RFP: WordPress Template, Installation and Importation

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come and listen to a story about a man named Kent
A poor tech writer, so to Blogger his blog went,
Then one day he was readin’ at some feeds,
And up through Rick’s blog came a troubling need.

No more FTP that is, SOL, up the creek.

Well the first thing you know Kent’s blog needs a new home,
Louis says “custom domain,” but Kent wants to go alone
Thinks WordPress is the place he ought to be
So he wants you to move Newsome.Org to WP.

WordPress that is, on his server, custom template.

I’ve been using Blogger, via FTP publishing, in combination with my beloved Live Writer, to manage my blog since 2004.  There have been challenges along the way, but over the years the experience has been very positive.  Rick Klau is great, and has been extremely helpful when issues arose.  Matt Cutts was also helpful, when I reached out to him once in the midst of a particularly frustrating problem.  In other words, I have nothing but great things to say about the Blogger/Google folks.

But I was a little bummed, even if not surprised, when Blogger announced yesterday that FTP publishing was going to be discontinued.  Rick has a post about it here, including a discussion we’re having in the comments about Blogger custom domains as an option.  My friend Louis Gray moved from FTP publishing to a Blogger custom domain last year and says the experience has been positive.  He discusses the situation in a blog post today.

I use the custom domain approach for GoodSongs.Com,  my music recommendation site, via Tumblr, and it works pretty well (though I am very aware of the risk that Tumblr eventually goes the way of Geocities).  Since I have a server and all of my blog content is already on it, I think I want to keep my content on my server and use WordPress to manage it.  I’m not completely bound to that decision, but that’s what I’m thinking at the moment.  I will probably experiment with Blogger’s custom domains with Err Bear Music, my publishing company.  We’ll see how it goes.

But for now, I need to move Newsome.Org, in-tact, to WordPress.  And I’m willing to pay to have it done right.

Which means I need to hire an experienced, qualified WordPress expert to install WordPress (and any necessary plug-ins) on my server, create a custom template, and import all of my blog posts, with the page links in-tact.  I don’t want to break any inbound links, etc.

I am soliciting proposals from WordPress experts who meet the above criteria and are interested in performing the above services.

First, some info.

1) I use Blogger to manage my content, but the content is hosted on my dedicated server.
2) My index and post pages are .shtml pages.  I’m not concerned about that going forward, but preserving existing page links (e.g., permalinks) is critical.

Now, the job at hand.

1) Setting up WordPress (and any necessary plug-ins) on my server.
2) Moving all of my content over to WordPress (approximately 1600 posts) while preserving the permalinks.  I don’t want duplicate post pages.
3) Creating a WordPress template reasonably close to the one I use here.  I have the CSS, etc. that I can provide.  See 4 below.
4) While I want to maintain enough of the look and feel to preserve branding, I am willing to consider alternative designs.  The thing I like the most about the current design is the way it sizes itself based on the reader’s screen.  I hate reading a narrow box of content on a big computer screen.

Please ask any project-related questions in the comments, so I only have to answer once.  Proposals, schedules and prices should be delivered via email.  I will keep the terms of all proposals confidential.  Please include references and/or summaries of other similar jobs you have done.

If you haven’t done this before, don’t learn on me.  I need this done right.

I’ll write new posts as I navigate through this process.  In the meantime, Blogger has set up a dedicated blog to assist refugees.  I hear Bono is planning a benefit concert.

More as it develops.