Feeling Perplexed about Moving Your Website to WordPress?

If you’re contemplating moving your website to WordPress, brace yourself for a challenging but exhilarating process. WordPress stands out as one of the easiest and most flexible content management systems globally, and it proves its mettle by offering thousands of plugins and themes to choose from. However, moving your website to WordPress demands that you adhere to certain steps, which we’ll outline in this article.

Step One: Don’t Forget to Backup Your Website!

Before you proceed with the migration process, make sure you back up your website. Without a backup, losing essential data or files during the transfer could prove catastrophic to your website. Fortunately, there several plugins available to help you achieve this, including Updraft Plus and VaultPress.

Step Two: Install WordPress on Your Server

Migrating your website to WordPress demands that you install WordPress on your server. You can use cPanel or Softaculous to accomplish this. After the installation, ensure that you also install critical plugins such as backup plugins, caching plugins, and security plugins.

Step Three: Export Your Website Files

To export your website files, access the cPanel for your website and select the File Manager application. From there, locate the folder with your website files, select them all, right-click, and then compress them. The compressed file is what you will import to your WordPress website.

Step Four: Import Your Website

Log in to your WordPress website after exporting your website, navigate to the “Tools” section, and select “Import.” From there, choose “WordPress” and install an importer plugin. Once the installation is complete, activate the plugin and upload the compressed .zip file containing your website files. Click on “Import” to kickstart your import process.

Step Five: Configure Your Website Settings and Test

After importing your website, it’s time to change your website’s settings. Ensure that they match your previous website settings, including your website URL, site title, permalinks, and other vital settings. Once you’ve done this, test your website, ensuring that all the links, images, and features work correctly.

Step Six: Redirect Your Old Website to Your New WordPress website

Finally, ensure that you redirect your old website to your new WordPress website. This way, anyone who still uses your old website URL will be redirected to your new website automatically. You can create a redirect using your web host’s control panel or install a redirection plugin to redirect all traffic from your old website to your new one.

Wrapping up, migrating your website to WordPress is not a breeze, but it’s achievable. Remember to backup your website, install WordPress on your server, export your website files, import your website, configure your website settings, test, and redirect your old website to your new WordPress website. Follow these steps, and you’ll thrive in WordPress’s flexibility and power.