertisements on your blog, which is something that is not desirable at all. Also, it is not possible to transfer your site later away from the platform, and some of the templates on the site cannot be modified, which is not a good thing. The platform provides a free domain name in the form sitename.wix.com, with the word sitename replaced with your site name, and this is also unpopular with search engines. However, you can purchase a paid domain for your blog from within the Wix control panel, but you cannot take a backup copy of your site outside the platform, and this represents a major flaw in it. 2- Weebly website: You may have heard the name of this platform previously in YouTube ads or Google ads, as this platform is one of the old platforms in the field of creating blogs and free websites for beginners and professionals as well. Unlike the first platform, the Weebly platform allows you to take a backup copy of your site via a compressed file that you can keep on your device, and this is what distinguishes it.

The platform also contains millions of free templates available for modification as you wish, and you can design an entire website without any programming experience just by dragging and dropping the elements you need on your site with ease. It also includes providing a free domain if you like, or you can link your site via a paid domain. The Weebly platform also allows for complete modification of the templates and themes on the site, which is what the first platform, Wix, lacks. Therefore, if you prefer to completely modify the pages and details of your site, we recommend this platform to you, as it will meet all your needs for free and without trouble. 3- Shopify website The Shopify platform is one of the platforms specialized in creating electronic stores specifically, as this platform helps you create an online store for your brand or your own name with an integrated system similar to all well-known shopping sites such as Amazon, Noon, and the rest of the well-known sites.

Registering on the Shopify website is very easy using your name and email, and then you can continue using a free domain or even a paid domain. The site helps you create your own store by using and modifying any of the free templates available on the platform, as well as choosing payment systems and commissions, and starting directly to display your products on your site and sell without any restrictions. Despite the great advantages of this platform, unfortunately it does not have a free plan, but you can try the platform for 14 days for free, after which you can choose any paid plan on the platform, which starts from $29 per month up to $299 per month depending on your plan. Mistakes that must be corrected when transferring the website from Blogger to WordPress. Transferring the Blogger website 

To WordPress is not difficult, but you must pay attention to staying away from some of the mistakes that some people make, including: - Not buying the appropriate and fast hosting: When choosing the hosting plan, it must be suitable for the size of the actual visitors to the site, especially if the hosting is shared, as the bandwidth is limited and it is possible that the hosting cannot handle large numbers of visitors at the same time, and the storage disks in the hosting must also be of the SSD type, as it gives additional speed to the site. - 

Buying an expired domain: 

This is very important because there are some domain names that are already used by others, and these domains are put up in auctions or through direct sales methods, and they often have high spam scores and do not rank well in the Google search engine, so always make sure to buy a new domain that has not been used previously in order to achieve the best results in search engines. - Do not take a backup copy: You must be careful to take a backup copy of your site on Blogger and keep it on your device or even upload it to Google Drive in case of any error that occurs during the process of transferring the blog from Blogger to WordPress for reference later. - Not removing the domain from Blogger: Before starting the process of transferring the site to WordPress, you must ensure that you have removed your paid domain name from within the Blogger control panel. This situation only applies if your blog on Blogger is linked to a paid domain name. However, if your blog on Blogger is running on the free domain, there is no need to complete this step.

- Do not wait long enough for the domain linking process: It should be noted that the process of linking a new domain with the hosting, especially after changing the name server or DNS, may sometimes take a period of up to 5 hours for the site to work correctly in some countries, so there is no need to rush and leave the site for a sufficient period to ensure the connection is complete. - Do not change the structure of the permanent links: As we mentioned previously in this topic, the steps to transfer the Blogger website to WordPress, you must first change the structure of the permanent links from within the settings menu in WordPress, because if they are not modified before the transfer, the article links will not work and visitors will not be directed from the search engine correctly, thus losing visitors to your site and losing archiving as well, so they must be changed first.

Conclusion: At the end of the topic, we hope that we have succeeded in explaining the transfer of the Blogger website to WordPress quickly and without any loss in the archiving process, but be sure to take a backup copy of your site before carrying out the website transfer process yourself or even before seeking the help of an expert in this, and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to leave them to us in the comments.

Frequently asked questions - Is Blogger or WordPress better?

Of course, WordPress is much better than Blogger, which is why Blogger blog owners resort to moving to WordPress because of its features such as templates, themes, and plugins as well, and the ability to transform the site into any form you want with some simple tools, and also the ease of preparing the WordPress site for search engines, or what is called SEO. – Why should you worry about moving your Blogger website to WordPress? Because it is easy to lose website data and thus lose it, it is always recommended to make a backup copy before moving any WordPress site.

Read also: WordPress or Blogger, which is the best platform to start your website or online store? **************************