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It’s no secret that a website is essential for small businesses to establish their brand and connect with their customers. However, many small and medium-sized business owners aren’t skilled at web design or coding. That’s where Wix comes in. Wix is a content management system (CMS) that offers a basic platform for spinning up a good-looking website quickly.
But, what happens when your business starts to grow? When you need to add versatility and features to your website? When you’re actively competing with other online businesses for search results? That’s when businesses turn to a platform like WordPress.
In this guide, we’ll show you the difference between the two and why you should migrate from Wix to WordPress.
Let’s start by defining both platforms and then discuss why, at the end of the day, you should migrate from Wix to WordPress!
Wix is a website builder that provides all the tools for both beginner and pro web developers. It is currently used by a little over 3% of the websites on the internet.
Wix is the easiest platform to use because it doesn’t require coding. It offers drag-and-drop templates, which makes it an ideal web hosting service for entry-level users.
Wix provides a 24-hour support team for its users and users don’t have to worry about hosting and technical maintenance.
WordPress is an open-source content management system. It’s free to use and supported by an extensive ecosystem of WordPress hosting providers, developers, and users. WordPress hosts over 43% of all active websites and 61% of websites that use a CMS.
WordPress has a steeper learning curve than Wix, but managed WordPress hosting providers like Pressable handle most of the technical aspects of managing and maintaining a WordPress site.
That makes WordPress ideal for businesses looking for a website solution that offers greater flexibility and control than Wix without imposing too high a management burden. WordPress is open-source, which means anyone can modify or use the software however they want.
Advanced customization options, 13,000+ prebuilt templates, and 59,000+ plugins that offer a wide range of functional enhancements make WordPress a great option. Unlike Wix, WordPress offers complex website functions that can scale with your business.
What type of businesses opt for a Wix to WordPress migration? What’s the big advantage of sticking with WordPress? There are three main benefits and it all begins with the breadth of options you get from WordPress compared to Wix.
WordPress offers many valuable web development tools. Anyone using WordPress has access to the code and has full freedom to customize their website.
WordPress can serve as your blog, your company website, or you can install a plugin like WooCommerce to launch an online store or an LMS to host online courses. The options are endless, because the code base is open and designed for extensibility via plugins, themes, and integration with external services.
Additionally, with Wix, you’re stuck with a limited number of themes. WordPress allows you to switch between the thousands of available themes without affecting the content you already have.
Wix and WordPress offer third-party extensions that can add extra functionality to a user’s website. Wix developers created hundreds of apps to help users manage their websites. But WordPress’s library is full of thousands and thousands of plugins.
Anyone in the WordPress community can create a plugin. And because WordPress has an API, you’re not limited to plugins. The API will let you connect to other services like email marketing, shipping tools, payroll, or even an ERP system.
Websites use search engine optimization (SEO) to increase their visibility in search engines like Google and AI applications like ChatGPT. Effective SEO relies on technical and editorial practices that require fine-grained control of your site.
Wix has expanded its SEO options in recent years and now allows users to modify URLs, create custom meta descriptions, add structured data, and create 301 redirects.
WordPress goes so much further with implementing SEO best practices. Adding plugins like Yoast SEO extends WordPress’s core features to handle virtually all aspects of technical and on-page SEO efforts.
WordPress has more functionality, better SEO, and a lot more options for scalability. It’s not as simple or as easy to use as Wix, but in the long run, you’ll get a lot more bang for your buck.
Don’t panic if you’re already on Wix because the steps below will help you migrate over to WordPress.
Wix automatically provides you with web hosting, so if you want to migrate away from it, you’ll need to replace it with a WordPress hosting provider. Web hosting maintains the network infrastructure that connects your site to the internet, and provides technical support services.
If you’ve been using Wix for a while, a managed WordPress hosting provider is ideal. A managed hosting provider is just that: hosting services that are optimized for WordPress where the hosting provider takes care of management and maintenance for you. They install your WordPress site and handle the server architecture, CDN, caching, updates, security, and more so you can focus on what you do best: running your business.
If you were using the free version of Wix and do not already own your domain name, you will need to buy one from a third-party domain registrar like Porkbun or Namecheap.
If your Wix site has a custom address, you will need to transfer the domain from Wix to WordPress.
If you host your WordPress site on Pressable, you can simplify the domain setup process using our Domain Setup Wizard. Once you have transferred the domain to a third-party registrar, the Wizard can automatically connect it to your WordPress website.
Your WordPress websites will come with a default theme and a few alternate options. Most users will want to browse through WordPress’s extensive library for a theme that fits their specific requirements. To find a new theme, navigate to the Theme Directory or via your WordPress admin panel under Appearance > Themes.
All of WordPress’s themes are customization-friendly. Should you find yourself wanting to tinker with your theme, there are many options and tools available in the customization panel.
There are no direct ways of transferring Wix content because Wix is a closed platform. But worry not, you don’t have to recreate every post manually.
To transfer your content, you can import Wix’s RSS feed:
If you notice that some posts do not appear in WordPress after running through this Wix to WordPress migration process, it’s likely they are not included in the RSS feed. Older posts may be excluded, and you’ll have to manually add them to the site following the same process as for pages.
If manual Wix to WordPress migration sounds a little daunting, don’t fret. There is another option available. You can always hire an expert to complete the transfer for you.
Outsourcing can cost a bit but it’ll be faster, and you’ll reduce the risk of something going wrong. Remember, you only have to transfer Wix to WordPress once.
Because WordPress is an open platform, migrating between WordPress hosting providers is far easier than migrating away from a proprietary platform like Wix. At Pressable, we carry out WordPress to WordPress migrations for free.
You’re almost done. There are just a few more things to work on. The following steps will help you clean up your website before making it go live.
First, you’ll need to make a WordPress menu. The menu is WordPress’s main navigation element. You’ll see it at the top of pages and posts in most WordPress themes:
Before going live, it’s worth making sure that every link on your pages and posts still works. You may find that a few didn’t make it through the migration process intact. The result will be 404 errors that can hurt your site’s user experience and SEO performance. Install a plugin like Broken Link Checker to scan your site for 404 errors. Fix them so they link to the intended page or delete them if the destination no longer exists.
Don’t forget to get the best hosting service too! Wix offers their own but once you transfer to WordPress, you may need to upgrade to plans with better WordPress hosting features.
Yes, Wix may be easier to use than WordPress, but if you spend enough time learning basic website management, you’ll find that WordPress is the most flexible platform to host your website.
Ready to migrate your business website from Wix to WordPress? Choose a managed WordPress hosting provider you can rely on. Pressable delivers 100% uptime, infinite autoscaling, and built-in performance optimization with every managed WordPress hosting package. Get started with Pressable and experience WordPress hosting without limits.
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