If you’re like most business owners, you’re always on the lookout for new and better ways to improve your website. You may have heard about WordPress and its many benefits, and are thinking of making the switch. But what about your existing website? Is it too difficult or time-consuming to move to WordPress? In this article, we will dispel any fears you may have and show you how easy it is to migrate an existing website to WordPress.
Is your current website on Squarespace, Wix, Blogger, etc…? And now you want to move your site to WordPress because of all the benefits and flexibility WordPress is offering? That’s a good idea! Because WordPress has so much more functionality and also you can save a lot of money by migrating your website to the WordPress platform.
You don’t have to be an expert in WordPress or coding to perform this task. Nowadays there are a few tools out there that will do the hardest part for you. Even if your website has a lot of pages or content, it’s no problem to migrate your site to WordPress.
What are the benefits of WordPress?
WordPress is open-source software, so there is a lot of plugins and extensions out there that can customize your website how you want it to be. WordPress offers an unlimited way of implementing custom functions. If you need special contact methods, booking features, live chat, etc… WordPress can do it for you.
Some of the key benefits of WordPress include:
- Flexibility: WordPress is very versatile and can be used for a wide variety of websites. It’s also easy to customize to fit your specific needs.
- Ease of Use: WordPress is one of the easiest content management systems (CMS) to use. It’s perfect for beginners and those without coding experience.
- Scalability: WordPress is scalable, meaning it can handle large amounts of traffic with ease.
- Security: WordPress is a very secure platform and is regularly updated with the latest security patches.
The community behind WordPress is very large. That’s why more and more plugins, themes, and extensions are coming out that can improve the website.
Furthermore, security gaps can be quickly discovered and remedied by the large community. There are also expert groups for WordPress, in which both beginners and experts are helped with questions or difficulties.
User-friendliness
Many users praise WordPress above all for its user-friendliness. The creation and management of content is child’s play and no programming knowledge is required in many places. Often there is the so-called WYSIWYG editor (abbreviation for “What you see is what you get”) in the input fields, which is reminiscent of Microsoft Word with its toolbar.
To make it even easier for our customers to manage their own WordPress website, we also use page builders such as Visual Composer or Divi Builder. Since WordPress 5.0, the Gutenberg Editor, a page builder, has even been built into WordPress. Page builders are utility tools that drastically simplify building a website and moving elements around.
Free of charge
As an open-source CMS, WordPress is basically free of charge. It shares this advantage with other CMS like Drupal, Joomla, and Typo3. However, it should be mentioned that if you want to add certain themes, plugins, or add-ons, costs may apply. That depends on whether the developer offers their add-ons for free or sells them on platforms like CodeCanyon and ThemeForest, for example.
But the most important plugins and extensions are free. Only if you need special features you may have to pay for them.
Large community
Behind WordPress is a huge community and therefore a lot of programmers and web designers. As a result, there are countless plugins and themes in the WordPress marketplace that can extend your website.
Many themes and plugins
In addition, you often have the option of expanding existing plugins and themes yourself. So if you have the necessary programming knowledge, you can redesign the plugins and themes for your WordPress website yourself.
Security
The so-called minor updates, i.e. updates that only contain a few changes, can be installed automatically in WordPress. In this way, security gaps are automatically closed promptly after they have been identified. Since WordPress 5.5 you can also have plugins supplied with automatic updates. In connection with a WordPress backup plugin, this offers you a significant plus in terms of security. The major WordPress updates can affect your website, so it’s best to let a professional do it for you.
WordPress is also suitable for large projects
It is often claimed that WordPress only makes sense for small websites since it is ultimately just an advanced blog software. However, we and many other web developers see things differently. (Did you know that this website is built on WordPress either? Cool, isn’t it?)
WordPress is now a fully-fledged website CMS and can also be used for larger projects. Due to the large community and the range of existing plugins and themes, an incredible number of things can be made possible with WordPress. If you want, you could build a job board, a forum, a support system, or an online shop into your WordPress website with just a few plugins – just to name a few possibilities.
Simple SEO for WordPress websites
One of many WordPress advantages is that it has a very good basis for effective search engine optimization. As an advertising agency, we experience again and again that WordPress websites have a lot of potential for a good ranking. One reason for this is, for example, that WordPress themes are usually very well optimized technically. In addition, there are many useful tools that simplify search engine optimization and also make it possible for laypeople. Examples of good SEO plugins are: YOAST SEO and the Schema plugin.
Can you move any website to the WordPress platform?
Yes, you can move any website to the WordPress platform. There are several tools that can help you with the migration of your existing website to the WordPress platform. It’s most of the time easier than you think. If you follow our instructions the process is done in almost no time.
The longest part is the transfer of your domain name to the new hosting company.
How does the process of migration to WordPress work?
To make the process simple and easy for you, I can recommend using a tool that can help you and do the hard work for you.
If you want your new WordPress site to look almost the same as your current site, you can use a tool like “Theme Matcher“.
You can move any website to WordPress, like Wix or Squarespace, Blogger, etc… All you have to do to move your existing site to WordPress is open the Theme Matcher tool and type in your current URL.
The tool will analyze your website and create a theme for you that matches your current layout. It also imports all existing content to your new theme.
You can then download the created theme and install the theme on your new WordPress platform. Now you have to check and edit your website because in the transfer process there maybe occur some errors here and there.
How to transfer the domain name?
You can transfer your current domain name (URL) to your new hosting company. We recommend using Bluehost as your new hosting provider because Bluehost is really simple to set up and if there are any questions, Bluehost has a really good service team where you can ask questions all around the clock.
Here you have detailed instructions on how to transfer your domain name away from Wix. >>Click Here<<
If you’re on Squarespace right now you can find a detailed instruction >>HERE<<
Which hosting is best for WordPress?
For your new hosting, we recommend using Bluehost as your new hosting company. Bluehost is very cheap but offers a good and fast service.
Bluehost also offers a free domain name for the first year and you can also install WordPress with one click.
You can get your hosting plan at Bluehost.com >>HERE<<
A Little More About Bluehost
Founded by a very young Matt Heaton and Danny Ashworth in 2003, Bluehost has been around for quite a LONG time.
They’re practically dinosaurs in the industry, but that’s not a bad thing – being around this long means they’ve learned a thing or two about web hosting and are able to offer their users a great user experience.
As a web hosting provider known and used worldwide, Bluehost actually only has 1 data center, which is located in the USA. This data center powers the websites of their entire customer base, which totals a whopping 2 million and is growing by thousands every day!
They have obviously made quite an impression on the market as in just 7 short years they caught the attention of web hosting giant Endurance International Group who incorporated them into the EIG group of companies.
With the support of EIG, Bluehost managed to grow their once small team into a family of 750, enabling them to provide their customers with much-needed 24/7 support!
Conclusion
Do you now decide to move away from Squarespace, Wix, etc. to WordPress? Good decision! Now we want to give you a quick summary of the steps you have to take in order to move to WordPress. A quick side note: You have to use WordPress.org NOT WordPress.com!
- Apply for the domain change with your current provider.
- Sign up with Bluehost and choose a hosting plan.
- Create your custom theme using the Theme-Matcher-Software.
- After your domain has been successfully transferred to your new hosting provider, you can use the “One-Click-WordPress-Installation” to install WordPress.
- Now you can import and install your created custom WordPress theme.
- Now all you have to do is check your new WordPress website for errors and correct these errors manually if necessary.