How to Transfer a site from Wix to WordPress?

In this step-by-step guide, we’ll show you how to migrate your site from Wix to WordPress. If you are faced with the limitations of the Wix platform and are looking for more control over your site, then migrating from Wix to WordPress will be a possible solution.

To transfer a site from Wix to WordPress, you need to follow these basic steps:

1. Register hosting for WordPress and domain name
2. Install New WordPress Website
3. Import your blog posts on Wix via RSS
4. Create Your Wix Pages in WordPress
5. Add Images to WordPress
6. Redirect your Wix site to WordPress
7. Check your site

Below we will go through the migration process with you, this will allow you to transfer your site as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Table of Content

• Initializing
• Two Ways to Transfer Your site from Wix to WordPress
• Using RSS to Import from Wix to WordPress
• Using the CMS2CMS Plugin for Automatic Transfer
• Actions after migrating a site from Wix to WordPress
• Conclusion

Initializing

When you move from Wix to WordPress, the first thing you need to do is prepare your new WordPress site for migration to it.

The duration of this conversion process will depend on how big your Wix site is, whether you want to keep your SEO settings and how well you are oriented in WordPress. If you’re a complete beginner, then you might be interested in reading our in-depth WordPress guide, which describes everything from A to Z.

Below we will take a look at the two steps you need to go through before moving your Wix site to the WordPress platform.

1. Buying a new hosting

With Wix, you are hosting this platform. Therefore, when you move your site to Wix, you need to take care of the new hosting to host the site. In addition to hosting, you also need to buy a domain name or switch your domain from Wix (if you have already purchased a domain through them).

If you are looking for a solid, convenient for beginners hosting, then check out WordPress hosting from Hostinger. You will also receive a free domain name or you can transfer your domain purchased on Wix!

2. Setting up your site on WordPress

Now you have taken care of hosting for WordPress and directed the domain to your new site. It’s time to start building a new home for your site. Follow the steps below to set up your WordPress site and create your site:

2.1 Install WordPress

The process of installing WordPress for a site depends on the tools provided by your hosting provider and your choice.

But the easiest way to install WordPress is to use the installer in 1-click.

Now you have WordPress installed on your site and you have access to the administrative part of your site (to the backend). The URL will be like this: http://yoursite.com/wp-admin.

2.2 Customize Your Website

Log in to the administrative part of your site and you will see the WordPress admin console.

Before you begin to customize the appearance and functionality of your site, make a few settings.

First go to Settings ›Permalinks. Then select “Record Name”. This will change the structure of your URL link and it will become more readable and attractive to search engines.

The next thing you want to configure is the name of your site and tagline (short description). To do this, go to Settings ›General.

At the top you will see two fields “Site Name” and “Short Description”. Change them to the ones on your existing site.

These two settings will be enough for a start.

2.3 Configuring the appearance and functionality of the site

You can make these settings for the site on WordPress through themes (templates) and plugins.

There are so many free WordPress templates available for installation right from the admin console of your WordPress site. To do this, go to: Appearance ›Themes› Add new.

In addition to the opportunity to choose a free theme, there is also an option to choose from a large number of paid themes. Paid themes are usually of very good quality and provide you with more features and settings.

If you are looking for a paid template, then it recommends that you visit the following sales sites:

• Themeforest
• Studiopress
• Elegant themes
• WordPress Premium Theme Directory

If you are looking for a theme and feature set, as in your current Wix site, then you have a great chance.

Setting up a theme is very simple. To do this, go to the Themes ›Settings menu and make all the necessary settings. Or you can read the documentation for your topic for a deeper understanding of all the settings for your template.

When your site is ready, it’s time to migrate your current site from Wix to WordPress.

Two Ways to Transfer Your Site from Wix to WordPress

There are two different ways to migrate your site:

1. Using the RSS feed and performing some copy and paste operations.
2. Using plugins for automatic transfer.

Using RSS to Import from Wix to WordPress

The first way to transfer your site is via an RSS feed.

Keep in mind this approach will only work for older blogs on Wix. New blogs no longer have an RSS feed. Therefore, if you recently created your site on Wix, then you need to go to the second step.

And if you are using an older version of Wix, then follow the steps below:

1. Find the RSS feed

First you need to open your Wix RSS feed. To do this, add “/feed.xml” to the URL of your site.

For example, your site is mydomain.com, then the address will look like “mydomain.com/feed.xml” or “mydomain.com/feed”.

This way you will see for sure whether your Wix site has an RSS feed.

1. Save the RSS file

With the RSS feed open, right-click on the page and select “Save as”. Depending on the browser you are using, you may be asked to change the file extension, change it to .txt.

You may want to leave the extension to .xml, then save the file to your desktop.

1. Import into WordPress

Now go to the admin console of your WordPress and into Tools ›Import.

Find the import of entries from the RSS feed in the list and click on “Install” and then “Run Import”.

On the next page, you can download the RSS file to download.

After importing, you will want to see if your records have loaded properly.

Go to Entries ›All entries and see if the posts of your existing blog appear in the list. It may take some edits to improve the look, but hopefully all your posts are now in your new blog.

Migration via RSS will only transfer your entries, but not the pages of the site, so you will have to do this manually.

1. Add pages to your site in WordPress

Since there is no direct method for transferring pages from Wix, you have to do this with the old proven way of copying and pasting.

Open the page on the Wix website and copy all the content. Then open WordPress and go to Pages ›Add new.

Then paste the content into a new page.

You will need to do this for each page in turn, until all of them are in WordPress.

1. Transfer images

The transfer using the RSS feed that we made above will copy the content, but your images will still be located on the Wix platform.

There are two ways to transfer your images.

The first is to download each image file from the site to Wix and save them to your computer, then upload them to WordPress via Media files ›Add new.

The second method involves using a plugin to download and transfer images. This plugin will download your images from Wix, copy them to your new site and update all existing image links.

To do this, find, install and activate the plugin called Import External Images. Then go to Media Files ›Import Images, and click «Import Images Now”. This will download your images to the library and replace all existing links.

Using the CMS2CMS Plugin for Automatic Transfer

The plugin will automatically migrate from Wix to WordPress.

This is a paid plugin, but not too expensive, and it will do all the work for you. The entire process of internal transfer will take place in 20 minutes.

To use this plugin, follow these steps:

1. Install the plugin

To install the plugin, go to the WordPress admin console, then to Plugins ›Add new. In the search bar, enter “CMS2CMS: Automated Wix to WordPress”.

Then click “Install” and “Activate”.

1. Create an account

Open the plugin settings in Plugins ›Wix to WordPress.

Create an account or go to an existing one if you already have one.

1. Connect to your site on Wix

In the next step, you will connect to your existing Wix site.

Enter the URL of your site on Wix and click “Verify Connection”. If you filled in the URL correctly, then get ready to migrate.

1. Start the transfer process

Now you can set the settings for the transfer. Choose which content you want to transfer and which to leave.

For an additional fee, you can get more settings for the transfer, for example:

• migrate Meta data
• Migrate Images
• install 301 Redirects

Next, click on “Start Free Demo Migration”. In the execution report, you can see errors if they occurred during the transfer process.

Then you will get options for the price. Here you can choose more transfer settings or purchase a transfer guarantee if there are problems in the process.

If you are satisfied with your settings and the final price, then click on “Complete Migration”.

Migration will begin as soon as payment is completed.

Actions after migrating a site from Wix to WordPress

Regardless of which transfer method you choose, there are some points you will want to do before releasing your site to the online world.

Here are four things you need to do to make your site ready:

Create a WordPress Menu

Your main navigation menu will help visitors navigate the site.

Go to your admin console and in Appearance ›Menu. Name your menu and click “Create Menu”. Now select any page on the left and click “Add to Menu”. When finished with the menu, click on “Save Menu”.

To place your menu on the site, click “Manage areas”. Depending on your topic, you will be offered different options for areas for placing your menu. If you want to display it at the top of your site, then select the setting ‘Top menu’ or ‘Main menu’.

Redirecting your Wix site to WordPress

Now you will want to redirect the old Wix site to the new WordPress site. Thus, if someone visits your old site, they will be immediately redirected to the new site.

But, if your site was hosted on a Wix subdomain, then you cannot redirect. And, also, if you use the CMS2CMS plugin and pay for the additional redirection function, then your work has already been completed.

Otherwise, we can redirect using a redirect. First, copy the code into any text editor:

1. var hashesarr = {
2. “#!about/ghit7”:’/about-us/‘,
3. “#!contact-us/fe37”:’/contact/’,
4. “#!dog-article/c6hg”:’/dog-article/’
5. };
7. for (var hash in hashesarr) {
8.    var patt = new RegExp(hash);
9.    if (window.location.hash.match(patt) !== null) {
10.        window.location.href = hashesarr[hash];
11.    }
12. }

The first part of the line, “#! about / ghit7”, will be your old Wix URL, and the second part ‘/ about /’ will be the URL of the new WordPress page.

And you will need to do so for every existing URL on Wix whose page you have moved.

Then save the file as redirect.js and upload it to your / js / directory on the server.

Finally, you need to make changes to the functions.php file so that the newly created file starts automatically.

Open the functions.php file and add this code:

1. function wpb_wixjs () {
2. wp_enqueue_script( ‘wixredirect’, get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . ‘/js/redirects.js’, array(), ‘1.0.0’, true);
3. }
4. add_action(‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, ‘wpb_wixjs’);

Save and overwrite your functions.php file and now the redirects are ready.

Install Yoast SEO

If you used the built-in tools for SEO in Wix, then you will need a simple optimization of your site on WordPress. Fortunately, there are many SEO plugins for WordPress.

One of the best is the Yoast SEO plugin. It will help you optimize your posts and pages for keywords, while guiding you in the right direction to optimize SEO.

To install the plugin, go to Plugins ›Add new and find “Yoast SEO”.

Then install and activate the plugin. After installation, you can configure the plugin with our Yoast SEO plugin guide.

Recheck of existing content and media content

Open your site, maybe you will find some inaccuracies or errors in formatting or links that may have occurred during the transfer.

Go through each page and carefully review everything to be sure of the correct display and operation of the new site.

Be sure to check all your posts and pages before publishing online. This will help you catch errors and make sure that the site looks correct in your browser window.

Do not worry if the final stage takes more than you expected. Nothing grand happened in a day.

Conclusion

Now you know how to migrate a site from Wix to WordPress – at first this may seem like a slightly complicated process, but with our guide everything will become much simpler.

When you switch from Wix to WordPress, you will get more freedom and control over your site, data and its success.

We hope that the guide was useful for dispelling the most common myths about the process of site transfer.

Have you just migrated your site to Wix on WordPress? Please share your transfer experience in the comments.