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My Transition from Blogger to WordPress

08/06/14 | 101 in 1001, blogging, WordPress

Blogger to WordPress Transistion

Like any relationship that is headed downhill I hung on for far longer than was necessary. Or than was good for me.  As I mentioned two weeks ago in my post about wedding dresses said last week tough, I am single, so what am I talking about? Blogger and I.  In May I made the switch –  I am officially a WordPress blogger and could not be more delighted.  The transition was not easy but it went better that I expected and now I feel like a butterfly, I can fully spread my wings.

Why Did I Switch? 

In my “real world” job I work in the digital department of an advertising agency so SEO and social media actually my job and having my own personal blog hosted on Blogger was just not cutting it.  There are so many backend Search Engine Optimization features that I have seen first hand make a huge difference that are just not available on the free Google based platform.  I will write a post about this at a later point but it is similar to the phrase, “The shoemakers kids have no shoes.”  Ironic, especially because my blog is called Sparkles & Shoes.  

Well, I am glad the wonderful Lisette was been able to help me with this transition.   After 100 emails, three chats with annoying customer service reps, and 21 direct messages on Twitter we have it figured out exactly the way I wanted.  I am sure most people do not have nearly this much back and forth when making the switch but I wanted to make sure every little kink was worked out and Lisette was surely did not dissapoint.

Search Engine Optimization:  I am now able to make my blog posts much more accessible to people on the Internet looking for the topic of my blog post. Between being able to add focus keywords, SEO Title, a meta description, categories, and tags I have already seen a huge increase in organic traffic of people searching for easy salmon recipes or the white on white fashion trend. 

Plugins:  I will do a post all about these but I absolutely love the hundreds of add-on features available on self-hosted WordPress sites that I can use to make my blog standout just that much more.  Most of these are backend and will not be seen by anyone, but they are great! 

Widgets:  With Blogger I was used to dragging and dropping their pre-set options into my sidebar and calling it a day.  With WordPress I knew there was a more customization possible and had a list of everything I wanted and Lisette rocked it out of the park, especially with those categories on my sidebar.  I wanted an easy way to access the things I talk about most frequently on my blog and I love the interactive widget to feature my posts on fashion, photography, New York City, travel, my style icons, and my Sparkle Session interviews. 

Responsive Design:  I had a simple mobile template switched on for Sparkles and Shoes when I was on Blogger but it was either a yes or a no.  You either got my pretty blog on a big screen or the plain and boring mobile version.  With WordPress no matter what size the screen is you will see the nice sleek design formatted differently, which I love!  (Want to test it out?  Grab the bottom corner of your screen and make the window smaller – see how it changes?  Yay!) 

Sparkles and Shoes - Blogger to WordPress - Responsive WordPress Theme for Fashion and Life Style Blog 

Things I Was Was Worried About: 

Part of the reason I waited so long to switch to WordPress was because of the issues and negatives I have read from other bloggers who have made the switch.  Topping the list of concerns were: 

Drop In Traffic:  I was worried that switching from Blogger to WordPress I was going to see a huge drop in my site traffic, especially with the number of people that were following me on GFC.  Well, this was true but there is not much you can do about it.  After two months, I have seen my numbers continually rise and I am almost back up to where I was.  It is a short term loss for what I know will be a long-term gain but still hard to stomach.  I also could have mentioned more in my posts in the weeks leading up to the switch what I was doing to encourage people to follow S&S via BlogLovin’ or social media.  Oh well, you live and learn. 
 
Domain Transition:  For almost two years my blog existed at the original free domain, myfavoritethingskellyann.blogspot.com, hosted by Google and was redirected to Sparkles and Shoes.  I was worried that with WordPress I was going to have to host my own blog and move hundreds of posts and thousands of comments to my very own place.  Well, that is true but if you work with someone who has made the switch dozens of times before it is a very do-able process and I did not loose any content in the process!  
 
Design Glitches:  Again, Lisette to the rescue!  She made everything appeared just the way I wanted it and was able to transfer the amazing design created for me by Aubrey Kinch of Kinch Life Designs and made it WordPress compatible. 
 
Pinterest Links:  I had read articles from bloggers who had pinned hundreds of images from their site on to Pinterest and once they switched to WordPress all of those links no longer properly or connected to the post in its new location.  I do not know the technical details behind this but I voiced my concern and Lisette made sure it did not happen, all links are working perfectly!   
 
The Cost:   I am not going to lie, it was expensive, at least in my book.  Switching from a free platform to all of sudden having to dish out hundreds of dollars was rough. However, it is well worth it.  Through High Note Designs I chose LUXE Blogger to WordPress Transfer Package which covered everything, soup to nuts for $155.  I feel like having Lisette working on my team through this process was worth every penny and then some.  What I did not consider was having to purchase my own hosting, renewing my domain, and placing a security on it.  These were additional expenses (I chose to go with Blue Host who also serves my email, [email protected]), but I consider them a long term investment in this blog.  
 
So what is new?  Well I kept the same design that the lovely Aubrey made with a few tweaks:  there is a scrolling header that as you travel down this page goes with you.   And as I mentioned above, there is also the categories widget on my side bar, along with a list of my favorite blogs and shops, and a vibrant, live updating favorites widget. 
 
What do you think of the new Sparkles and Shoes? 
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Comments

  1. Kacie's Kloset says

    February 17, 2015 at 2:21 pm

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    http://www.kaciesklosetblog.com/

  2. Nancy @ Neatly-Packaged says

    August 12, 2014 at 5:10 pm

    I love the new site 🙂 I just recently switched from Blogger to WP myself! 🙂

    http://neatly-packaged.com/

  3. vanessa says

    August 11, 2014 at 2:25 am

    great photos!

    TheVogueWord
    TheVogueWord

  4. Colleen says

    August 10, 2014 at 11:21 pm

    Thanks for posting this! Good information for new bloggers like me! xo

  5. Alyssa says

    August 7, 2014 at 5:06 am

    Good thing you hired someone to help your transfer. Last year, when Blogger was no longer working for me I decided to switched too but since I have a background in Web Design (I studied the basic during college) I thought it would be easy if I do it myself. Well, it wasn’t but overall I’m glad I switched because blogging in WordPress is much easier and the plugins are Web Design God’s gift to us LOL

    STYLE VANITY

  6. Mahsa (The Crushworthy) says

    August 6, 2014 at 1:36 pm

    Great post, I’ve always been a big fan of WordPress and think to really optimize the potential of your blog you have to go that route. The plugins are endless and you can really customize the site to make it your own, even if you’re working off of a standard theme. I would love to see a future post about how you optimize for SEO on your wordpress site, I still haven’t done much of that though my blog is not even a month old. Cheers!
    http://www.thecrushworthy.com

  7. Chelsea says

    August 6, 2014 at 12:49 pm

    Congrats! I am a brand new blog so just started e blogger since it was free and I didn’t know how long it might last. So it was a great place to start but definitely see the upside of WordPress. Hope you continue to love it!

  8. Helene says

    August 6, 2014 at 12:21 pm

    I definitely do see the benefits! I think there can be some great things about wordpress but I’m still a blogger gal!

  9. Ashley says

    August 6, 2014 at 10:19 am

    Looks gorgeous!! It seems like everyone is starting the switch!

  10. Lisette says

    August 6, 2014 at 9:29 am

    Thanks so much, love! You were a doll to work with! Honestly! XOXO.

    After my transfer I also saw a drop in views, but (and this is a BIG but), when I compared my Blogger stats to my Google Analytics stats, there was NO drop in page views. None. So, it led me to believe that Blogger’s stats are inflated. Even when I was on Blogger I saw the disparity (but ignorance is bliss, right?) and ignored it.

    I think the difference is that Blogger counts Google robots crawling your site as pageviews when it’s really not people viewing your site. Google Analytics is something everyone should use (many third-party advertisers ask for GA stats anyway) to truly see what your statistics are. In fact, GA reports more pageviews than my JetPack plugin…so the proof is in the pudding!

    Have you checked yours?

    Thanks again, sweetheart! xoxo

  11. Rachel says

    August 6, 2014 at 9:12 am

    WordPress is the way to go! We’re actually helping a few interns at my company move their blogs from Blogger to WordPress now that they’ve learned all the benefits (and all the bad parts of Blogger!)

Hi, I am Kelly and welcome to Sparkles and Shoes, a fashion, travel, and lifestyle blog founded in 2012.  After six years of living in London I am back in New York with my husband and two littles! 

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