HTML to Wordpress - a good idea?
-
I have an HTML site that is 12 yrs. old and ranks well in Google. I want the more user friendly Wordpress format to update content myself. Should I, and how do I make the transition. Thanks.
-
Hey Mark
Good idea? Yep!
Basic process;
- Plan out the structure of your new site.
- Map the old pages to the new pages.
- Create the new site on a development or local server (some folks will build it right on the main domain, but just keep it hidden - I don't recommend that). If using a dev server, use your privacy settings and "discourage search engines from indexing the site" - you don't want the dev site indexed!!
- Prepare your 301 redirects (as Kade suggested, I actually don't think you should keep your URLs the same at all - now's a good time for improvement).
- Move WordPress from the dev environment to the new server.
- You basically "pull the plug" on the old site by removing index.hrml and letting index.php (which is part of wordpress) take over.
- Put in your 301 redirects ASAP.
- Crawl the new site for 404s
- Monitor WMT like crazy for a few weeks looking for any missed redirects.
I definitely recommend getting a dev to assist you if you don't feel comfortable!
Hope that helps.
-Dan
-
I just moved 2 sites from HTML to WP. I will be moving 1 more next week.
ADVICE: Don't forget to have your 301s already prepared! My urls used to end like the example.com/whatever.html. On WP they end like this example.com/whatever/
So make a list of all your URLs and have it prepared ahead of time so you don't get ht with duplicate content.
BTW, I suffered ZERO loss of rankings going from HTML to WP.
-
I think you have the perfect responses from Kade, Takeshi and Christopher. I agree with each one of them. In my opinion, the crux is that if done correctly it can be very very beneficial in terms of functionality, features and how visitors like your website and interact with it. I totally understand the concerns, they are very legit concerns. I would suggest to build your new stie using Wordpress on a staging server, test it to make sure all images, file paths etc are consistent and the code is clean. If you like it all, do the switch. You'd be fine.
-
I am finishing up a project to move a site that is two years old from HTML to WordPress and from an old domain to a new domain. Although the URLs are not identical, there is pretty much a 1 to 1 mapping using 301 redirects in the .htaccess file. I also informed GWT of the move. It's a bit early, but so far, I have not noticed any drop in traffic.
But here's the best part. The site looks much much better and it is also responsive (about 25% of our viewers are mobile and growing). As a result, people are viewing more pages and spending more time on the site. I expect Google will notice that.
If the rankings hold, I plan to update several sites that are 20 years old from HTML to WP.
Best
Christopher -
Be very careful to make sure that when you move your old site to Wordpress that your URL's stay EXACTLY the same and the content does not have a major overhaul. Also, if images on your website rank well in image search, make sure that the URL structure and location of those images doesn't change. 12 years and ranking well is not something you want to lose.
The question of should you is completely up to you. Are you going to save money doing this? Is it enough money to warrant the time spent making the transition? How often do you need to be changing data? Do you have the technical know how to make the transition? Can you hire someone to do it for you? Will the end result be a better experience for your site's visitors?
These are just some questions to really get you thinking about whether or not it is worth it.
-
Wordpress is great because it's much easier to update than a plain HTML site, and you can quickly add a lot of features to your site through plugins. You also get built-in RSS feeds.
The main thing to keep in mind during the move, is to preserve your URL structure so that links pointing to your old content don't get lost. If you have to change the URL structure during the move, make sure to include the appropriate 301 redirects ("Redirection" is a great plugin that can do this for you).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Wordpress: Pages vs Posts vs Portfolio
Hi All, I'm looking to put pen to paper and design my main structual template for my website. I will be creating the new site in Wordpress. My understanding of Wordpress is broken into the Static Pages, Posts and Portfolio. Static PAGE
Web Design | | Mark_Ch
Static one off content.
No tags, categories or archived Posts
content entries, which is listed in reverse chronological order.
Update post entry to maintain overall freshness of your website.
tags, categories & archived Portfolio
????? Question What are the benefits of a portfolio page over Static Pages & Posts When creating feature rich articles should i use static pages, posts or portfolio. Thanks Mark0 -
How import are breadcrumbs SEO wise on a wordpress blog?
I was recently told I should take the breadcrumbs off of our site, for if no other reason than that it would look much nicer, and I tend to agree. I was curious how much seo weight breadcrumbs add to a site, and if I would take a big hit if I removed them... Thanks!
Web Design | | NoahsDad0 -
I need to buy a website template - anyone knows a good place to buy it? where you should buy one template?
I used the www.templatemonster.com or http://themeforest.net/, but is difficult to find a template with a focus on SEO. Also with the necessity to include text in the beginning of the website, is difficulty to found something really good.
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
SEOMoz crawl report shows a duplicate content and duplicate title for these two url's http://freightmonster.com/ and http://freightmonster.com/index.html. How do I fix this?
What page is attached to http://freightmonster.com/ if it is not the index.html ? Should I do a redirect from the index page to something more descriptive?
Web Design | | FreightBoy1 -
How do you get rid of the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls?
What is the whitehat way to properly remove the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls? Example: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo.php should be (and is) http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Web Design | | Ryan-Bradley0 -
Looking for an open source or wordpress designer that knows seo best practices
I have almost lost my patience in trying to find a web developer for our project. I have searched high and low from freelancers to us based firms. All I can find; freelancers that can't get the job done, but promise they can and us based firms that are currently getting away with murder charging through the nose on work that is not acceptable to say the least. US based Firms 1. Seem to give you as little work as possible to increase their margin. I get it we all need to make money. 2. Everyone knows how to do everything until you start telling them that you have a little education in the industry and will be testing their work. All of the sudden they no longer talk to you. 3. Got a few recommendations and they are all subpar performers. After asking them why their builds load so slow or have so many errors they have excuses that point to the customer Freelancers over seas. 1. I am not sure where to start with this. I have searched high and low in freelancer for someone that I can trust to build a site. Of course there is a ton of junk to look through. After countless hours of narrowing down the individuals I am thinking of giving a shot I find that they are not capable of the job. All I want is a new website from a firm that is honest and knows what they are doing. That is educated in seo best practices. That can build a quality website and actually has references of sites they built that are still up and running and test out alright. It is pretty bad when web development companies miss simple items like h tags. Really? Does anyone know of someone that knows what they are doing? That can work with someone that knows how to run a dvd player. Just disappointing to see all these web companies and freelancers that get away with murder. Who earns their keep in this industry?!?!?!?
Web Design | | forecastedinvestments0 -
Duplicate Content for index.html
In the Crawl Diagnostics Summary, it says that I have two pages with duplicate content which are: www.mywebsite.com/ www.mywebsite.com/index.html I read in a Dream Weaver tutorial that you should name your home page "index.html" and then you can let www.mywebsite.com automatically direct the user to index.html. Is this a bug in SEOMoz's crawler or is it a real problem with my site? Thank you, Dan
Web Design | | superTallDan0 -
Using Wordpress as CMS for large Websites
Is Wordpress good enough to be used as a full fledge CMS for a large website. In particular, I'm talking about a news website. We have been online since 2002 but pretty soon we will have digitized our print newspaper archives of about 60 years. So, my question is, is it OK to use Wordpress for the entire website and if so what are some of the important things that need to be kept in mind. Cheers!
Web Design | | RishadShaikh590