Step-by-step guide to migrating websites to WordPress from other platforms

Many users might start with different hosting providers, but most eventually venture towards WordPress. 

As of 2024, it is hosting approximately 455 million websites.

There are multiple reasons why some people do not start right away from WP! It can be hard to believe that website builder cum CMS offers multiple benefits and flexibility. Additionally, all of it is also accessible to those who are not technically proficient.

So once a novice web developer is confident in their skills, they want to shift to WordPress. 

But how can you seamlessly migrate your whole website from one hosting provider to WordPress?

Introduction to Website Migration

Almost every online business has either thought about website migration or done it. It helps you improve the three most important things:

• Site performance

• User experience

• Security

The common reasons for website migration are adopting a new website architecture, shifting from HTTP to HTTPS, or wanting to work on a new server. Additionally, you must trade your hosting providers if you change your domain name and adopt a new brand identity (rebranding). 

By now, we know that choosing the right hosting is extremely important for your business growth. But let’s understand if this move will affect your existing SEO metrics.

Maintaining SEO During Migration

We would be lying if we said a move as big as migrating your website will not affect your website’s SEO. But its impact can be contained. Plus, it has a positive effect in the long run.

Moving to a faster hosting provider will add to your site’s performance. It will also boost keyword rankings. However, even a minor mismanagement can lead to SEO-related errors, causing:

• Broken links

• Lost rankings

• Missing content

Therefore, it is important to prepare for migration.

Preparing for Migration

Migrating a fully functional website is like shifting houses. How well you handle the process determines whether you can enjoy your new home. For example, forgetting your AC behind will make the move incomplete and less happy, irrespective of the new location. 

Below is the checklist to make sure you are well-prepared for the move:

• Decide on a definite time to migrate the website (the ideal time to make this move is when traffic is low)

• Send push notifications, a pop-up on the website, or an email to your users about the migration time.

• Another good way to announce the migration plan is by putting your website in maintenance mode.

• Create a fresh website backup to keep an updated copy handy in case anything goes wrong.

• Conduct an SEO audit before making the shift to check your website’s SEO health and ensure no issues arise during the migration.

• Remember to disable the firewall and caching, as well as redirect plugins.

• Stop the search engines from indexing your new site before the move.

• Set up your new address on your previous domain and easily redirect users to the new domain.

• Once the shift is complete, ensure the new domain is crawlable and indexable.

  
  

Handling Post-Migration Issues/ Testing Migrated Site

• Ensure your links, buttons, and navigation menu work smoothly on the interface. Also, check if all of the WordPress forms are working.

• In online stores, add products to your cart, test out the checkout system, and scan all the product pages and links.

• 404 errors might become your constant visitors after the migration is complete. It happens because the old domain no longer works, and your users cannot reach you. Or you might have used poor redirecting techniques. Use the AIOSEO plugin to track these errors and eliminate them.

• Perform a speed test for your new website.

• Re-run an SEO audit check to make sure no issues were raised during migration.

• Check the traffic, conversion rate, and keyword rankings for your new hosting provider. It will let you know whether your website sees a rank drop or a boost.

• To make sure Google know that you have a new site for indexing, ensure your old domain is closed.

Migrating Images and Media

Often, people forget about the non-HTML assets on their websites during the migration process. Changing your image URLs without redirecting them will decrease the traffic generated from media. 

Before migrating images and media, check the numbers it generates for your website using the Google search console. 

If you keep the names and URLs of images the same as before, you won’t need to redirect them.

Otherwise, shift and redirect non-HTML assets like the rest of the website and make it a part of your URL map. 

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