So I’m sure that you’ve seen blogs, such as this one, that have ads in their sidebars and you may be wondering how you can do that too. Well here is a great little plugin called WP125 that will handle everything for you.

Simply input a few pieces of information and you will have a sidebar with cool ads in no time! Check out the video below for my easy to follow tutorial.

If you were like me when I first started online, then the thought of starting up a wordpress blog seemed a bit daunting.

It felt as though there was simply too much of a learning curve to deal with, so better to try something a little easier. That something turned out to be a free Blogger site which I figured could handle all of my blogging needs.

However it quickly became apparent that Blogger was simply not up to the challenge of running a professional blog. So I decided it was time to move on to a hosted Wordpress site instead, though this is where the problems came in.

How to move from blogger to wordpress without losing my precious page rank and alexa ranking?

Well here is how I successfully moved this site over without you even noticing! (admit it, you didn’t notice did you?)

Step 1: Configuring Your Blogger Site

Now if you have been using a domain such as sitename.blogspot.com then you are going to lose all pagerank and traffic if you move everything over to wordpress.

However, if you have it published to your own domain such as sitename.com then it will be easy to transfer without losing your hard earned traffic. So to do this, you should first make sure that you are publishing on your own domain which you can do through your blogger backoffice.

**note: It can take up to 2 months for the search engines to transfer your rank to the new domain, so you should do this a soon as possible. Try searching Google using the operator site:sitename.com to make sure that your site is being indexed.

Step 2: Change the DNS Setting of Your Domain

Once you are satisfied that your domain name is being picked up by Google you can go in and change the DNS settings for your domain. This process is different for each domain registrar so check with your site’s faqs for specific steps.

You are looking to change the settings that say Nameserver. So if your hosting account is with Hostgator for instance, your nameservers would look something like ns1.hostgator.com and ns2.hostgator.com. (DON’T use these unless they are the nameservers given to you in your welcome email!)

Step 3: Add Domain To Your Hosting Account & Download Wordpress

This step is also dependent upon which hosting service you are using, but essentially your are simply adding the domain to your hosting account. Then you will want to install wordpress, and if you are with a hosting service that uses cpanel, this is a quick process through fantastico. Check out my post on installing wordpress for a video tutorial.

Step 4: Configure Permalinks

Once you get into your wordpress backoffice, go to settings: permalinks and select the custom structure.

The add this string: /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%.html

Step 5: Import Blogger Posts to Wordpress

Now you can go ahead and import your blogger posts into your brand new wordpress site. From your wordpress backoffice click on tools: import and select blogger from the list of options. Once you grant access to blogger to connect your account you will come back to a page like the one below.

Go ahead and select import next to the correct blog and follow the prompts as it imports all of your posts and comments.

Step 6: Fix Permalink Structure

The last step is to maintain the permalinks from blogger to wordpress. If you’ve noticed the structures are a bit different between the two sites. For example:

blogger: move-from-blogger-to-wordpress-the

wordpress: move-from-blogger-to-wordpress-the-easy-way

Since the whole point in this move is to maintain traffic and page rank, we need to make the permalinks exact in every way. So the easiest way to do that is to install the wp-maintain-blogger-permalinks-1.1.zip plugin.

Once you activate the plugin go to  tools: maintain blogger permalinks and click on the button that says Maintain Blogger Permalinks. That’s all there is to it. If you want to double check that everything worked perfectly then head over to Google and do another search for site:sitename.com and click on one of the links to make sure that everything is going to the new wordpress site.

Step 7: Extra Steps

Now you can go into your appearance settings and install the template of your choice. If you can find a wordpress equivalent to your blogger template then you could possibly create the illusion of having not moved at all.

Also, if you are using feedburner, remember to go into your settings and update your primary feed so that your subscribers get redirected accordingly.

So that’s all there is to it. I hope that this tutorial was helpful and that you enjoy your new wordpress blog!

Have you ever sat down and really envisioned what your life might be like in the future if you took one path over another? I don’t mean what it would be like if you won the lottery, but rather if you started your own business, or finished getting a degree, or maybe moved to a new city. So something concrete that you have complete control over.

You see, it’s something that I do alot of and I’ve frequently been told I’m a bit of a daydreamer. Yet I feel that being a dreamer gives me a slight edge over those that aren’t, because you will never succeed in anything unless you can envision yourself succeeding.

I know it’s a bit cliche, but I finally broke down and read Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich and the biggest thing that I got from it is that you become whatever you most believe that you will be. It’s all about being able to completely envision, in every minute detail, where it is that you want to go. So in this respect I am ahead of the game because as I said, I am a daydreamer.

The problem however, that many daydreamers have is not in the creation of an idea but rather in its execution. There’s only so far a dream can take you if you never do anything to make it come true. Sadly, having a dream is only half the battle, because if it wasn’t then we would all be filthy rich, famous, skinny, and living in paradise. The truth of the matter is that to make our dreams come true we need to create a plan of action and actually follow through on the steps to get it done.

This is often were I stumble. While I’m great at creating a vision and even creating a plan of action, I’m horrible on the follow through. I tend to get just far enough into a plan to feel as though I’ve done something then procrastination sets in and my dream fizzles away. I’m sure that I’m not alone in this or else we would have no need to continuously create new resolutions each and every January.

My point is this, with the dawn of a new year lets all try to do things a little differently than the last. Lets find the daydreamer within ourselves and envision every detail of the life that we truly want to live. Then once you can see every moment of your future with clarity, put into place a plan of action and do something to make it happen. My resolution for this year is not to create a new dream for myself but rather to act upon the one I already have. So that is my challenge to you: find your dream and make it come true.

Let’s make 2010 the best year yet!

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I just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I hope that you all enjoy the time with your families and make it a Christmas to remember!

Stay safe and let’s all look forward to a new year better than the last.

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