- Get a domain & hosting - here are a full set of instructions "How to Launch a Blog for Under an Hour for Super Cheap"
- Install Wordpress - There has been a lot written on how to do this so I won't go into this here. Either google how to do this or have somebody do it for you. For me, the main barrier that prevented me from doing this a long time ago was this intimidating step. Serendipity struck when I met Johnny B. Truant who setup wordpress, installed my plugins and theme and everything for me FOR FREE. He will do the same thing for you through the end of the month in order to drum up interest in his website. There is no catch, I just have to pass on the good karma by thanking those who helped me by recognizing them. So thanks Johnny, you're awesome. The guide I linked to above has instructions on how to do this, but it is so much easier to farm this out. Then you just login and it works like blogger with a dashboard and everything ready to go. His website is Learn to Be Your Own VA.
- Move over your posts and comments - This is the perfect time for me to start over so I'll be editing out a lot of my old content. I'll leave it live on the old blogger space. There is something to be said for starting over, but I have some items that I want to keep. To actually do this just go to www.yourblog.com/wp-admin/tools.php then Import. Select Blogger from the list and enter your login information. Hit the magic info and it brings over all your posts and comments. I did manage to delete 4 posts that I didn't mean to when editing through the old ones to refocus the content.
- Fix all your internal links. If somebody clicks on your old website post links you want them to go to the post located on your new website. To do this: Login to Blogger. Go to Settings. Select Publishing. Click the top link, “Custom domain.” They will try to sell you registration here so you have to go to Advanced Settings. Save your new address. Now all your links will transfer automatically to your own domain, but you’ll need one more step to transfer your blog home page over. Make sure you do this AFTER you transfer all your posts.
- Transfer your Google hits by redirecting direct visitors. Login to Blogger. Go to Layout. Go to Edit HTML. Place the following code anywhere after <head>: <meta content='0; url=http://YOURNEWURL.com/' http-equiv='refresh'/> This sends visitors to your blog homepage directly to your new address.
- Transfer your subscribers/feed - Sign up for a FeedBurner account. Set up a feedburner feed for your new blog. Login to Blogger. Go to Settings. Go to Site Feed. In the Post Feed Redirect URL box, enter your new FeedBurner address.
Total cost $80 for a year of hosting an domain registration. Total time spent, including editing out old posts 4 hours. Minimum amount of time needed to get up and running, 1 hour.
