In this step by step guide, we’ll walk you through the process of transferring from Wix to wordpress hosting. If you’ve outgrown Wix and are looking to gain more control over your site, migrating from Wix to Hostbreak will allow you to do just that.
The basic Wix to WordPress migration process is as follows:
- Sign up for a Hostbreak web hosting and domain name
- Setup your new WordPress site
- Import your blog posts from Wix via RSS
- Create your Wix pages on WordPress
- Add your images to WordPress
- Redirect your Wix site to WordPress
- Do a final site run-through
Below, we’ll walk you through the two steps you need to take before you migrate your Wix site over to WordPress.
1. Purchase New Hosting
With Wix, you’re using bundled hosting. So, when you move your site away from Wix you’ll need a way to host your new website. Aside from hosting you’ll also need to buy a domain name if you were using free domain name from Wix.
Place the order at Hostbreak Portal, here.
2. Setup Your WordPress Site
After you’ve purchase hosting and domain name that’s pointing towards your new sit,. it’s time to start building the new home of your website. Follow the steps below to install WordPress and build out your site:
2.1 Install WordPress
If you selected Wordpress as Installation App while placing the order then wordpress will be pre-installed. Otherwise you can follow this link to install wordpress.
2.2 Setup Your Site
Login to the admin area and you’ll see your WordPress dashboard.
Before you start customizing let’s optimize a few settings.
- First, navigate to Settings -> Permalinks. Then, select the option Post name. This will change your URL structure so it’s more readable and search engine friendly.
- The next thing you’ll want to do is adjust your site’s title and tagline. To do this navigate to Settings -> General.
- At the top, you’ll see two boxes, Site Title and Tagline. Change these to reflect the current name and tagline of your existing site.
These two changes will be helpful to get you started but feel free to set other settings to your liking.
2.3 Customize Your Site
You can customize your WordPress site by using themes and plugins. There are tons of free WordPress themes available that you can install right from your WordPress dashboard.
To do this navigate to Appearance -> Themes -> Add New.
In addition to the selection of free themes, there are also a lot of paid themes available. Paid themes will generally be higher quality, as well as, offer you more features and customization options.
Chances are you’ll be able to find a theme that fits the existing design of your Wix site if that’s your goal.
Further customizing your theme is actually quite simple. You can navigate to Themes -> Customize to make some basic changes. Or, you can visit your theme’s documentation for more extensive walkthroughs.
Now it’s time to transfer over your current Wix site to WordPress.
Two Ways to Transfer Wix to WordPress
There are two different ways you can migrate your site:
- Using RSS feed and copy-pasting.
- Using an automatic migration plugin.
Use RSS to Import Wix to WordPress
The first method of transferring your site is via RSS feed.
Keep in mind, this approach will only work for older Wix blogs. Newer blogs no longer have an RSS feed. So, if you’ve built your Wix site recently, then move on to the second migration option.
If you are using an older version of Wix, then follow the steps below:
1. Locate Your RSS Feed
- First, you’ll need to open your existing Wix RSS feed. To do this you’re going to add /feed.xml to the end of your URL.
- If your site is mydomain.com it becomes mydomain.com/feed.xml, or mydomain.com/feed.
- This will also show you if your current Wix site has an RSS feed or not.
2. Save Your RSS File
- With the RSS feed open, right-click on the page and select Save as. Depending on the browser you’re using you might have to rename the file extension, as it could be saving as a .txt.
- Change the file extension to .xml and save it to your desktop.
3. Import Into WordPress
Now head over to your WordPress dashboard, and navigate to Tools -> Import.
Find the RSS importer and click on Run Importer. If you haven’t installed it, click Install Now first, then Run Importer will be available.
On the next screen, you’ll be able to upload the RSS file you downloaded.
Once the importer has finished you’ll want to see if your posts are properly.
Navigate to Posts -> All Posts, and see if all your existing blog posts transferred. There might be some formatting issues to clean up, but hopefully, all your posts are now on your new blog.
The RSS migration will only transfer over your posts, and not your site’s pages, so you’ll need to do this manually.
4. Add Pages to WordPress
- With no direct method to migrate your site’s pages from Wix, you’ll have to do this old-school with copy and paste.
- Open up your pages on your Wix site and copy the content of that page. Then open up WordPress and navigate to Pages -> Add New.
- Then, paste that content into your new page.
- Now, you’ll have to do this one by one until all your pages are copied over to WordPress.
5. Migrate Your Images
The RSS feed migration above will copy over your content, but your images are still hosted on the Wix platform.
You have two ways to transfer your images:
- The first is downloading every image from your Wix site and saving them to your computer. Then upload them to WordPress via Media -> Add New.
- The second way involves using a plugin to download and transfer the images for you. This plugin will download your Wix images, copy the new images to your site, and update any existing image links.
- To do this, install the plugin called Import External Images and activate it. Then navigate to Media -> Import Images, and click on Import Images Now. This will upload the images to your library and switch over any existing image links.
Use the CMS2CMS Plugin for Automated Migration
The CMS2CMS plugin will automatically transfer your Wix site over to WordPress.
It is a premium plugin, but for a small investment, the plugin will handle all the work for you. It will do the entire migration process for you in under 20 minutes.
To use this plugin follow the steps below:
1. Install the Plugin
To install the plugin navigate to your WordPress dashboard, then go to Plugins -> Add New. In the search bar type in CMS2CMS.
Then, click Install Now and Activate.
2. Create an Account
Open up the plugin by navigating to Plugins -> CMS2CMS Connector.
Now, create an account, or log in to your existing account if you’ve already created one.
3. Connect Your Wix Site
On the next step, you’ll connect to your existing Wix website.
Enter the URL of your existing Wix website and click on Verify Connection. If you’ve entered your URL correctly then you’re ready to migrate.
4. Run the Migration
Now you can set your migration settings. Choose which content you want to migrate and which content you want to leave alone.
For an added fee you’ll have more migration settings like:
- Migrate your metadata
- Transfer your images
- Setup 301 redirects
Next, click Start Free Demo Migration. This will give you a report that shows if there are any migration errors.
Then, you’ll get a price quote. Here you can add more migration features, or buy migration insurance in case anything goes wrong during the process.
If you’re satisfied with your migration settings and the final price, then click Complete Migration.
The migration will begin as soon as your payment is processed.
Post Wix to WordPress Migration
No matter which method you chose, here are some things you need to do before your site is live.
Create a WordPress Menu
Your primary navigation menu will help visitors navigate around your site.
Go to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Appearance -> Menus. Name your menu and click on Create Menu. Now select any pages you’ve created from the left-hand side and click Add to Menu. Once your menu is complete click Save Menu.
To place the menu on your site click Manage Locations. Depending on your theme you’ll be presented with different locations you can add your menu. If you want to display it at the top of your site then this option will be labeled Main Menu or Header Menu.
Redirect Your Wix Site to WordPress
Now you’ll want to redirect your old Wix site to your new WordPress site. That way whenever someone lands on your old site they’ll immediately be taken to your new site.
However, if your Wix site was built on a subdomain, then, you can’t implement the redirect feature. Also, if you used the CMS2CMS plugin and paid for the additional redirect feature, then your work is done.
Otherwise, we can move forward with the redirect. First, copy this code into your text editor of choice:
- var hashesarr = {
- "#!about/ghit7”:’/about-us/‘,
- "#!contact-us/fe37”:’/contact/',
- “#!dog-article/c6hg”:’/dog-article/'
- };
- for (var hash in hashesarr) {
- var patt = new RegExp(hash);
- if (window.location.hash.match(patt) !== null) {
- window.location.href = hashesarr[hash];
- }
- }
The first part of the string, #!about/ghit7, will be your old Wix URL, and the second part, /about-us/, will be the URL of the new page on WordPress.
You’ll need to change these out this for every existing URL on your Wix site that you’re migrating.
Next, save this file as redirect.js and upload this file to your /js/ directory on your server.
Lastly, you’ll need to edit your functions.php file, so the file you just created will actually run.
Open up your functions.php file and add the following code:
- function wpb_wixjs () {
- wp_enqueue_script( 'wixredirect', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/js/redirects.js', array(), '1.0.0', true);
- }
- add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'wpb_wixjs');
Save and upload your new functions.php file and your redirects will now be in place.
Set Up Yoast SEO
If you were using Wix’s integrated SEO tool, then you’ll need to do similar optimization for your WordPress site. Luckily, WordPress has a ton of top-notch SEO plugins.
One of the best is Yoast SEO. This plugin will help you optimize all your posts and pages for a target keyword, all while educating you about SEO in the process.
To install this plugin, navigate to Plugins -> Add New, and search for Yoast SEO.
Then, install and activate the plugin. With the plugin installed you can configure the plugin
Double-Check Existing Media and Content
Finally, you’ll want to do a final run-through of your site. Chances are there are some formatting or link errors that happened during the transfer.
Go through each page to make sure everything looks and functions the way it’s supposed to.
Make sure you preview all your pages and posts before publishing them live. This will help you catch errors and make sure the formatting and presentation look correct in your browser window.
