Migrating an Existing Website to WordPress
Have a website already? You can still gain big benefits by moving your existing website into WordPress. Any website can be rebuilt in WordPress either keeping your existing design or by creating a whole new design at the same time. Once the site is moved over, you’ll be able to start using all the powerful features of WordPress such as it’s Content Management System, extensive plug-in library, and user management systems.
It’s possible for you to move your own website into WordPress if you know HTML, CSS, and PHP. If not, we’ll be happy to make the migration for you! We’ve built website after website in WordPress and have the knowledge and experience to set-up your WordPress website in a way that makes it easy for you to manage while also focusing on creating a highly professional website for your visitors.
The Migration Process
Here are the basic steps that need to be taken to migrate your site. Many of these steps require a decision on your part how you’d like the website to be set-up. Use the Get an Estimate form at the bottom of this page to submit this information to us if you are interested in having us complete the work for you. We’ll get back to you quickly with a more specific price estimate and time-line.
Step 1: Set-up Hosting
You must first decide how you will host your website. It’s likely that you already have a hosting account if you are migrating a website. However, it can be problematic to try to use that same hosting plan for the new website as you’ll most likely want to keep your existing website up while your new one is built. It can also require more time setting up. Here are your options, in the order that we recommend them.
Option 1: Get New Hosting at HostGator.
Going with a new hosting plan keeps everything very clean and easy. We’ll install and set-up your website using a temporary domain name. Once your site is ready to go live, then we just change a setting on your domain name and people will start getting your new site when they go to your domain name. You can then cancel your old hosting plan so that you aren’t double paying for hosting.
We recommend HostGator over all others as we know they have the software to make installing and managing WordPress easy, that they don’t oversell their servers, and they have top-notch technical support. We use them ourselves. You can be assured that you will have everything you need and that your website will run quickly and smoothly.
One drawback of getting a new hosting plan is that you will have to set-up your email addresses again. It’s not a difficult process though and we can help you with it. We also have a Free WordPress Installation offer if you sign-up with HostGator through our page.
Option 2: Get New Hosting Somewhere Else.
HostGator is a great host, but they aren’t the only one out there. It’s fine if you prefer to use another company. However, you’ll want to make sure that they have the latest cPanel, Fantastico De Luxe, and the latest versions of PHP and MySQL. It is likely to take us longer to get your WordPress website set-up if the host you select doesn’t have these things.
Option 3: Keep Your Existing Hosting with Website in Maintenance Mode.
If you really want to keep your existing hosting, which means you don’t have to sign-up for any new plan nor set-up your email addresses again, then it’s far cleaner and easier to take the existing website down while we are creating the new one. We’ll install WordPress immediately and use the Maintenance Mode plugin to create a ‘Under Construction’ page while we build your site.
Option 4: Keep Your Existing Hosting with Live Website During Production.
This is the one that scares us. Keeping your existing site live while we develop your new website means that we have to build the new website in a different location on your server than normal. This adds a lot of complexity as websites. We strongly recommend against this option. It’s possible, but will add a few hours to your project and make things more complicated going forward.
Step 2: Install WordPress
The next step is to get WordPress installed on your hosting plan. This is a pretty easy process if you have a good hosting plan. It gets a little more complicated if not. We can begin building the site once we have WordPress installed. We also have WordPress Video Tutorials that include a few videos on installing WordPress yourself if you are so inclined.
Step 3: Creating or Selecting Your WordPress Theme
Every website built in WordPress uses a Theme, so we’ll have to get that part figured out for any migration. You can keep your existing design if you’d like or you can use the opportunity to start using a new theme. Let’s look at the benefits of each…
Option 1: Keep Your Existing Design
We can take the design of your existing website and create a new theme from the existing layout and imagery. We can usually get everything we need directly from your existing site. You can always switch to a new theme later on without losing any of your content or features. This option is generally quicker and cheaper overall as there isn’t a lot of customization necessary.
Option 2: Implement a New Theme
On of the biggest features of WordPress is how easily you can create a very sharp website using a professional theme. It’s a great time to upgrade the look of your website when you are migrating WordPress and generally well worth the extra time and expense. See our list of the Best WordPress Themes for some of our favorites. You can also pick from any WordPress themes that you find on the internet and we can even help you find the perfect one for you.
Once you select a theme, we’ll install it, configure it, and customize it to your heart’s content. An existing theme can be installed very quickly but generally requires at least some customizations to meet your particular needs. It really just depends on what you are looking for from your project.
Step 4: Move Existing Content
The next step is to create all the pages of your website and move the content over. This creates the structure and navigation of your website. We’ll also recreate any functionality like contact forms, etc. You can also do some of these tasks yourself if you’d prefer, which will cut down on the time we have to spend. This step typically involves some customizations to the theme to present the content as cleanly as possible.
Step 5: Installing and Configuring New Plugins
There are some plugins we typically use on every site. You may also have a couple plugins that you would like to use that we can get installed and configured for you. See our Best WordPress Plugins page for some of our favorite plugins.
Step 6: Testing and Launch
We’ll go through the entire site and test every link before taking it live. We’ll then help take the site live and go back and test everything again once it’s up. We’ll do everything we can to make it a smooth transition.
Price Estimate
As you can see, there are a lot of decisions that will affect the price for us to help you with this project. You can use the form below to submit your project information to us if you’d like a more specific price estimate for your project. We’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. Note that we bill hourly for our services and do not do set-price projects. See our Terms of Service for more information.
In general though, a migration can take as little as 8 hours keeping an existing design with little customizations to about 20 hours for a new design with heavy customization. You can also just buy a little professional time to have us help you when you get into a jam if making the migration yourself. See our How to Set-up a Website in WordPress guide for more information about taking it on yourself.