Converting Your Old Wix Blog to the New in 19 Almost Easy, Calorie Rich Steps
See that picture above? That's my inner child today coming to the realization that I'm going to have to, sooner or later, convert my old Wix blogs to the new Wix blog technology.
I've been advising my clients to wait until the new blog has all the great features we have gotten used to in the old blog. But it's just possible that my poor, resistant attitude, along with the old blog, is becoming more of an obstacle than a wisdom and exercise in patience at this point.
So today I took the leap and converted one of my little known, little used old blogs to the new. There were only 12 posts in this blog so it wasn't too big a risk. I'm not sure I'm so ready to convert the blogs that have more than 100 posts.
I'm still not a fan of the new blog, but am choosing to bow to the inevitable.
The process was not as scary as I'd imagined. And nope, it required no coding!
Here are the 19 Steps for Converting to the New Wix Blog
Expect tech-rooted anxieties and frustrations.
Get large cup of caffeine or booze.
Put water and aspirin at arm’s reach.
Make sure coping chocolate or other comfort food is in your pantry.
Open your Wix editor.
Go to the App Market icon in the vertical stack on the left side of the editor screen, and get the Wix Blog. This will be the new one – the old one isn’t available in the App Market anymore.
Click the button for adding the blog. This will automatically add new pages to your website. Expect a wait depending on how many posts you have to convert. Then click the button for Get Started.
Click anywhere on the first sample blog to get the pop up tool bar. This has buttons for Manage Posts and Settings.
Because you have the old blog already on your website, when you click the Settings button in this pop up, you will be given an Import option. Maybe take a sip of courage, then click on the Start Import button and hold your breath.
You will be shown a new mini screen that instructs you to copy your old posts. Exhale and do that.
When the copy process is done, you’ll get another mini screen that prompts for updating urls and keeping SEO. Click the Continue button.
You will get a new mini screen that warns you that updating the urls can’t be undone. Don’t worry – Wix has set up automatic 301 redirect protocol so that anyone finding an old social media post with a backlink to your old blog will be automatically taken to that post’s place in your new blog. Click the Update urls button.
It might seem that nothing has happened. You might still see those sample posts under the mini instruction screen. Don’t panic. Drink caffeine and eat chocolate, and check out the instructional links on the mini screen for: -- Delete old blog -- Change blog feed layout -- Customize post page
If somehow you “lose” the mini screen with these links, hit your browser's back arrow and look to the bottom of the mini screen for the Import link. Click on that to regain the instructional links.
AFTER you have checked out all the instructional links on the mini screen, look above that screen for your categories list, which now will appear like a horizontal menu at the top of the top level blog page. Because of this configuration only the first 3-5 or so categories will show up, depending on how long the category names are. The rest will be found in a drop down under the word More at the far right of the menu. Personally, I hate this, but we may be stuck with it. Seeing your category names indicates the copying process has worked. Click on a category tab and the sample posts will disappear.
The mini screen you have been using may have also disappeared. No problem. Click on the first post on the page to again get the pop up tool bar. Click Settings for the style links.
Go through all the links found in Settings to get your blog pages looking the way you want them to. Note that you cannot increase the paragraph text size above 16 px on the top level (also called All Posts page), which is too small for older eyes, but limited to display best on those dang millennial cell phones. You’ll have to change the text style to one that naturally is larger at 16px than the one you are seeing. Take another drink, eat a donut, swear at Wix, know that this text change could be incompatible with the rest of your website fonts, and maybe say the serenity prayer to accept the things you cannot change.
Scroll through your top level page and pay attention to your post photos. Some will appear cut off depending on the layout style you have selected. Play with changing layout styles until you get one you can live with. Again, personally, I hate the choices in the new blog for top level layout. Breathing, chewing, practicing accepting things I cannot change.
Lastly, when as happy as you’re gonna get with that accepting thing, or when you’ve run out of wine – whichever comes first – bid a fond farewell to your old blog by deleting it from your website pages. Do the meta tags for the new blog, then click the Publish button at the top of the editor, and you are done.
Before you embark on this journey into the land of the damned, it might be helpful to read this Wix support article on what you are about to get into.
Actually, most of you will not mind some of the things I kvetch about. They are just techie-designer things that many people never even notice.
Will converting your old blog to new solve the problems with sharing posts on Facebook? I don't know. Maybe. Could be worth a try.
See this blog post for more info on dealing with the new blog:
