Migrate from HTML to Wordpress?
-
My website is currently HTML because in the past, I liked a more hands-on approach and liked to have a high level of control over my code. My organic search rankings are very good. I do have a blog on wordpress now.
Despite all of this, I am considering moving to Word Press. The reason is that the fancier website techniques are very easy to achieve with a wordpress theme or plug-in. And some changes, such as menu, can be done at the high level versus the entire site. Auto-responsive is built within the themes, so anytime a new device comes out, they update it so I don't have to. And, I would like to be more tightly integrated with my blog. I am also getting to the points that I have no time to code and would like something a little simpler to maintain.
BUT, I am scared to make the move and then completely lose my organic rankings. I know that I will have to 301 all of the pages. And I know that I will have to maintain all my current on-page SEO by paying close attention to the headers and whatnot.
Do you all think that it is worth making the switch? Is there a good chance my organic rankings will drop?
-
I understand your fears completely because WP + themes + plugins can be HUGE mess.
Why? Because some of devs don't know technical and on-page SEO. I have seen themes where they put text "Comments" within H1 tag. At same time post title was encapsulated with H3. Things as hidden text, messy HTML codes, bloatware HTML are countless. You also can get server overloading, slow SQL queries and some issues. Can be performance issues, PHP issues, hosting issues. Running WP mean that you will get 10 CSS files and 10 JS libraries. And this is "best case scenario". Just imagine what is worst. Now add "upgrading" procedure where everything can be broken (or changed!) with just one click. Ah, and mine favorite - security exploits and hacking. Sound like "perfect storm". Isn't?
Now i know that this sound scary. That's why you should see and review HTML code of WP before migration. Probably you will see potential for improvements. And this changes need to be patched over original files (i'm talking about theme or plugins). For theme is OK - you can make child theme based on original. But for plugins - you need to "fork" original plugin and make your own custom version. Then on each update you should "diff" your version and original to keep your patches and new code. This mean very strong backup solution plus local dev environment and extra work on each update.
Also - it's year of 2016. Why you don't around for alternatives? I can give you suggestion - static site generators:
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/modern-static-website-generators-next-big-thing/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/11/static-website-generators-jekyll-middleman-roots-hugo-review/As you can see i'm not giving answer Yes or No. I'm just giving you few extra points to think about. Just put cards on the table.
PS: May sound negative little bit because i have some theme and plugins in past. One wrong choice and all SEO efforts can be ruined. Such is life...
Glossary:
"fork" - process of creating different version of something existing with some changes that doesn't exist in original. You can hear that devs are forking projects too. In your case - since you can apply your patches but on next update everything will be gone back to original. That's why you need to fork them.
"diff" - process for checking difference between files/project and extracting/showing only difference between them.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Should our Wordpress blog have the same theme as Magento store?
We installed the Magento 'Aheadworks' extension for our blog but it's quite limited as to what blogging capabilities it has. We are now considering integrating Wordpress for our new blog, but keeping both on the same domain to increase the domain authority. My question is, should we keep the same theme throughout? The blog should be informative and not sales based, so we was thinking of ditching the whole theme for the blog and not having our category navigation bar. Yes we can still have internal linking which may drive traffic from the blog to the web store. We have been recommended the Wordpress Integration by Fishpig but I understand this carries through the Magento theme so I'm not sure exactly how it works. Could Wordpress plugins cause issues with our Magento store or shouldn't we be worried about this?
Web Design | | Jseddon920 -
Wordpress Custom Permalinks Plugin Issue
Hello, I installed this plugin and I'm having trouble making it work. I'm new to WordPress so was hoping someone can help me out. I'm looking to set up the following pages for example
Web Design | | ec1976
http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1
http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services2 I do the following steps Add New Page Enter the following title "Services1" Enter the following text in the Permalink textbox "Services/Services1" replacing the default text "?page_id=140" Then I publish the page. This automatically updates the "Custom Fields" section below. The name is set to "custom_permalink" and the value is set to "Services/Services1". Then I "view page" but get a 404 error. The url is "http://testsite.azurewebsites.net/Services/Services1" Some additional info 1. WordPress version 9.8.3 Settings - Permalinks is set to "post name" Custom Permalinks version 0.7.18 Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks0 -
Switching over to wordpress
Hello fellow Mozers! I've searched to see if I find an answer, cant seem to find it. Is there a way to do a blanket 301 redirect? I am moving a site that has all pages end with .html extension over to wordpress. I was wondering if I could set up a rule that says redirect all pages with .html extension to a version of the page with no extension. I will keep the same url with the exception of the .html extension. http://www.website.com/page.html to http://www.website.com/page/
Web Design | | mike_sif
http://www.website.com/page-title.html to http://www.website.com/page-title/ Instead of doing a 301 redirect for about 250 pages, I was wondering if I can just do one rule that will handle all the redirects considering I am keeping the same page url without the .html extension. Thanks 🙂0 -
Optimizing a Wordpress Blog For SEO
Besides the standard Yoast for SEO plugin tweaks, I'm researching best practices when setting up a wordpress blog. In this instance, the "front end" of the site would be hardcoded static pages designed for an e-commerce site, while there would also be a /blog/ attached to the site - for blog posts, fresh content, etc.
Web Design | | GKLA0 -
Redirect From .aspx to .html if already indexed - Website Redesign
Hi Guys I would like to know if somebody could possibly shed some light on this for me. We are in the process of re-designing our site, but we are keeping all of our content in terms of site structure, internal linking etc. the same. Now we were wondering if it would be a SEO best practice for us to change our pages' extension from .aspx to .html and just put a re-direct from the aspx to the html pages. Or should we keep everything as is, and maybe just revise our on-page seo efforts as well as do some more link-building. I just have to note that we are currently ranking very well for top positions and obviously all these pages are already nicely indexed. And then another question I have is with regards to our mobi site of this same website.Our dev team created it using Responsive Web Design, but they decided to implement techniques that show and hide content based on what device you are viewing it on. So when viewing it on your desktop, it will show content as per normal, but when viewing it on a mobile device it will hide this content and show the content formatted for that specific mobile device. So we are obviously sitting with a case of dup content here.Is this technique acceptable, or is there a workaround/different way of implementing this? Thanks In Advance Dave
Web Design | | DavidZA10 -
Is there a Consultant out there to help convert C#.net functions into PHP Wordpress functions?
We are going through a transition from SiteFinity (C# .net windows environment) to WordPress (PHP Linux environment). We currently have custom forms that make calls to webservices and also store data into SQL Server tables. Not sure how to do this in PHP and could use some help. We are located in Irvine, CA. We would prefer someone onsite, but can also work with someone remote if we must. Time is of the essence. Thanks.
Web Design | | balboafinance0 -
How do you get rid of the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls?
What is the whitehat way to properly remove the .html and .php extensions at the end of urls? Example: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo.php should be (and is) http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo
Web Design | | Ryan-Bradley0 -
Using Wordpress as CMS for large Websites
Is Wordpress good enough to be used as a full fledge CMS for a large website. In particular, I'm talking about a news website. We have been online since 2002 but pretty soon we will have digitized our print newspaper archives of about 60 years. So, my question is, is it OK to use Wordpress for the entire website and if so what are some of the important things that need to be kept in mind. Cheers!
Web Design | | RishadShaikh590
