I could go into great detail on the reasons why I decided to finally make the leap from Blogger to WordPress, but I’ll give you a list of reasons why I finally did.

I’ve been blogging since 2006.  That’s almost 8 years of blogging.  This website is my journal and holds many memories.  A little over a year and a half ago I heard a lot of things were going to change on Blogger, but I still didn’t really want to mess with changing my blog over to WordPress.  I heard it was expensive and it’s a totally different platform than Blogger.  Many told me it was hard to learn and to just stick to what I knew and what was working for me.  I did for a long time….and I can’t say anything bad about Blogger.com it’s a great FREE site to host a blog!

I’ll list out a few reasons why I switched:

1.  My website is now MINE.  I own the domain and it’s self-hosted, which means if anything happens all my content, pictures, etc are backed up and accounted for.

2.  It was an investment to switch (maybe a few hundred dollars-but that’s for 2-3 years of hosting until I renew) for me I thought it was worth the investment.  I chose to go with BlueHost and they have been WONDERFUL!  Anytime I screwed something up royally or lost something on my blog they were quick to fix it for me and get me back on my feet.  The customer service from BlueHost is great!

3.  It took a couple of months to get use to a new blogging platform.  I can honestly say there is so much you can DO with WordPress that you can’t do with Blogger.  So many plugins and widgets to customize your site.

4.  A template doesn’t have to be expensive.  I found mine on Etsy.  The seller was super nice and I bought my template with Genesis framework for around $40.  I would highly recommend Genesis for anyone looking for a WordPress theme.

5.  Besides being able to customize your site exactly the way you want it, you also can really customize the SEO for your site.  This makes it easier for people to find your content when searching for a specific topic.

My content and photos are more organized in my WordPress account.  I can categorize things easily and find posts to link back to with a click of a button.  It took a while to learn about platforms, widgets, and plugins.  I would never EVER pay someone to convert my blog from Blogger to WordPress.  It’s a simple and FREE plugin that does all the work for you.  All you have to do is search for the plugin and install!  So easy.

Do your research.  Decide what you want.  Once you decide on a host they’ll set up everything for you.  It will take a few days for your host to convert everything over to your new site.  You can use the same web address too.  Nothing changes-except now I feel like my site is a bit more polished and professional.

If you are a serious blogger I would highly recommend switching.  It makes a big difference in a lot of ways.  I’m probably not even mentioning a lot right now….just know it’s a lot cleaner and organized way to blog.  If you have any questions feel free to email me or leave a comment below and I’ll do the best I can to answer.  To get started check out BlueHost and their rates are very reasonable.  From that point it’s just converting, picking a theme, and customizing.  You’ll never have to worry about losing something on your blog again and I promise you won’t regret the switch.