6 Steps to Move Your Blogger Site to WordPress

If you’re reading this, you likely started your site on Blogger, but now it’s growing. Maybe you’re hitting traffic limits, struggling to scale revenue, or just want more control before those issues arise. Blogger’s customization and SEO tools are limited, making it harder to grow long-term. Moving to WordPress gives you flexibility, better performance, and full control over your site’s future, and the move is definitely worth it, as we’ll see in this article. 

You might be worried about migration being complicated, especially as you’re moving from one platform to another. Migrating a large site can feel overwhelming – broken URLs, lost rankings, and downtime can hit revenue and frustrate readers. That’s why many publishers, agencies, and enterprise sites choose a managed WordPress host to handle the tricky stuff. Providers like BigScoots offer free migrations, ensuring your content, images, and SEO settings move over smoothly with no downtime or technical headaches.

So, scoot over from Blogger to WordPress and set your site up for success! We’ll show you why a managed migration is often the best choice, but if you prefer to do it yourself, we’ll also cover the steps to ensure a smooth transition!

The only step you might need: Choose a Managed WordPress host that will handle your migration

Moving from Blogger to WordPress is an investment in performance, growth, and long-term scalability. But migrations can be high stakes for publishers, agencies, and high-traffic sites. Lost content, broken links, or SEO missteps can impact revenue and rankings, which is why choosing a managed WordPress host that specializes in complex migrations makes all the difference.

Many established publishers trust BigScoots because we handle everything with zero downtime, no ranking drops, and a fully optimized WordPress setup. From content and media files to redirects and SEO structures, every detail is carefully preserved.

Blogger and WordPress aren’t built the same way (you wouldn’t fix a bicycle the same way you’d fix a car!), so a successful migration requires technical expertise and strategic planning. BigScoots’ migration team routinely handles these moves, ensuring your site is structured for success from day one.

Here’s why choosing a Managed Hosting for WordPress plan with BigScoots makes the transition effortless:

• No downtime: Your site stays online while everything moves behind the scenes.
• SEO rankings stay intact: Proper redirects ensure Google and your audience can still find your content.
• Expert-led migration: No DIY tutorials or troubleshooting – just a smooth, stress-free transition.
• Scales with your growth: Hosting plans support from 250,000 to 1.5 million+ visitors.
• Cloudflare CDN integration: Global caching ensures fast load times and security from day one.
• 99.99% uptime guarantee: Your site stays stable, fast, and high-performing.

Need a performance-optimized design for WordPress? Since Blogger’s design elements won’t transfer directly, BigScoots’ support team helps select and configure the perfect WordPress theme for your business.

“Switching from Blogger to WordPress isn’t just about moving content – it’s about setting your site up for long-term success. Choosing the right theme plays a key role in site speed, user experience, and performance. If you need a custom design optimized for high-traffic publishing, Once Coupled is a fantastic option.”

Tim Monner, CMO of BigScoots

BigScoots will migrate your site from Blogger to WordPress for free with zero risk, no downtime, and a 45-day money-back guarantee. 

What sets us apart, though, is what happens post-migration. A good host will migrate your site. A great host doesn’t just call it a day after that. BigScoots takes it up a notch, acting as a true partner by proactively monitoring your site to make sure it stays fast, reliable, and ready to scale with your business. No other host does that.

Guide to migrating your Blogger Site to WordPress manually

For small blogs, a standard migration might be enough. However, switching to WordPress requires a structured, well-planned migration strategy for established publishers, high-traffic blogs, and businesses that rely on their content for revenue. Downtime, broken redirects, or SEO missteps could mean traffic loss, lower rankings, and disruptions to monetization – which is why having the right infrastructure and hosting partner matters.

If you’re handling the migration yourself or have a technical team overseeing it, knowing the right steps is invaluable. The process below walks through migrating from Blogger to WordPress while maintaining SEO integrity, performance, and scalability. 

Export your Blogger content and media files

Enterprise and high-traffic sites often have years of content, large media libraries, and thousands of URLs to manage. A clean export is critical to avoid data loss.

Steps for exporting Blogger content

1. Log in to Blogger and go to Settings → Manage Blog → Back up content.
2. Click Download to save the XML file, which contains your posts and comments.
3. Backup your theme (Settings → Theme → Backup) to retain any widget content or custom HTML elements.

Handling large media libraries

• Google Takeout allows bulk downloading of Blogger-hosted images.
• SFTP or manual export may be necessary for externally hosted media files.
• If you’re using a third-party CDN, make sure media URLs are correctly mapped after migration to avoid broken images or missing files. 

Preserve URL structures and metadata

• Map your existing URL patterns to match them in WordPress (this is crucial for SEO).
• Take note of ?m=1 (mobile-specific URLs) – they require special redirect handling.
• Verify timestamps, authorship metadata, and internal linking structures.

Import your content to WordPress

WordPress provides a Blogger Importer tool, which helps transfer posts, comments, and media from Blogger to WordPress. However, high-traffic sites with large files or extensive content libraries may run into limitations with this tool. If your site has a high post volume, you may need alternative import methods to ensure everything transfers smoothly.

Steps for importing Blogger content into WordPress

1. In WordPress, go to Tools → Import and select Blogger.
2. Click Install Now, then Run Importer to upload your XML file.
3. For large blogs, use the Blogger Importer Extended plugin to bypass file size restrictions.
4. Carefully map author accounts – mismatched author IDs can break content ownership structures.
5. Use the External Files in Media Library plugin to ensure images are properly transferred and hosted on WordPress.

Post-import checks

🔍 Are your images loading correctly? Make sure media files aren’t still being served from Blogger. Images should be fully transferred and hosted within WordPress to avoid broken links or slow loading times.

🔍 Does embedded content display as expected? Review iframes, embedded tweets, and shortcodes – some may need manual adjustments.

🔍 Are your categories and tags structured correctly? WordPress may not always import them accurately, so make sure they match your original Blogger setup.

Recreate your posts and pages

WordPress offers more control, flexibility, and customization than Blogger, but migrating requires structural adjustments to maintain SEO and user experience.

Critical fixes post-migration

• URL formatting: Ensure permalinks match Blogger’s original structure to avoid ranking drops.
• Internal linking updates: Blogger’s URL structure often includes a .html suffix and differs from WordPress permalinks. After migration, update internal links to match your new WordPress URL structure and ensure they point to the correct pages. WordPress primarily stores absolute URLs, but if needed, you can use plugins or custom scripts to convert them to relative URLs for easier management across different environments.
• Mobile optimization: Some Blogger themes rely on mobile-specific settings that won’t transfer properly. A new mobile-responsive theme should be implemented.

Choosing the right theme for performance

For enterprise sites, a poorly optimized theme can slow down load times and impact revenue. Consider custom themes built for high-traffic publishing. If you need expert recommendations, Once Coupled specializes in performance-optimized WordPress designs.

Set up 301 redirects to maintain SEO rankings

A poorly handled migration can destroy years of SEO work. For high-traffic sites, 301 redirects ensure Google (and visitors) land on the correct pages.

How to implement 301 redirects

1. Install the Blogger to WordPress Redirection plugin and run the setup process.
2. Generate the custom redirect code and place it inside Blogger’s Edit HTML section.
3. For custom domains, set up server-side redirects in your hosting control panel.
4. Test redirects for ?m=1 mobile versions – many blogs forget to redirect these properly.
5. Submit a Change of Address request in Google Search Console to update indexing.

Configuring permalinks and other essential settings

Proper permalink and site configuration ensures your WordPress site runs efficiently, maintains SEO rankings, and scales smoothly. After migration, a few key settings will optimize performance, improve security, and keep your content structured correctly.

Set up permalinks for SEO

Go to Settings → Permalinks and select:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

This matches Blogger’s structure, preventing broken links and maintaining search rankings.

Optimize taxonomy and site structure

• Make sure categories and tags are properly assigned to match Blogger’s layout.
• Check internal links and update any broken connections to maintain user experience.

Enable caching and performance boosting

A strong caching setup is important when keeping your site fast and responsive. Make sure your hosting provider offers robust server-side caching and a performance-optimized infrastructure to reduce load times. All BigScoots plans are built on Cloudflare integration, while customers with Cloudflare Enterprise accounts unlock advanced tools for even faster global delivery and advanced security.

Improve security and indexing

• Activate SSL (HTTPS) for better security and SEO ranking benefits.
• Generate an XML sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console to ensure pages are properly indexed.
• Set up RSS feed redirects so subscribers continue receiving content updates.

With these settings, your WordPress site will be fully optimized for performance, SEO, and future scalability. 

Ready to migrate? Let our experts handle everything for free

Moving your Blogger site to WordPress is a big step toward growth, but you don’t have to do it alone. BigScoots’ expert migration team ensures a smooth transition – without downtime, traffic loss, or SEO issues. Every hosting plan includes free migration services, so your content, images, and rankings transfer intact and fully optimized.

While your content moves over, BigScoots can also help with theme selection and setup. If you’re looking for a high-performance WordPress design, choosing a theme built for speed, SEO, and scalability ensures the best experience for your readers – whether that’s a pre-built option or a custom design tailored to your needs.
Instead of dealing with the technical headaches, focus on creating content and growing your site – while we handle the rest.

Let’s get your site moved today! Check out BigScoots Managed Hosting for WordPress for more information.