How to move your existing website to WordPress
If you have been in business for any length of time you will probably already have a website, if you don’t have a website you are in the wrong place and you should read our guide to building a brand new website. The problem with 99.99% of websites is they just don’t work and I don’t mean that they don’t function correctly I mean they don’t convert visitors into customers if they get visitors at all.
So before you start thinking about updating your website the first thing you need to do is find out how you are going to get this one to perform. When you have a website live on the internet you are one in around 180 Million (as of January 2014 according to Matt at TechMadeEasy). There are loads of ways you can get people to visit your website however don’t assume people will just find it, because I can guarantee that they WILL NOT. We can dive into all the ways you can get more people to find your website later but for now all you need to know is you either need to constantly update your website to get found by the search engines or you will need to get people there by using other methods like email, social media, direct marketing or some other method.
Ok so now that you have given that some thought you are ready to make the move. Follow the next x steps to make sure your move to a new provider goes as smooth as possible.
Step 1 – Gain control of your domain name
So if you already have a website then you have a domain name. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you have control of your domain name. If you registered the domain name yourself then all you need to do is make sure you have the username and password for the domain registration company (123Reg, GoDaddy, 1&1, Fasthosts etc). If not then you need to establish who currently has control and contact them to give you control. To find out who has control follow the instructions below.
If you have a .com domain name then you should go to the following link, www.whois.net, enter your domain name in the box and click “Go”. This will then return all of the information associated with that domain name listing who the registered owner is and the contact details that they supplied.
If you have a .co.uk domain name you will do the same thing except you will need to use the whois tool on www.nominet.org.uk
There are of course loads of different domain name extensions (.net, .org, .co, .biz etc) so if you have something different simply type into the following into your search engine “Domain extension + Whois tool” (Example = “.org +Whois Tool) and use the correct tool to find out who registered the domain name.
Once you have control then you can move onto the next step
Step 2 – Decide where you will host your new website
So now you need to decide where you want to host your new website. Since you already have a website live on the internet then you already have a hosting service in place. This could be provided by the people that built your current website, your domain name provider, your IT company or even just an independent website hosting provider. Since you are getting a new website built you have the option to do whatever you want with regards to hosting. Here are your options:
Sticking with your current hosting
If you have been happy with the service they have provided so far then you may want to stick with your current provider. This should be fine and as long as they are happy to host your new website all you need to do is check a few things with them first.
1) Can they host WordPress websites and MySql databases ?
2) Will there be any additional costs involved?
3) Can they provide us with full access to the control panel and full FTP access?
Controlling your own hosting
If you want to have more control over the hosting you can use another hosting provider just make sure they can support WordPress and MySql databases before agreeing to buy anything. We always recommend either GoDaddy or BlueHost but there are loads of hosting providers out there so shop around. As long as they can work with WordPress then we can work with them. The only other thing you need to consider when it comes to controlling your own hosting is that you are responsible for the security and maintenance of the servers.
Hosting your website with us
Add it to your package when ordering and you are done 🙂
Step 3 – Choose your website
As this is not your first website you will no doubt have a good idea of what you would like and the content you are going to put on there. So take a look at our website packages and see which one fits your business the best, remember pages on a website can always be hidden so if our package has a gallery and your business doesn’t have the need for one we can simply hide it for you on request. If you want some features that don’t appear in our standard packages like SMS alerts whenever someone places an order, forums or even secure client areas we can do that just get in touch first to talk through your project ideas before placing an order.
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Step 4 – Get the content ready
Ok now the hard part and often this is what will delay your project so expect this to take at least twice as long as you first thought. Since you already have a website up and running you will have things like your logo, branding (unless you are going to rebrand at the same time), images and possibly some copy all ready to go but before you just send all of the old stuff across have a think about your past conversion rates. Did your old website actually perform and convert visitors into customers? If not why not?
If people didn’t take action on your old website I can guarantee that it’s not just because it looks old and tired. A beautiful design can help with first impressions but if your content doesn’t convert now it won’t convert when everything around it looks pretty. Before you submit your content you need to think about what you want visitors to do on each page of your website.
When a visitor reads the headline on your page what do you want them to do?
Read the next sentence and then the next sentence then click to the next page or watch the video on your page. Once they have consumed all of the content on that page what transformation do you want to have taken place. Assuming they arrived knowing nothing about your product or service by the time they have visited your website what do you want that visitor to know, how do you want them to feel and what do you want them to do?
Make sure you tell them what you want them to do.
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Step 5 – Tell everyone about your new website
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post visitors to your website is not a given. If you sit back and do nothing with your website the search engines will find it (because submitting it to them is part of our service) but that’s all they will do and you will be listed somewhere on the internet probably 20 pages deep in the search results. If you are really keen on getting to the top of the search engines you will need to keep your website updated on a regular basis and start learning about the basics of Search Engine Optimisation.
Being at the top of the search engines is fantastic but it takes a great deal of work and can get very expensive when you outsource the work. However there are so many other ways you can get people to your website right now. While we are building your new website (it won’t take long) you should start thinking about what you are going to do to get people to your new site. Think about methods like email, social media, direct marketing and other things you can do to tempt people to take a look at your website.