Wix to WordPress migration, step by step

Why people leave Wix, and when they should not

The usual reasons are page speed, limited control over technical SEO, plugin needs Wix cannot meet, and the wish to own hosting. Those are good reasons. Poor reasons are a dislike of the editor alone, or a belief that WordPress is free. WordPress software costs nothing, but hosting, a theme, plugins and upkeep do.

If your site has five pages, rarely changes and ranks fine, stay. Read Wix vs WordPress before paying for a rebuild.

Week by week

This calendar assumes a site of around 15 to 40 pages and a small blog. Shops and booking systems take longer.

What exports and what does not

Protecting your search traffic

Wix addresses often look like /blog-1/post-title or /post/post-title. WordPress will use whatever pattern you choose, so every old address needs a destination. The method is simple, and it is where migrations fail.

1. List indexed pagesCombine a site crawl with the Search Console pages report. Pages with clicks or links are the priority.
2. Choose the new structureKeep slugs the same where sensible. Fewer changes mean fewer redirects to maintain.
3. Write 301 redirectsOne old address to one new address. Avoid sending everything to the home page, which search engines treat as a soft error.
4. Copy titles, descriptions and headingsRankings often rest on these. Changing them during a move mixes two experiments.
5. Test before and after DNSRun the redirect list against the staging site, then again live. Fix every 404 within days.

Our WordPress experience

We build WordPress sites regularly. A'YUCO is an online matcha store on WordPress where the pages had to teach new buyers how to prepare matcha and which kit to start with. Interakt needed several landing pages on WordPress in two weeks. We have not published a Wix migration, so we do not name one here. For ongoing care, see WordPress SEO and website maintenance.

Gotchas

• Domain handling. If your domain is registered through Wix, you can keep it there and point DNS at your new host. A newly registered or transferred domain may be locked for 60 days against transfer, so do not plan a transfer around a launch date.
• Wix hosting ends with your plan. Once you cancel, old addresses stop answering, and redirects must live on the new host. Cancel only after the checks pass.
• Mobile design. Wix lets you edit the mobile layout separately. On WordPress, a responsive theme replaces that, so check each page on a phone.
• Cookie and consent. If you serve EU or UK visitors, rebuild the consent banner and review tracking scripts as part of the move.
• Speed trap. A heavy page builder plus many plugins can make the new site as slow as the old one. We keep plugins few and test Core Web Vitals before launch.