Apr 15, 2012

Last Blog Spot Blog

First of all I would like to say this will be my last blog posted on Blogger. However I have purchased the techmeout.org domain name and I have a hosted word press blog on their. So I figured the last blog on Blogger should be about transferring over from Blogger to Word Press.




Our Goals


  • To Setup Word Press Blog on a Domain Name
  • Transfer all blogspot blog post over to new blog
  • Transfer RSS feed to Word Press Blog
  • Transfer tracking code over to Word Press blog
  • Adding Google AdSense over to Word Press Blog






Getting Started


Okay so now that we know what exactly we want to do it is time to get started. The first thing we should do is purchase a domain name. I'll use Go Daddy in this example. Mostly because they are the most common for domain registration. Once we purchase our domain name we will need to get some hosting space. I never liked Go Daddy's hosting service. So we will use Host Gator's Shared Hosting.

This means we will have to change our name servers in Go Daddy to point to Host Gators DNS Servers. Once we have done this we then need to add the new domain name to our hosting account with Host Gator.

Once we have done this their are several options we can do. We can use Host Gator's. One click install tool found in the Host Gator cPanel, We could use the old Fantastico Deluxe installer also found in the cPanel. or we can download the Word Press files strait from the Word Press site.Then we could upload the files via FTP and install word press. The last way is obviously more work. However I recomend it since this insures us that we have the most recent version of Word Press. Or at least the one we will most likely want.

After word press has been installed. The first thing I wanted to do was get all of the post from blogspot over to the Word Press Blog. I achieved this by using a word press plugin called Blogger Importer.Appearently my Word Press installation was to new. Since I got a message from Blogger Importer that it was suggested to use an older version of Word Press with the blog. However I decided to use it any how. And it imported just fine with no problems.

Next I decided to apply a theme to my Word Press blog. I did this by simply Googling for Word Press Themes. When I found the one I wanted I installed it. The next task was importing my Feedburner feed which I used to burn my Blogspot Feed, over to my new Word Press site. I did this by simply logging into my Feed Burner Account. Then choosing the feed. After this I clicked on the edit feed details link. This showed my current feed and what it was burned to. I knew that Word Press feeds are usually found in the feed directory of the blog. For example example.com/feed. So I changed the feed location to techmeout.org/feed. I then saved the changes.

I deciced to make I new post on the Word Press blog. I wasn't going to post it on Blog Spot. After I published my post. I checked the Feed Burner Feed to see if that post displayed. It did which let me know it was working. Boom that is done. And it was extremely easy.

Next I wanted to add Google Analytics to my Word Press Blog. This I thought would be a little bit more work. And it was but not to much more work. I logged into my Google Analytics account. And went to my techmeout.blogspot.com section. Then I went to the Admin section of my Google Analytics account. This is where I saw my techmeout.blogspot.com property ID. The URL and four tabs. The tabs where listed as the following.

  1. Profiles
  2. Tracking Code
  3. Property Settings
  4. Social Settings
First what I needed to do was go to the Property Settings Tab and change the URL from http://techmeout.blogspot.com to http://techmeout.org. Then I needed to apply the changes. If I didn't change this even if I placed the tracking code into my Word Press blog it wouldn't work.Next I went to the Tracking Code tab. And copied the tracking code that Google gave me. After I copied it I logged into my Word Press account. And went to Appearance > Editor. When I was in that section I found a list of different files that my Word Press template was made up of. Some files names where as follows. 

  • 404 Template
  • Comments
  • Footers
  • Header
Keep in mind their where a lot more then the what I listed above. And depending on which template you use they may have more or less. But most if not all Word Press Templates will have Header & Footer in the list. So we will want to click on Footer.

Here we will see some PHP code with the HTML and tags. This is where we will paste our tracking code. Once we paste into their we will click the blue Update File button. 

A new feature which I really like in Google Analytics which is still in Beta. Is Real Time Reporting. This came in real handy. Because I used this to test if the tracking code was installed correctly. Went to my blog page. And then I also went to the real time reporting section. This is where I saw myself on on the site. So I knew the tracking code was correct.