The Problem: WordPress.org provides an easy option to automatically import all your old blog posts and reader comments from Blogger into your new WordPress blog but there are still some bigger problems that are hard to ignore:

1. Some of your previous articles on the blogspot blog could be ranking very high in search engines for certain keywords but once you shift these articles to a new address, you might lose all that organic search traffic.

2. You cannot use a 301 redirect with Blogger to inform search engines that your site has permanently moved a new web address thus losing PageRank and other Google Juice.

3. Not just search bots, human beings who come to read your old articles via links from other sites won’t know about the new location of those articles unless you manually insert the new links in each and every blogspot article (impossible for large blogs).

4. When you switch blogging platforms, existing blog readers who are subscribed to your Blogger RSS Feed may be lost forever if they don’t manually update their RSS readers with your new WordPress feed address (and most won’t).

5. When you lose RSS subscribers and search engines rankings, the pageviews will drop and that will seriously impact your AdSense revenue in case you are running Google ads.

The Solution: Now that you are aware of the various issues associated with moving sites from Blogger to WordPress, the very good news is that there exists a simple solution to deal with all these problems in one go.

You can quickly and safely migrate any blog from Blogger to WordPress without losing RSS Subscribers or human visitors and there’s also a way to pass all that Google Juice from the old blogspot.com address to your new WordPress blog.

How to Move a Blog from Blogger to WordPress

Important: Before you implement anything, it may be a good idea to run through these steps on a dummy blog first. Also, backup your Blogger blog including the XML template, posts and comments just to be the safe side.

If something doesn’t make sense, just watch the screencast video below (download).

Step 1: In case you haven’t done this already – register a new web domain, buy server space from some web hosting company* that offers PHP / MySQL hosting and and install WordPress software on your new domain.

*This site is hosted on Dreamhost.com but there are other good hosting options like GoDaddy, Blue Host, Media Temple and Knowhost – most services offer one-click WordPress installation so you don’t need the help of a geek.

Step 2: Go to your WordPress Admin Dashboard -> Tools -> Import and select the Blogger option. Authorize WordPress to access your Google Account and within minutes, all your old blog posts and comments will be available on the new WordPress site.

Step 3: Copy this file into your WordPress themes directory and then rename the file from blogger.php.txt to blogger.php. You may use either Putty with wget or Web FTP to access your WordPress themes directory located on the web server. For credentials and other details, check your cPanel.

Here are the contents of that file.

<?php
 /*
  Template Name: blogger
 */

 global $wpdb;
 $old_url = $_GET['q'];

 if ($old_url != "") {
   $permalink = explode("blogspot.com", $old_url);

   $q = "SELECT guid FROM $wpdb->posts LEFT JOIN $wpdb->postmeta ".
        "ON ($wpdb->posts.ID = $wpdb->postmeta.post_id) WHERE ".
        "$wpdb->postmeta.meta_key='blogger_permalink' AND ".
        "$wpdb->postmeta.meta_value='$permalink[1]'";

  $new_url = $wpdb->get_var($q)? $wpdb->get_var($q) : "/";

  header ("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently");
  header("Location: $new_url");
 }
?>

Step 4. Open your WordPress dashboard and go to Pages -> Add New Page. Keep the title and URL of that page as blogger and select “blogger” from the Template drop-down. Save. There’s no need to add any content to this page.

Step 5. Open the template generator, type the full address of your new WordPress blog (including http:// and the trailing slash) and this tool will create a new classic template for your blogspot blog that will look something like this.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en" dir="<$BlogLanguageDirection$>">
<head>
<title><$BlogPageTitle$></title>
<script type="text/javascript">
 <MainOrArchivePage>window.location.href='http://labnol.org/'</MainOrArchivePage>
 <Blogger><ItemPage>
   window.location.href='http://labnol.org/blogger/?q=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>'
 </ItemPage></Blogger>
</script>

<MainPage><link rel="canonical" href="http://labnol.org/" /></MainPage>
<Blogger><ItemPage>
 <link rel="canonical" href="http://labnol.org/blogger/?q=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>" />
</ItemPage></Blogger>
</head><body>

<div style="border:#ccc 1px solid; background:#eee; padding:20px; margin:80px;">
<p>This page has moved to a new address.</p>

<h1>
<MainOrArchivePage><a href="http://labnol.org"><$BlogTitle$></a></MainOrArchivePage>
<Blogger><ItemPage>
 <a href="http://labnol.org/blogger/?q=<$BlogItemPermalinkURL$>"><$BlogItemTitle$></a>
</ItemPage></Blogger>
</h1>
</div>
</body></html>

<!-- replace labnol.org with your WordPress site URL --->

Step 6. Open your Blogger Dashboard -> Layout -> Edit HTML and choose “Revert to Classic Blog”. Copy-paste the template generated in Step 5 in the “Edit Template” area and click “Save Template Changes”.

Your are done. Open any page on your old Blogger blog and it should redirect you to the corresponding WordPress page. On the WordPress side, since we are using a permanent 301 redirect with the redirection URLs, all the Google Juice will probably pass to your new WordPress pages with time.

Update your RSS Feed: When you move from Blogger to WordPress, the address of your RSS feed will change as well. Go to Blogger -> Settings -> Site Feed, type the address of your new WordPress RSS feed here and Google Reader, Bloglines, etc. will automatically move to your new feed. Check this FeedBurner FAQ for some more ideas.

Video Tutorial – Move from Blogspot to WordPress

Now that your new WordPress site is up and running with all the old Blogger posts, here are a few important things you should do:

1. Add your new WordPress site to Google Webmaster, verify ownership and and submit a Sitemap listing the URLs on your new site.

2. When you migrate from Blogger to WordPress, all your pictures and screenshot images hosted on Blogger / Picasa Web Albums will not get imported into WordPress. Therefore never delete your old blogger blog as it will break images that are now embedded in your WordPress posts.

3. Once the search bots and human beings start flocking to your new site,  you may update the homepage of your blogspot blog with links to some of your best posts.

4. To know how Googlebot will view your existing Blogspot blog, just turn off JavaScript in the browser and try visiting any of your old blog pages. It’s a single link under H1 that points to your new address that internally does a 301 redirect.

Find Sale Used <Make> <Model> Cars at local, at your region or anywhere in Australia. Euro DB is updated with Used Cars content daily and has a complete list of manufacturers to choose from. Search through all include new range of used cars model to find the used cars model you are looking for.

To find the <Make> <Model> used car you are superficial for, use the search box facility above. This allows you to comprehend used car models within a designated cost range, designated period extent, vehicle separate, vehicle concern and by vehicle emplacement.

Euro DB Automotive Provide services for Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania, Northern Territory and more other Australian locations.

Now it is easy to get your dream car with Euro DB Automotive. With listings of sale used cars from the huge range of used car dealers, stocking all the major manufacturer just like ASTON MARTIN, ATKINSON, AUDI, AUSTIN, BMW, CHEVROLET, DAEWOO, DAIHATSU, FERRARI, FIAT, HUMMER, HONDA, JAGUAR, LAND ROVER, MERCEDES-BENZ, MITSUBISHI, NISSAN and many more.

Google notes that the attack was not just on Google infrastructure but also on more than twenty other companies from various industries. Google states that they are working with the authorities in the U.S. and will be notifying the companies of the breaches.

The attack, Google says, appears to be aimed at “accessing the Gmail accounts of Chines human rights activists”. Google does not believe the Chinese gained that objective and states that the Chinese hackers were only able to obtain information such as subject lines and dates, not the content of the emails themselves.

Google’s Chief Legal Office David Drummond states that “these attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered– have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China”.

Additionally, Google blogs that they “are no longer going to censor search results on Google.cn”.

From the Official Google Blog:

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations. People wanting to learn more about these kinds of attacks can read this U.S. government (PDF), Nart Villeneuve’s blog andthis presentation on the GhostNet spying incident.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Thanks to an open API and a philosophy of interconnectivity,Twitter’s vast array of third-party services has you covered on a number of alternative uses for the famed microblogging tool.

1. Share Files

A service called FileSocial provides a great way to send files smaller than 50 MB. Simply sign-in with your Twitter credentials to share your file with all your followers. FileSocial uses OAuth to log you in, which is more secure than asking for your Twitter username and password.

If you want to send a person-to-person file privately, check out FileTwt. You’ll have to sign up for an account on the site to enable private file-sharing up to 20 MB in size. The downside is they don’t use OAuth for authentication.

2. Exchange Business Cards

Routinely running out of those business cards made of dead trees? Work in an industry where almost everyone you meet is on Twitter? Check out twtBizCard, a simple service that lets you set up an electronic business card that can be easily tweeted to your new contacts by sending them an @reply with the hastag #twtBizCard.

When you sign up, the service will pull in the data from your Twitter profile as starter information, and you can add other details to customize your card.

3. Share Music

Music lovers have a lot of options in this category (see 10 Ways to Share Music on Twitter). Depending on exactly what you want to do, you might want to check out a few of these. For example, Blip.fm is very much like Twitter but specifically for music, and can integrate with your Twitter account to share what tracks you’re listening to or “blipping.”

To that list we’d also like to add Songza, a very easy to use music search engine that lets you easily tweet any track you’re listening to by clicking the song name and selecting the “Share: Twitter this” option.

4. Share Videos

To round out the media-specific categories, there are also third party services lining up to help you share video on Twitter as well. From TwitVid.io to Tweetube (which handles other sharing duties as well), there’s probably a service out there to cover your needs.

We’d also like to add TwitVid.com and 12seconds.TV to that list. The latter perhaps obviously limits you to only 12 seconds’ worth of video, but it meshes well with the spirit of Twitter’s 140 character homage to brevity

5. Raise Money

It’s still an emerging trend, but Twitpay is out in front of the microtransaction platform pack on Twitter. It’s a hot space that Facebook is looking to get in on as well. There are still some limitations to using Twitpay as a Twitter payment platform, but for the adventurous there could be money to be made from selling your own wares via the service. Or, take a cue from Wi-Fi startup SkyBlox, who used Twitpay to raise a portion of their funding via Twitter.

@ATTjobs – AT & T Job News

@RecruitingWhiz Talent Attraction Manager for AT & T

@TheRecruiterGuy Chris Hoyt – Talent Attraction Manager for AT & T

@jobsblog - Microsoft Recruiters Blog

@mtvnetworksjobs - MTV Networks career opportunities

@MTVGamesJobs -  MTV Gaming Network is Hiring Now !

@JobsatIntel -  Jobs at Intel

@DOScareers – Careers in Foreign Affairs

@IBMUKcareers -  IBM UK Career Opportunities

@odesk – oDesk is the marketplace for online workteams

@Raytheon_Jobs -  Raytheon currently has over 2000 Job openings

@Kellyjobs -  Kelly Services - your employment connection to the world’s most respected companies, when and where you need to work.

@Manpower – Manpower Temporary and Permanent Jobs around the world

@VerizonCareers – Career News and Opportunities at Verizon Wireless

@biotechjobs - Biotech/Pharmaceutical Job and Recruiting News

@AllstateCareers – Job Opportunites with Allstate Insurance

@HersheyCompany -  Follow the Talent Solutions Team from  The Hershey Company to find out about  their Career opportunities in Marketing, Sales, and other disciplines.

@SodexoCareers -  Kerry Noone, Marketing Communications Manager for Sodexo’s Talent

@ADPCareers -  ADP is a market leader in HR Solutions as well as the #1 Dealer Management provider in the world.

@Hyattcareers -  Learn about Hyatt News and Career Opportunities

@Accenture_Jobs Accenture Career News for the U.S. Tweets by the Accenture US Recruitment Marketing team.

@freelance_jobs – If you want to post or find a freelance job, this is the link to follow.

@sfmobilejobs Jobs for the Mobile Web and Digital Media in Silicon Valley, Seattle, LA and NYC.

@1984Jobs – Find Apple related Job Opportunities

@TwitJobSearch -  Twitter Job Search Engine

@Jobsearchnews – Job Search News Tweets

@media_pros -  Jobs for Media Pros

@journalism_jobs Follow this link to post your journalism, editorial, PR, and media sales vacancies

@CareerRealism -  Sponsors of the Twitter Advice Project (T.A.P. into CAREEREALISM) – Get FREE Advice From Top Career Experts on Twitter Here!

@thatpassionguy -  Brett from Jobbing.com (Job Board Account)

@prsajobcenter -  Follow @prsajobcenter for public relations and corporate communication jobs.

Newspapers That Tweet About Jobs and Career Opportunities

@WSJCareers – Wall Street Journal Career News and Opportunities

@NYTimesCareers – New York Times Careers and Opportunities

@AJCJobs Atlanta Journal Jobs Tweets

@TheJobsGuy – The Jobs Guy (Ken Horst)   Visit His blog here

@RickDeare -  Recruiter, Talent Acquisition Consultant, Recruiting Trainer and Blogger. Owner of Deare Recruiting Solutions in Minneapolis.  His blogs include Blogs:   The ContractRecruiter, Naked Recruiting, and Meet The HeadHunter

@Recruiter – Jack Young Executive Recruiter

@AndyinNaples – Career Success Radio Host and Executive Coach

@AHarrisonBarnes Founder and CEO of EmploymentScape

@Harveyclay - Harvey Clay - Professional I.T. Recruiter

@Beckyallen – Sr. Recruiter in Gov’t contract arena

@Nwahlen – Corporate Recruiter

@ATLRecruiter -  Executive search and passive candidate development consultant. Owner, Calibre Search Group – specializing in Finance, Accounting, & Banking.

@CindyUnderwood – Vice President of MarketPro- enabling clients to bring the right people onboard.

@JavaSTL – Brad Hogenmiller – Brad recruits for IT, Marketing, Interactive, and SEO jobs.

Here are 10 key strategies to drive traffic to your website, ecommerce site, enquiries to your email inbox and make your phone start ringing

————————————————————————————

1. Be Yourself (Authentic)

We are all unique and different and your company needs to display that. Gary Vaynerchuck, 33, is proof that passion and hustle can breed success. He turned his family’s small New Jersey liquor store into a wine empire that grosses over $60 million a year; more than 100,000 viewers watch his daily video blog; he’s a sought-after speaker; and he’s signed on to write nine more business books for HarperCollins (NWS).

2. Be The Thought Leader and Teacher

• Do not sell, but engage (trying to sell just turns prospective clients away)
  
• Provide online tutorials and how to’s.
• Stop the corporate speak and gobbledygook and provide content in a variety of ways becuase everyone learns in different ways. Educational theory shows that some people are visual, others are verbal and others are kinesthetic and a mutiple variety of stimulus reinforces learning and recall, so provide the same content in a variety of ways such as
  • Text
  • Video
  • Presentations
  • Podcasts
  • Webinars
  • Slideshows

3. Plan and Write Content for the Markets You Are Targetting

Every business has different market segments within their client base and they all have their own issues and problems and pain points that you need to provide answers to. So when you are developing content for your website or blog you need to consider writing content that adresses each customer persona. I covered this in a recent article “Social Media: 9 Questions To Ask Your Customers When Creating Content “  and it includes asking them questions such as

1. Who are you selling to?
2. What are their goals and aspirations?
3. What are their problems?

Some companies even develop and maintain multiple blogs a good example of this is a online retailer who currently has 13 blogs online (see the article “Why Would Your Company Need 13 Blogs?“)  that provides content for thirteen different segments or styles.

4. Have a Great Headline For Your Content

Did you know that on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest. This is the secret to the power of the headline, and why it so highly determines the effectiveness of the entire piece. Here are some headline types and examples

• Get What You Want (In Health, Wealth, Relationships, Time and Lifestyle) eg.. The Secret To Getting More Money For Your Property !
• Crystal Ball and History eg.. 10 Predictions on the Future of Social Media
• Problems and Fears eg … Get Rid of Your Debt Once and For All
• Fact, Fiction, Truth and Lies example.. Little Known Ways To Make Money On The Stock Exchange
• How To, Tricks Of The Trade. such as..  How To Plan The Ultimate Holiday
• Best and Worst  eg The 10 Worst Mistakes Made by Bloggers

Some more resources:

Writing Headlines That Get Results from Copyblogger

102 Proven Headline Formulas from Authority Blogger

5. Amplify Your Message through Social Media

The Top 5 Social Media channels to consider using depending on your target markets are

1. Facebook (80%),
2. Twitter (66%),
3. YouTube (55%),
4. LinkedIn (49%) and
5. Blogs (43%).

Also consider using multiple social media channels as it amplifies your  message and gives it the best chance to go viral. I covered this recently in a blog post “How Many Social Media Channels Should Your Brand Be Using?” which shows how social media can leverage your message.

6. Build Your Subscriber List RSS for Your Blog, Email and for your e-Newsletter

Offer a variety of ways for people to subscribe at different locations on your website and blog such as at the top, the bottom and on the side panel (make it as easy as possible)

• Subscribe via RSS
• Subscribe via email

7. Search Engine Optimization

It boils down to this: If people think you’re important, so will Google. This perplexes many webmasters and online marketers, since they wonder how people will consider them important when people use search engines to find things online in the first place. How are you important if you’re invisible in the search engines to start with?

And how does Google know people think you’re important any way? For one, they know because people link to you, and Google fol lows those links to index and rank web pages. And thanks to services such as

• Google Toolbar
• Google Analytics
• Feedburner
• Google Reader
• Gmail and other applications that keep you logged-in to your Google account

Google has an enormous amount of usage data that shows what people actually spend time doing online. So, there’s that. But how do you kick it off?

To get people to link to you and generally pay attention in the first place, you have to start thinking about authority in a different sense.

8: Have The Website and Blog developed with well written code

Use a developer that does the basics well for your Website and blog

Website:

Two aspects to consider On-site and Off-site Optimization

On-Site Optimisation.

This where they research and investigate your existing website design, build and content and recommend changes to elements such as

• Keywords and Phrases
• Meta Descriptions
• Keywords added as Metadata,
• Search Engine friendly URL’s
• Title to contain keywords
• Restructuring website content
• Make text more readable and user friendly on website
• Offer different media formats
• Clean coding structure optimised for search engine crawlers

Off-Site Optimisation

This is where we research and recommend activities to improve Google search that are not dependent on your existing website but strategies that can be undertaken to improve search engines ranking of the company’s website.

This can be achieved through

• Link Building
• Blog commenting
• Press Releases
• Forums
• Directory Submissions
• Article submissions
• Interacting with Social Media Channels such as
  • YouTube
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Blog
• Engaging Bloggers
• Developing content for your various target market “personas” such as for example for a non profit site
  • Students and Researchers at Universities
  • NGO’s (such as World Bank and United Nations)
  • Business and Business Leaders
  • Foundations

Blog

You’ll hear time and again that WordPress is the best way to build a site  and that it’s extremely SEO friendly. The Thesis framework for Word Press is worth considering, even Google’s own Matt Cutts, search legend Danny Sullivan, and some of the top SEOs and profession al bloggers around use Thesis for their own sites.

9. Design Your Website To Enhance Your Brand and Authority

If you want to look professional then the website has to give your brand an image that can in a lot of cases make you look bigger than your competitors because they are sloppy with their website design. Do not overlook this.

10. Nourish Your Tribe

Once you have started providing information that solves your customers and subscribers needs, continue to develop and your grow your content so that they want to keep coming back again and again.

So could your business do with a bit of digital optimizing of your inbound marketing so you don’t have to cold call again?  Looking forward to hearing your story.