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Ultimate WordPress Migration Guide for Beginners (Step by Step)

Migrating your website to WordPress can seem daunting, but it doesn‘t have to be. With some planning and the right tools, you can make the transition smoothly and efficiently. Here is a comprehensive guide to help you migrate your website to WordPress, step-by-step.

Why Migrate to WordPress?

Before jumping into the how-to, let‘s look at some of the key reasons you may want to migrate your website to WordPress:

WordPress Powers over 43% of All Websites

WordPress completely dominates the content management system (CMS) market. It powers over 43% of all websites on the internet according to W3Techs.

No other platform comes close to WordPress in terms of market share. The next biggest CMS is Shopify at 3.7%.

This adoption is massive compared to platforms like Wix (1.4% market share) and Squarespace (less than 1%).

WordPress vs Other Platforms: Feature Comparison

WordPress blows other platforms out of the water when it comes to features and flexibility. Here‘s a quick comparison:

Feature WordPress Wix Squarespace
Free Software ✅ ❌ ❌
Theme Options Thousands Dozens Hundreds
Plugin Ecosystem 55,000+ plugins App Market Limited Extensions Limited
Custom Code Editing ✅ ❌ ❌
Own Your Data ✅ ❌ ❌
SEO Control ✅ ❌ ❌

As you can see, WordPress can‘t be beaten when it comes to customization flexibility, freedom, and owning your own platform.

More Reasons to Switch to WordPress

Here are some of the other key advantages WordPress provides over other website builders and platforms:

  • Lower Cost – WordPress is 100% free open source software. You just need low-cost web hosting. Other platforms have expensive monthly fees.

  • Design Customization – With thousands of themes, you can make your site look exactly how you want it. Other platforms have limited designs.

  • Powerful Features – Plugins allow you to add whatever functionality you need like forms, galleries, and ecommerce.

  • SEO Optimized – Easy to optimize your site for search engines right out of the box. Critical for traffic.

  • Control – You own all your website data and can make changes as needed. Not the case with other platforms.

  • Scalable – Easy to scale from a small blog up to a huge enterprise site with millions of visitors.

Clearly, WordPress provides huge advantages over other website platforms and builders. But how do you actually go about migrating your existing site?

Step-by-Step Guide to Migrating Your Website to WordPress

Migrating an existing website or blog to WordPress involves a few key steps:

Step 1: Choose Your Web Host

The first step is finding a good WordPress web hosting provider. This is the company that will host your WordPress site on their servers.

Some important factors to consider when choosing a WordPress host:

  • Speed and Reliability – You want a host with fast servers and minimal downtime. Look for hosts with 99.9% uptime guarantees.

  • WordPress Optimized – The host should use server configurations optimized specifically for WordPress. This improves performance.

  • Automatic WordPress Installation – The ability to install WordPress with one-click is very convenient compared to manual installation.

  • Free SSL Certificate – Encrypts data and provides HTTPS security. Should come free with any shared hosting plan nowadays.

  • Backups and Staging – Find a host that offers daily automated WordPress backups and staging environments for testing changes. Very useful.

  • 24/7 Support – Around the clock customer support via live chat and email in case you need help.

  • Money-back Guarantee – Go with a host that offers a 30 to 90 day money-back guarantee. Lets you try them risk-free.

Some of the best and most affordable WordPress hosting providers include Bluehost, SiteGround, A2 Hosting, and Kinsta.

Step 2: Register Your Domain Name

If you don‘t already have one, you‘ll need to purchase a domain name for your new WordPress website. For example, www.yourcompany.com.

You can register a domain when signing up for web hosting since most hosts allow you to register domains directly through them.

Make sure to register your domain for at least 2-3 years. This secures the domain so it can‘t be taken over by someone else during your website migration.

Step 3: Install WordPress

Once you have your web hosting account and domain name, it‘s time to install WordPress.

The good news is most web hosts nowadays make the installation incredibly simple with one-click installs. Typically it takes under 5 minutes to install WordPress.

Once the WordPress installation is complete, you can access the WordPress dashboard by going to yourdomain.com/wp-admin. This is where you‘ll manage your site.

Step 4: Set Up the WordPress Basics

Now it‘s time to configure the basics so your WordPress site is ready to go:

  • Update Admin Password – Set a new, secure password for your admin account. Never leave it as the default.

  • Set General Settings – Things like your timezone, date format, etc. Make WordPress work best for you.

  • Install an SEO Plugin – A plugin like Yoast SEO helps optimize your site for search engines. Critical for traffic.

  • Install Security Plugin – A security plugin like Wordfence provides firewall protection and alerts you to threats. Important for safety.

  • Install Caching Plugin – A caching plugin like WP Rocket makes your site blazing fast by caching pages. Big speed boost.

These few simple steps prepare your site for a smooth migration.

Step 5: Import Your Content

Here comes the biggest step – migrating your actual website content into WordPress. This includes:

  • Pages
  • Posts
  • Images/Media
  • Custom Content Types
  • Navigation Menus
  • Users and Roles
  • Theme Settings/Customizations

The method you use to import depends on what platform you‘re currently using. Here are some of the most common scenarios:

  • Migrating from Blogger – Use the built-in "Blogger Importer" tool under Tools > Import in your WordPress dashboard.

  • Migrating from Wix – Install the Wix to WordPress plugin and import page content via RSS feed.

  • Migrating from Weebly – Manually move page content by copying from Weebly and pasting into the WordPress editor.

  • Migrating from WordPress.com – Use the built-in WordPress.com import tool under Tools > Import.

  • Migrating from Shopify – Use a plugin like Cart2Cart to migrate products, orders, customers, etc.

Google "[Your Platform] to WordPress migration" for platform-specific guides. For larger websites, expect the import process to take a few hours.

Step 6: Tweak Your WordPress Design

With your content migrated over, it‘s time to work on your WordPress site‘s design and aesthetics.

Start by installing and activating a WordPress theme that fits the style you want. Browse the WordPress theme directory to find something suitable.

Then use the theme customizer to tweak your theme colors, fonts, layouts and other settings until you have the design looking just right. Site look and feel is critical.

You can also customize your theme by adding your own custom CSS, HTML, and JavaScript as needed. Don‘t be afraid to dig in!

Step 7: Redirect Your Old URLs

The last critical step is to set up 301 redirects from your old URLs to your new WordPress URLs.

301 redirects are permanent redirects that pass 100% of link equity to the new URL. This signals to Google that your page content has permanently moved to a new location.

301 redirects are crucial for preserving your SEO rankings and traffic during the migration.

How you set up the redirects depends on where your site is currently hosted:

  • If it‘s on the same server, use the Redirection WordPress plugin.

  • If it‘s hosted elsewhere, set up server-level redirects on your old host or use a service like 301 Redirects.

With the redirects in place, you‘ve fully migrated your old website into WordPress!

Tips from a WordPress Expert

Here are some handy tips from my 15+ years of experience migrating websites to WordPress:

  • Use a staging site – Set up a "staging" copy of your live site to test the migration on before going public. Reduces risk.

  • Take your time – Rushing the process leads to mistakes. Move slowly and methodically.

  • Document everything – Keep notes on steps taken, issues faced, and fixes. Helpful if questions arise later.

  • Install security plugins – Install a firewall and malware scanner. Critical to lock down security on your new WordPress site.

  • Clear all caches – Empty CDN and server caches to ensure visitors get fresh content after migrating.

  • Use WordPress tools – Built-in tools like the Debug Bar and Query Monitor help identify conflicts and issues.

  • Communicate changes – Let visitors know your site is migrating via email, social media, and a banner notification.

Careful preparation and patiently moving one step at a time is key to a smooth migration to WordPress. You got this!

Migrating to WordPress Opens Up New Possibilities

While migrating your existing website or blog to WordPress takes effort, it is incredibly worthwhile long-term.

On WordPress, you gain access to thousands of designs, plugins, features, and customizations that allow you to create a truly unique, professional site.

Your costs go down. Performance improves. And you have complete flexibility and control over your online presence.

As WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg says:

"WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time."

If you‘re looking to take your website to the next level, migrating to WordPress is absolutely the way to go. Just follow the steps in this guide, and you‘ll be up and running on WordPress in no time. The benefits are massive.

Additional Resources

To take your WordPress migration to the next level, check out these additional resources:

I hope this comprehensive guide helps you smoothly migrate your website over to WordPress. Happy migrating!

Written by Jason Striegel

C/C++, Java, Python, Linux developer for 18 years, A-Tech enthusiast love to share some useful tech hacks.