Migrating a Site From Wix to WordPress: A Step by Step Guide
By: Jordan Ramirez
Tags: Migration, Wix, WordPress

While Wix is a great website builder, it comes with many limitations. WordPress is an excellent option for anyone looking to switch from Wix and gain more control of their site.

If you’re a beginner, moving from Wix to another platform can be difficult. No need to worry because this guide will make the process more manageable.

In this guide, I will walk you through every step to migrate your website from Wix to WordPress. But before we get to the nitty-gritty, let’s break down the reasons why WordPress might be a better fit for your site’s needs.

Moving from Wix to WordPress

There’s no denying that Wix is very beginner-friendly, thanks to their staple drag and drop builder. If simplicity of use was your utmost priority, choosing between Wix or WordPress might’ve been easy.

But there are critical differences between the two that can eventually convince Wix users to migrate to WordPress.

Firstly, it’s difficult to regularly customize a Wix site to the fullest. For example, Wix templates cannot be changed once you have picked one. On the other hand, WordPress makes it easy for its users to switch themes whenever they like.

WordPress also has an advantage when it comes to extending a website’s functionality. There are a whopping 50,000+ plugins available to install on any WordPress site. Wix has a similar offering with their Wix App Market, but it’s way smaller in size with only 300+ apps available.

Unfortunately, Wix also has issues when it comes to content ownership. They make it clear to their users that your website and its content are bound to their proprietary hosting platform.

On the other hand, WordPress grants you full ownership over your website due to their self-hosted business model.

Now that you’re more convinced to make a move from Wix to WordPress let’s overview everything that you need to do to make it happen.

1. Get Hosting

Unlike Wix, which takes care of hosting for you, WordPress is self-hosted. This means that you have to get a web hosting account before you create a new WordPress website.

There are many hosting providers to choose from, so it’s best to weigh your options carefully.

Here are some of the most popular ones out there:

First and foremost, you need to decide whether you want a standard hosting plan or a WordPress hosting plan. You may notice that many hosting providers offer both options.

WordPress hosting is a type of hosting plan optimized to maximize the speed and performance of WordPress sites. Usually, users can enjoy pre-installed security measures and plugins to make the WordPress experience better from the get-go.

If you want to focus on creating high-quality content and not fuss over technical aspects and security, a WordPress hosting plan is a much better fit. I use Hostinger’s WordPress hosting plan, so I will use it as an example in this guide.

After you’ve purchased a hosting plan of your choice, you need to get a domain name for your new WordPress website.

Many WordPress hosting plans offer free domain name registration, so look out for potential better deals.

2. Set up the New WordPress Site

After purchasing a hosting plan, you need to install WordPress. Most providers allow their users to install WordPress from their hosting account control panel.

I will be using Hostinger’s hPanel, but the process should be similar no matter which hosting provider or control panel you use.

On Hostinger’s hPanel, navigate to Hosting -> Manage -> Website -> Auto Installer.

2. Select WordPress.

3. Fill in the information needed and click Install. Wait until the installation is complete.

4. Navigate to Dashboard -> Edit Website to view your WordPress Admin panel. This is the back-end of your new WordPress website.

Before going to the next step, it’s recommended that you change your default permalinks. This is important because you want clean, SEO-friendly permalinks for the blog posts and pages you will be transferring.

5. Navigate from your WordPress Dashboard to Settings -> Permalinks. You will be shown a list of permalink choices.

6. Choose Post name to get the cleanest permalinks possible.

3. Transfer Your Content from Wix to WordPress

There are three methods available for anyone looking to migrate from Wix to WordPress. Each of these options depends on your Wix website’s size and whether or not you’re willing to pay for the transfer process.

Method #1: Manual Transfer

This method is free but requires the most effort. It’s recommended for small sites that only have a few blog posts and pages because you have to manually copy and paste all of the content from Wix to WordPress.

Copying and pasting content between different text editors may cause some formatting issues, so be prepared to do extra work.

If all of this sounds exhausting, you’re not wrong — especially if your site is large and holds a ton of content. However, if your site is small, this is the best way to make sure all your site content is migrated correctly.

For example, the Mass Pages/Posts Creator plugin on WordPress is a great tool to make this method more manageable. This plugin allows you to create multiple pages and posts simultaneously to focus on duplicating your content and its formatting later on.

To install the plugin, navigate to your WordPress Dashboard and click Plugins -> Add New. Search for the Mass Pages/Posts Creator plugin and click Install Now. Click Activate.

After you’re redirected to the plugin settings page, you need to fill in some fields according to the number of pages and posts on your Wix site.

4. List the titles of your posts. You can use temporary titles too, but keep in mind that you can edit them later.

5. Select Post as the type of content.

6. Set the status as Draft and start the process by clicking Create. Repeat this process for each page as well.

7. Check your Posts and Pages. There should be multiple automated ones created by the plugin.

8. Before you proceed to the next step, delete every sample post and page.

Now that you have the “dummy” posts and pages on your WordPress site, it’s time to manually copy and paste all the content of your Wix blog posts and pages.

Go to your Wix Dashboard pages and navigate to Blog -> Published. It’s best to transfer your posts from the order of oldest to newest, so find your oldest entry and click Edit. Copy and paste every post and page from Wix to WordPress.

If you’re lucky, the correct formatting from the original post on Wix will transfer automatically. If it doesn’t, you’ll have to correct it manually. Try to fix all the common formatting issues, such as white spaces and unbolded text.

To import images, manually save them to your computer from Wix and upload them to WordPress.

Method #2: Bulk Export the RSS Feed

This method works best for people who own a larger Wix site but are looking for a free method to transfer their files.

Keep in mind that even though this method is semi-automatic, it can still be very tiresome, especially if you own a considerably large Wix site with lots of content.

This method entails using RSS Feed to transfer the posts on your Wix site to WordPress automatically.

I also included an automated way to import your images to WordPress using the Auto Upload Images plugin. Keep in mind that this plugin was last updated two years ago, but there’s no harm in trying.

Unfortunately, there is no automated way to transfer pages with RSS feed, so you have to copy and paste them manually.

To locate your Wix site’s RSS feed XML file, all you have to do is go to your Wix site and add /feed.xml or /blog-feed.xml to the end of your site domain or URL. Press Enter. You will see the RSS Feed XML file in the form of a webpage full of code.

2. Right-click anywhere on the page and click Save to download the RSS Feed XML file.

3. Go to your WordPress Admin page and navigate to Tools -> Import. You will see a list of import tools available on WordPress. Find the RSS import tool and click Install Now.

4. After the installation is complete, click Run Importer.

5. Click Choose File to select the RSS feed XML file from your computer.

6. Click Upload file and import to upload the file and start importing your Wix posts to WordPress. The process may take some time, and that will depend on the size of your website.

7. Navigate to Posts to check whether all your posts have been transferred.

Next, we will use the Auto Upload Images plugin to import images from your Wix site to WordPress.

To install the plugin, go to your WordPress Dashboard and navigate to Plugins -> Add New.

2. Click Upload Plugin to select the plugin file (in .zip) on your computer. Proceed installation by clicking Install Now.

3. After the plugin is activated, navigate to Settings -> Auto Upload Images.

4. Fill in the Base URL field with your Wix site domain or URL. Then, fill in the rest of the fields with your information. Press Save Changes to begin migrating the images to your WordPress Media Library.

5. Navigate to Media -> Library to find all the imported images from your Wix site.

Unlike posts, the pages on your Wix site cannot be automatically transferred using an RSS feed. To transfer your pages, you’ll have to copy and paste every page’s content to WordPress manually.

Before you publish the pages on WordPress, make sure that your pages have the correct formatting. Additionally, don’t forget to check for any broken links.

Method #3: Automatic Transfer (Paid)

This method requires the least effort because you will be paying a third-party company to migrate your Wix site to WordPress for you.

CMS2CMS is arguably the most popular company that offers services related to cross-platform website migration. They support over 150 platforms, including Wix and WordPress.

Their automated site migration service does not offer a fixed price — they calculate the cost of any website migration according to each website’s size and complexity.

Thankfully, they offer a free trial for anyone looking to preview the result of their site migration services. The free trial also allows you to find out the cost of your site migration process. You’ll be able to make an informed decision before purchasing their services.

Let’s take a look at CMS2CMS automated site migration free trial:

Navigate to the CMS2CMS website and sign up using your email address. You will be redirected to the Dashboard page. Specify the details of your current and new website. If your new WordPress site is already live, choose to Migrate to your own site. If not, don’t worry — CMS2CMS can provide a test site for you to preview the migration process.

3. After verifying the connection, select the parts of your website that you want to migrate. Then, you can add several add-ons. Finally, click Start Free Demo Migration to process the preview of the migrated site.

4. Once the demo migration is complete, you’ll be able to preview the test site and access its WordPress Admin page. You will also be given a price quote that details the total cost of a full site migration if you wish to purchase it.

4. Redirect the Old Wix Site to the New WordPress Site

Whichever migration method you chose, make sure you don’t miss this crucial step. You don’t want to lose traffic over site migration. Redirecting will allow site visitors to find your WordPress site easily.

Unfortunately, if you didn’t connect a custom domain name to your Wix site, redirecting it to your WordPress site won’t be possible. If you used CMS2CMS and purchased the redirect feature, you can safely skip this step as well.

Open a text editor. Copy and paste the following code:

var hashesarr = { “#!about/ghit7”:’/about-us/‘, “#!contact-us/fe37”:’/contact/’, “#!cat-article/c6hg”:’/cat-article/’ }; for (var hash in hashesarr) { var patt = new RegExp(hash); if (window.location.hash.match(patt) !== null) { window.location.href = hashesarr[hash]; } }

Take a look at the second to fourth lines. There are three examples of a redirection string. If you look at the first string, the first part is #!about/ghit7, and the second part is /about-us/.

The first part should be replaced by the URL to a page on your Wix site, while the URL should change the second one to the same page on your WordPress site.

To redirect all the URLs to the new site, you’ll have to manually add each URL on your old site in that kind of format.

2. Once you’re done editing the code, save the file as redirect.js.

3. You’ll need to upload the redirect.js file to WordPress using an FTP client, such as FileZilla.

4. Edit your functions.php file by adding the following code:

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

5. Save and upload this file as well, and you’re done.

Transferring the Domain Name to the New Host

If you purchased a domain from Wix and want to use the same domain for WordPress, you’ll need to make sure that domain can now be used to access the new site.

To do this, you can simply transfer your domain away from Wix to the new web hosting plan that you have purchased for WordPress.

Once you’ve received the domain’s EPP code from Wix, all you need to do is initiate the domain transfer to your hosting provider. This process can be different for every hosting provider, but in the case of Hostinger, transferring a domain name can be done in four simple steps.

5. Check Whether Everything Has Been Transferred Correctly

Now that you’ve completed the migration process, you’ll need to make sure all your content has been transferred and that every little detail works properly.

Redirection. Open up URLs to blog posts and pages on your old Wix site. Make sure that every link redirects your visitors to WordPress.

Open up URLs to blog posts and pages on your old Wix site. Make sure that every link redirects your visitors to WordPress. No broken links. You can use the awesome Broken Link Checker plugin to check any linking issues on your site.

Optional Post-Migration Steps

Congratulations, you have officially transferred all your content to your new WordPress site. Now that the most challenging part is over, you can now begin to have fun experimenting with the many customizations and optimizations WordPress has to offer.

Customize Your New Site

You probably used Wix for its easy to use customization tools. Fortunatelyy, WordPress has a vast array of options to make your site look the best. Not all of them have to be complicated.

There are over 3,500 free themes you can choose from in the WordPress theme directory. If you’re looking for a paid theme, thousands are offered as well by WordPress and numerous third-party publishers.

If you’re missing the Wix website editor, there are WordPress plugins and themes that offer a similar experience. Elementor, Beaver Builder, and Divi are some of the most popular themes and plugins that use the drag and drop editor.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Lucky for you, WordPress websites are very SEO-friendly. However, you can boost your ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) even more by implementing several practices.

You can get started with your SEO settings by installing plugins. There are plenty of them on the WordPress plugin directory, but Yoast SEO is the most widely used. It makes SEO incredibly easy to implement.

Conclusion

Between WordPress or Wix, WordPress is the better option in the long run. It’s more flexible and powerful for growing websites. However, you’re not wrong if you think that Wix to WordPress migration can be complicated, time-consuming, and even costly.

But if you’re convinced that this migration can ensure a better future for your site, I can assure you that it’ll be worth it.

I hope that this guide was helpful to you in your journey to be a successful WordPress webmaster.

If you buy something using the links in my article, I may earn a small commission.