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" The decision to move from Blogger to WordPress is a bit like moving from an apartment to a house. You don't just decide today and move in tomorrow. This article series looks at the short and long-term planning it takes for a successful move." - part one of series
Now that you have a custom domain name, let's look at the next step in the series. You need to checkout WordPress for yourself and not just rely on what you read. As with moving to a new house, you want to get the feel of what it would be like living there -- don't you?  So you go to an open house, look at detailed photos and measurements. You even visualize your furniture in the new house. You start to dream about what you can do with the extra space and the backyard!

How can I experience WP before I migrate?

If you followed the first step in the series, you bought a custom name and use it on Blogger until you decide to move to WP. So how can you also use that name for any sort of self-hosted WP test? Well you can't point your name away from Blogspot until the actual migration move. But fear-not, there are ways around this.

Until now the best you could do is sign up for a free WP account just to learn the dashboard and test drive a few free themes. In that test environment, there are no ads, no plugins and no way to (easily) make free WP look like your current blog. But you can learn a great deal. So setup a free account at WordPress.com. I have one that I use to help readers with wp.com grab button code, called ubloghere.wordpress.com --- take a look. The default theme is TwentyTen, on both free and self-hosted WP! You can gain experience in setting menu options and writing posts, etc.

Since that's only a small taste of the power of  a self-hosted WP blog, we're offering temporary use of our web hosting space (separate subdomains) so you can install and test-drive self-hosted WP!  Using your 'private' dashboard, you can add other themes and plugins to see how your posts might look. A real test-drive!

What will the test dashboard have?

1. Self-hosted space with basic WP already installed.

We will set up WP and provide you with Admin access. You'll start with the default plugins and the default WP theme, TwentyTen.

• For self-hosted you need to have a domain name point to the web hosting space. Since your name may already be linked to Blogger (as suggested in step 1 of this series) you'll get a sub-domain (see -  Wikipedia ). The blog name will be something like AllisonM.bloggingwithsuccess.net.

2. An informal help forum for all winners.

• We will enroll you in our development forum with a few others so you can learn from each other.  There you can also ask basic questions about WP.

What are the terms?

• Free use for 3 weeks, giving plenty of time to make a decision or develop plans further. You also know more about what questions to ask!
• You must agree to use for testing only, and have no more than a a couple of dozen posts and pages.  The test blog must be marked as not indexed by search engines.
• You are responsible for learning WP by doing it yourself, using the Codex help documentation or reading our tutorial and videos.
• You blog about your test drive experience in a guest post here on BWS or on your own blog.

How do I sign up?

• Subscribe to BWS tips
  by email delivery.

• Leave a comment below this post, indicating your interest and why.
  Please state when you subscribed.

As you can imagine, we have to limit the number of test rides at any one time. So we'll select two drivers by August 30, notify you and start the test drive setup for September 1, 2010! Selection will be based on your comment. We will put others on the 'waiting list.'  Please spread the word to your Blogger friends who might be interested!

Happy Driving!

If you've used the free WP.com to test your blogger blog,  then leave a comment on your experience! Any questions are welcomed as always!

Preparing to Move from Blogger to WordPress

This article is part of the series Preparing to Move from Blogger to WordPress:

1. – Get a Domain Name
   related video : How to Link Your Custom Domain to Blogger
2. - Test Drive Your Blog in WP