Migrating your website from Wix to WordPress

Do you own a business? Do you have a website on Wix?

Well, as a small business owner, developing a website on Wix is pretty normal.

And if you think about the templates and the user-friendly functionalities that you get from their website builder, it’s evident that you will definitely like to choose Wix over anything else.

But once your business starts booming and you start adding a lot more complex things on your website, then the problem starts.

You might suddenly realize that you are in need of a new CMS that will allow you to grow your website the way your business is growing.

Well, if you are in such a situation and looking for a CMS platform, then there cannot be a better option than WordPress.

Moving your website from Wix to WordPress is not easy, especially when you read the Wix data policy.

But the fact is, with a bit of hard work, you can certainly switch your website from Wix to WordPress with ease.

Are you ready?

So, in case you have decided to migrate your site from Wix to WordPress, then it’s obvious that you will have to get ready first.

To do so, you need to get a few things ready first. 

Purchase Hosting

The first step will be to buy a purchase a hosting. Well, you can go through different hosting providers to find a suitable hosting plan for your website.

Make sure to choose a WordPress friendly web hosting.

Choosing a Theme

The next step will be to get ready with your theme.

There are plenty of free themes available for WordPress and you can easily find one suitable for your website or you can buy a premium theme as well.

Import the Content from Wix to WordPress

Well, Wix is not an open source platform, so technically you cannot transfer your content from Wix to any other CMS.

But using the benefits of RSS feed, you can certainly transfer your Wix site content without having to recreate each and every post manually.

For that you will need the RSS file from your Wix website.

Step 1

To find your RSS feed file, you will need to type this as URL: “yoururl/feed.xml”.

Only this will allow you to have access to the RSS feed file but remember that this only works with the old Wix blogs, the new ones won’t allow this kind of operation so, you will need to look for an alternative way. 

Step 2

In case you use Chrome browser, you can save the file directly to your PC as feed.xml.

In case you are using any other browser, you will need to go the “Source Code” before you can download the file. 

Step 3

Once done, open your WordPress dashboard panel. Click on Tools and then Import.

This will allow you to upload RSS file and then click on “Run Importer”. 

Step 4

To upload a RSS file, click on “Choose File” and select the downloaded feed.xml file and click “Upload File”. 

Step 5

Once you are done with the upload process, you will have to check whether all the posts from Wix website has been successfully loaded in your WordPress site.

To do so, you need to check all the posts on your WordPress Dashboard.

In case you are unable find certain posts, you will need to follow Step 3 and 4 once again but make sure to edit your .xml file before uploading it.

This way you will be able to delete those posts which have already been updated on your new website.

Trying the process 2-3 times will make sure you have all the posts on your new blog. 

Step 6

Even after migrating all the posts to your new blog successfully, you will have some work to do.

You will have to make sure you move your Wix images to your WordPress right away.

This can be done in 2 different ways.

The first one will involve a lot of work, as you will need to download each and every image and then upload them separately to your WordPress blog.

Or you can choose to use a plugin to import all your external images from your Wix blog.

Step 7

Once done with the above procedure, make sure to recreate all the other necessary pages that are present on your Wix website.

There is no shortcut in this migration; you will need to do it manually. 

Wix to WordPress Migration using Plugin 

Well, the above method might work well for the migration purpose but it’s not something that you can call a “cake walk”.

So, to make things easier you can choose to use a plugin that will migrate your Wix website to WordPress in no time at all.

Step 1

You can choose to use the plugin CMS2CMS. It’s a WordPress plugin that enables you to transfer your Wix website to WordPress.

Step 2 

Once you install the plugin, you will need to register an account with them and then login. 

Step 3

Start by entering your existing URL to the Wix website and then click the button that says “Verify Connection”. Once done, it will take you to their original website for the processing. 

Step 4

This step will allow you to map your Wix site content to your WordPress site.

You can also choose to migrate your meta-data, images, and other necessary attachments.

You can also set up your 301 redirection URLs as well.

Now you can choose to go with the demo migration and find out in case there are any issues with the migration process or in case any type of error occurs.

When the migration is complete, you will get an email notification of the same. 

Step 5

Once you are done with the demo, you can complete the actual Wix to WordPress migration.

Soon after you are done with the whole process you will need start adding those plugins that will be absolutely necessary for your website security, SEO, and content management purposes. 

So, which one of these two methods, do you think is easier?

Well, certainly using a plugin can save you a lot of time and it will also allow you to avoid any type errors while migrating your old website to WordPress.

So, what are you waiting for? Get started and migrate your Wix website to WordPress in no time all.