How to Properly Switch From Wix to WordPress (Step by Step)


Are you looking to switch from Wix to ?

Wix is aย popular website builderย that lets you create a simple website, fast. However, many Wix users soon realize that their options are limited and adding extra features can become quite expensive.

If you want more features and flexibility without the high costs, then switching to self-hosted is the best choice. powers over 43% of all websites because itโ€™s extremely powerful. In this article, we will show you how to properly move from Wix to and grow your website with complete freedom.

switch from Wix to WordPress

After reviewing various different ways to move from Wix to WordPress, we believe the easiest method is by importing your blog posts via RSS.

In this step-by-step guide, we will walk you through transferring your Wix website to WordPress. Depending on how many pages you have on your Wix site, the migration can take up to an hour.

Here are theย steps to migrate from Wix to WordPress:

  1. Sign up for WordPress
  2. Setup your new WordPress site
  3. Customize your siteโ€™s style and appearance
  4. Import your blog posts via RSS
  5. Convert your Wix pages to WordPress
  6. Create your main navigational menu
  7. Redirect Wix to WordPress

Ready to switch from Wix to WordPress? Letโ€™s get started.

ย 

ย Step of a switch from Wix to WordPress

Step 1: Signup forย WordPress Web Hosting

Toย start a WordPress blog, the first thing youโ€™ll need is a web hosting account for your website.

Web hosting is your websiteโ€™s home on the internet. This is where all of your files and data is stored.

You will also need aย domain nameย (such as www.yoursite.com). This is your websiteโ€™s address on the internet.

When you use Wix, they host your website for you which is also the reason why itโ€™s quite limited. On the other hand, WordPress is free software, so youโ€™ll need a place to install it. Thatโ€™s why you need to purchase web hosting and a domain name.

We highly recommend that you useย Bluehost because they are an official WordPress.org recommended hosting provider.

ย 

Bluehost

BlueHost Coupon

  • They have agreed to give WPBeginner readersย a free domainย and overย 60% discountย on web hosting when they use our uniqueย Bluehost couponย code.

If you want to look at more options, then we have a list of theย best WordPress hostingย providers that you can choose from.

Some other company that we recommend is HostGator.

In this tutorial, weโ€™ll use Bluehost for screenshots and examples.

If youโ€™ve already registered a domain name with Wix, thatโ€™s no problem. When signing up with Bluehost, you can enter your existing domain under the โ€œI have a domain nameโ€ option.

Enter your existing Wix domain name on the right

Later on in this guide, weโ€™ll walk you through how to transfer your domain when your new WordPress site is ready.

Step 2: Setup Your New WordPress Site

After purchasing your new hosting plan, youโ€™ll need to install and set up WordPress.

If you signed up with Bluehost, then they automatically install WordPress for you, and you can simply log in to your WordPress dashboard from your hosting account.

Upon login, you will see your WordPress admin dashboard:

WordPress admin dashboard

ย 

All other WordPress hosting companies also offer 1-click WordPress installers from their hosting dashboard. If you need help installing WordPress, then you can refer to our step-by-step guide on how to install WordPressย for beginners.

Once you log in to the WordPress admin area, itโ€™s a good idea to set your WordPress permalinks.

Your permalink settings will determine the address of each blog post. For example, instead of publishing a blog post to:

www.yourblog.com/2017/10/blog-post-title

You can publish it to:

www.yourblog.com/blog-post-title.

You can change your permalink settings by navigating toย Settings ยป Permalinksย in your WordPress dashboard. Once you have selected the structure you want, click on theย Save Changesย button at the bottom.

Change WordPress permalinks before importing Wix

For more details about permalinks, you can check out our post onย SEO-friendly URL structures in WordPress.

Step 3: Customize Your Siteโ€™s Design

Next, you should customize the appearance of your website. Itโ€™s easy to do that usingย WordPress themes.

WordPress themes are similar to Wix templates, they control the appearance and display of your WordPress website.

There are thousands of free WordPress themes available for you to use. Some themes are very basic and minimalist, while others will add a lot of new features to your site.

WordPress themes

As a WordPress beginner, you may want to start with a simple theme thatโ€™s easy to use. We have a list of recommendedย simple WordPress themesย you can take a look at to get started.

Wondering how to decide on a theme? You can check out our article onย selecting the perfect WordPress themeย for tips and advice.

Once you have found a theme you like, you can install it by following our guide onย how to install a WordPress theme.

Remember, you can easily change your theme in the future, so itโ€™s important that you donโ€™t spend too much time on this step.

You can even use the default WordPress theme and start with the migration process. Because the most important part is moving all of your content from Wix to WordPress.

Step 4: Import Your Wix Blog Posts to WordPress

In this step, weโ€™ll transfer your Wix blog posts over to your new WordPress site.

Wix is a closed platform, and they donโ€™t provide an easy way for users to migrate their content away from Wix.

But we can still automate the process by importing your Wixย RSS feed, instead of recreating each blog post manually.

To get started, youโ€™ll need to download your Wix RSS file.

You can locate the file by addingย /feed.xmlย orย /blog-feed.xmlย to your Wix website URL.

If you donโ€™t have a custom domain with Wix, then you can find your RSS feed atย username.wixsite.com/blogname/feed.xmlย orย username.wixsite.com/blogname/blog-feed.xml, where โ€œusernameโ€ is your Wix username and โ€œblog nameโ€ is the name of your blog.

If you have a custom domain such asย then you can find your RSS feed atย www.yourwixblog.com/feed.xmlย orย www.yourwixblog.com/blog-feed.xml.

After navigating to the proper URL, you should see a page full of code.

Go ahead and right-click anywhere on the page and clickย Save As to save the file on your computer.

Save Wix RSS feed

ย 

Now that you have your RSS file, you can log in to your WordPress dashboard and click onย Tools ยป Import.

Next, click theย Install Nowย link under the RSS heading.

Wix to WordPress migration using RSS feed

After a few seconds, youโ€™ll see a link at the top of the page toย Run Importer. Go ahead and click the link.

Next, you need to click theย Choose File button and select the feed.xml file that is saved to your computer. Once selected, you can click theย Upload file and import buttons.

Click the upload button to transfer Wix to WordPress

If you have a lot of blog posts to import, then it can take several minutes to import them all.

When itโ€™s done, youโ€™ll see a confirmation message.

Your Wix blog posts imported to WordPress

To check on your blog posts and make sure they were exported from Wix correctly, you can navigate toย Posts ยป All Postsย and clickย Viewย underneath each post.

Blog posts imported

At this point, the content of your blog posts has been transferred, but thereโ€™s one problem: any images in your post are still hosted with Wix.

Luckily, thereโ€™s an easy way to fix this and move your images over to WordPress.

All you need to do is install and activate theย Auto Upload Imagesย plugin.

Plugins are like apps for WordPress that allow you to add new features. We have a step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After installing and activating the plugin, youโ€™ll need to re-save each post that contains images, and the plugin will import images inside it.

It would be time-consuming to edit each post one by one, but we have a handy trick that you can use to quickly re-save all WordPress posts at once.

Simply go to the Posts ยป All Postsย page and then click on theย Screen Optionsย button at the top.

Display more posts

You need to increase the number toย 999ย in the โ€˜Number of items per page fieldโ€™ field and click on the Apply button.

WordPress will reload the page, and this time it will show 999 posts at a time.

Next, you need to select all your posts and then select Edit under the bulk actions menu.

Select all posts

ย 

After that, you need to click the Apply button. WordPress will show you a quick edit box with all selected posts. You just need to click on the Update button, and WordPress will update all your posts.

See our guide onย importing external images in WordPressย for more detailed instructions.

Step 5: Import Your Wix Pages to WordPress

After you have imported your blog post, next weโ€™ll need to transfer your Wix pages over to your WordPress site.

Wix doesnโ€™t provide any automated way to do this, so weโ€™ll have to recreate each page in WordPress one by one.

First, you can navigate to the Wix page you want to transfer to WordPress. Highlight all the content (except for the page title). Then you can right-click and click on Copy.

Copy Wix pages to WordPress

ย 

After that, you need to log in to your WordPress dashboard and navigate to Pages ยป Add New to recreate the page. At the top of the page, you can type in the page title. Then you can right-click and click onย Pasteย to recreate the content.

Paste page content

ย 

For help with styling your pages, you can check out our article onย adding new posts or pages in WordPress.

When youโ€™re finished styling your page, you can click theย Publishย button to publish your page on your new WordPress site.

Publish your page

While you can follow the above method for all text-based pages, it wonโ€™t work for certain pages like your contact page.

Youโ€™ll need to install aย contact form plugin like WPForms to create a contact page. We have a step-by-step guide onย how to create a simple contact form.

Now that youโ€™ve converted all your content, itโ€™s a good idea to carefully review your posts and pages to make sure everything is working right and looks the way itโ€™s supposed to.

Step 6: Create Your Main Navigational Menu

Next, youโ€™ll want to make sure your visitors can easily navigate through your new website using yourย primary menu.

You can create a navigational menu by going toย Appearance ยป Menus. Type in a name for your menu, and click one of theย Create Menuย buttons.

Creating new navigation menu

Next, you can select whichever pages you want to add to your main menu and click the Add to Menuย button. When youโ€™ve added all the pages you want, select the menu position.

Finally, click the blueย Save Menuย button on the right.

Add pages to menu

Now your menu has been created and is live on your website.

Step 7: Redirect Wix to WordPress

Your new WordPress site is complete, and youโ€™re ready to let your readers know about your move.

Itโ€™s important to not only announce your move to your readers but to set up proper redirection.

You want all visitors to your old site to land on exactly the same page on the new site. This will also let search engines know that your old site has moved to a new location.

Note: You can only redirect users to your new WordPress site if you had a custom domain on Wix. Unfortunately, if you were using a website subdomain, then you cannot redirect users to your WordPress site.

First, you need to open a plain text editor like Notepad and paste this code:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
var hashesarr = {
"#!about-us/c1it7":'/about/',
"#!contact/ce54":'/contact/',
"#!random-article/c1mz":'/random-article/'
ย };
ย 
for (var hash in hashesarr) {
ย ย ย ย var patt = new RegExp(hash);
ย ย ย ย if (window.location.hash.match(patt) !== null) {
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย window.location.href = hashesarr[hash];
ย ย ย ย }
}

In this code we have added three example URLs in the following format:

"#!about-us/c1it7":'/about/',

The first part of the line looks for a string in the URL. This will be the URL your Wix users will be coming from. The second part in the line is the WordPress slug for the same page.

Unfortunately, you will have to manually add each URL in this format. Once you are finished, you need to save this file asย redirects.js.

Next, you need to upload this file to your WordPress themeโ€™s /js/ directory using anย FTP client.

If your theme does not have a /js/ directory, then you need to create one.

Now you need to edit your themeโ€™sย functions.phpย file and add this code at the bottom of the file:

1
2
3
4
function wpb_wixjs () {
wp_enqueue_script( 'wixredirect', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . 'https://cdn3.wpbeginner.com/js/redirects.js', array(), '1.0.0', true);
}
add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'wpb_wixjs');

Donโ€™t forget to save your changes.

Thatโ€™s all, you can now try visiting a URL from your old Wix site to see the redirect in action.

Note:ย These redirects will not redirect search engines and are not very SEO friendly.

Lastly, donโ€™t forget to inform your readers of your new address. You can do this by announcing your move on social media, writing a blog post about it, and sending out a notice to yourย email newsletter.

Step 8: Add Essential WordPress Plugins

WordPress pluginsย allow you to add more features to your site. Plugins work like Wix apps. There are hundreds of plugins available, free and paid. You can check out our archive of articles about theย best WordPress pluginsย if youโ€™re not sure where to start.

We also have a list of theย must-have WordPress pluginsย for all websites.

If youโ€™re looking for a Wix-style drag & drop page builder, then we recommend using one of these best drag & drop WordPress page builder plugins like SeedProd.

SeedProd Page Builder

ย 

It lets you fully customize your website design without any code.

Thatโ€™s it! We hope this tutorial helped you switch from Wix to WordPress without a lot of hassle.

We would like to welcome you to the WordPress community. To get started with WordPress, please take a look at ourย beginnerโ€™s guideย section and ourย WordPress beginner videos.

If you have a friend still using Wix, then you can show them your new WordPress site and our comparison onย WordPress vs Wixย and convince them to switch over.

ย 

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to ourย YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us onย Instagramย andย Facebook.

LEARN FREE WordPress wite Wehavedigitaltool


Leave a Comment

%d bloggers like this: