Thinking about moving your site off a hosted platform and onto WordPress? Here’s a friendly guide to what happens during migration and how to keep your search rankings intact—plus a couple of real client stories and a dash of humor.
Why Move to WordPress?
Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace are amazing for getting started fast. But once you want more control, customization, and room to grow, WordPress starts to look really attractive. Here’s why:
- Total flexibility – Want a feature that doesn’t exist? Build it or add a plugin.
- True ownership – You own your site and your data—no platform lock-in.
- Room to grow – From small sites to big ones, WordPress scales with you.
- SEO superpowers – Tools like Yoast or Rank Math give you precision most closed platforms can’t.
Think of it like moving from a rental apartment with strict rules (“no painting, no pets, no knocking down walls”) to your own house. Finally—paint that teal accent wall and adopt that dog you’ve been eyeing. Freedom!
What to Expect During Migration
Moving platforms isn’t just copy-and-paste. With a plan, it’s straightforward. Here’s the typical flow we follow:
- Plan & Audit – We inventory pages, blogs, products, and SEO performance.
- Choose Hosting – WordPress needs a home. Picking the right host matters.
- Design & Build – Keep your look or refresh it—your call.
- Content Migration – Blog posts, product listings, images, files: all moved over.
- Redirects Setup – Old URLs are pointed to new ones using 301 redirects.
- Testing – Forms, menus, payments (if any), mobile views—everything is checked.
- Launch – Flip the DNS and go live on the new site.
Real-Life Examples
A.C. Grace – We migrated their Shopify store to WordPress to give them more control over product presentation and brand storytelling. They were nervous about losing search traffic, but with careful redirects and a solid SEO plan, their traffic remained steady and their admin life got a lot easier.
Blue Spruce – Moving from Wix to WordPress let them refresh their design and simplify content updates. After launch, their search visibility actually improved—proof that a migration done right can be an upgrade for SEO, not a setback.
Both clients worried about rankings. Both clients slept better after we set up the redirects and verified everything in Google Search Console. Spoiler: the internet survived.
Keeping SEO Safe During Migration
This is the part that keeps business owners up at night. The good news: a careful migration protects (and can even boost) your SEO. Here’s how we make that happen:
- Match URLs when possible so Google recognizes pages immediately.
- 301 redirects for any changed URLs—these pass most SEO value to the new pages.
- Preserve metadata—titles, meta descriptions, and image alt text all move along.
- Optimize speed on the new site; load time affects rankings and user experience.
- New sitemap & Search Console — submit the updated sitemap so search engines can reindex correctly.
- Monitor closely after launch and tweak where necessary.
Think of redirects as leaving a helpful note on the door of your old site that says, “We moved—same great content, new place.” No one likes arriving at an empty storefront, and neither does Google.
Why Partner with SO Services
We’ve guided lots of clients through migrations from Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace to WordPress. Our focus is simple: protect your SEO, deliver a site that’s easy for you to manage, and give you room to grow.
Whether you want a straight migration or a complete redesign while you’re at it, we’ll handle the technical stuff—and we’ll do it with as little drama as possible. (Yes, that includes the part where we explain DNS in plain English.)
Let’s chat about your migration and build a WordPress site that’s optimized, flexible, and set up for long-term success. Don’t worry—we’ll keep Google from getting lost on move-in day.
