For a website built in static HTML or simply CMS-system, managing pages and news items can be a tedious job. Often, though, the texts are to your liking and a decent file has already been built up in terms of news items etc.
A logical choice then is to convert your website to WordPress. Below in brief what you need to think about in this process.
- The first important point is to know that the old website will not actually be converted. Posts, pages and photos will be exported or manually transferred to the new WordPress-installation. The procedure for this depends on the old website. Whether old pages and messages can be exported also determines the final duration of the conversion. The same applies to the size of the website. Style, colours and appearance of the website can be retained if desired.
- Often, your old website used low-resolution photos. If you use a template with Retina Ready design you better use higher-resolution photos. Often, rebuilding a website is the time to make a clean sweep of which photos you do and do not want to use.
A Retina Ready website can handle higher resolution displays such as the newer Apple screens without any problems. photo: ©ThemeFusion/Avada
- To keep your website up and running during construction, it will have to be built on another server. Once the website is completely to your liking, the domain name will be redirected to the new website via DNS.
- Also important is to keep the old urls or create redirects to the new url. Your website has built up links over the years and a certain visibility in Google too. It is important that, despite the new website, your visitors still just end up at the old news items from Google and not on an error page. If you have actively optimised your images, chances are they will have a good position in Google Images. This also deserves extra attention regarding the old urls.
- WordPress has plugins for various functions. Think of a Facebook like box or a plugin to share posts. Here, too, WordPress takes a lot of work out of setting up such functions.
- For your mail, a new website has no consequences. Often, mailboxes will also have to be moved to the new hosting package.
- An important point when moving/new website is the contact forms. Always check that these work properly after the move, especially if your mail is on a different server.
Do you want to transfer your website to WordPress and want to know what the options and consequences are for you?
If so, please contact us without obligation via our contact form, email or Facebook.