We’ve had some workshop participants ask how to move from Wix to WordPress. And so we created this post as a response. Wix no longer supports an easy way to export your content from Wix to any other Content Management System (CMS). Here’s what we learned from a Wix support page:
“… it is not possible to export or embed files, pages or sites, created using the Wix Editor or ADI, to another external destination or host.”
Students have wanted to move away from Wix for many reasons. As website developers, we consider the inability to easily export your content to be the #1 reason to avoid Wix from the beginning. There are other reasons that make participants move to WordPress including:
- The free version of Wix placed banner ads at the top and bottom of your pages. Aside from not having control over the ads, this can look unprofessional.
- Wix offers a drag and drop website builder. This might seem simpler in the beginning. But users eventually feel constrained in customizing their site. With WordPress, website owners can fully customize their site to a much larger degree.
- Wix also provides many free apps that boost functionality; around 200-300. WordPress currently provides over 54,333 plugins – the largest database of free plugins anywhere on the web. As the saying goes in the WordPress world, if you need new functionality, we’re sure that “there’s a plugin for that.”
- Wix users will find that payment options in WordPress are much more flexible. Wix only offers PayPal and Authorize. And, Wix charges a monthly subscription fee for e-commerce. In WordPress, you can set up an e-commerce store using WooCommerce a free WordPress plugin.
If you want to switch from Wix to WordPress, you can follow these step-by-step instructions to get ‘er done.
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5 Steps To Move from Wix to WordPress
Since Wix has locked you to their CMS, you will need to move everything manually from Wix to WordPress. This means that you’ll have to recreate and copy and paste posts and pages and download/upload images.
We assume that you already have your WordPress hosting set up. If you don’t, start with this WordPress Managed Hosting post. If you’ve already done that, read on.
Step 1: Create WordPress Posts for Each Wix Post
You will need to create a new post in WordPress for each post that exists in Wix. We know this is labour intensive but we don’t know of any other workaround. You need to copy and paste into WordPress from Wix each and every time. Here’s how:
- In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Posts → Add new
- Copy and paste the title in the capsule at the top of the post screen
- Copy the content from the Wix post
- Click on the “Copy as Text” icon in the visual editor
- Place your cursor in the editing area and click paste.
- Format your copy (h2s, h3s, bulleted lists, etc).
- If you have images associated with the posts, you’ll have to download and save them to your computer. Then upload them with the add media button and insert the image into the post.
Once you’ve added all your posts, set your Front Page as Posts in Customize or create a page called Blog. That’s where all your posts will be aggregated.
Step 2: Create New WordPress Pages to Match Your Old Wix Pages
For your pages, you have to copy and paste content as you did for posts.
To make this as seamless as possible, we suggest that you create pages in WordPress using the same titles as the pages in your Wix blog.
- In the WordPress Dashboard, go to Pages → Add new
- Copy and paste the title into the title field above the visual editor.
- Click Publish
Continue until you have all your pages published. Now you’re ready to copy and paste the content from each page. Go back and forth between the page on Wix. When you add the text from Wix, make sure that you click on the “Paste as text” icon in the visual editor to remove any code from Wix.
Step 3: Build Your WordPress Menu
You can create your main site navigation menu with the WordPress customize feature.
- Under customize, click on Menu and click “create new menu”
- Give your menu a name (for your own purposes this doesn’t show on the site)
- Choose a Menu location (where this menu will display in your theme).
- Click “next” and then “add items”
- Select the pages you want to add to your menu
- Click Publish
Step 4: Add Your Images to Your Pages
If you have an image-heavy site we know that this can be a time-consuming task. You will need to download and save all your Wix site images to your computer. Then you will need to upload them using the Add Media button on each page. To create galleries follow our step-by-step Guide to WordPress Galleries.
Step 5: Set Your Site Live
Once you have your WordPress site ready to launch, don’t forget to point your domain name to your new host. If you’ve already done that and you have a maintenance plugin activated, simply deactivate it to show off your new site to the world.
If your custom domain name is hosted by Wix, you’ll want to move it to a new domain registrar. You will have to go into your domains on your Wix account, select the Advanced tab and select Transfer away from Wix. A code will be emailed to you which you will need to authorize the new domain registrar to transfer the domain.
Now get ready to enjoy your WordPress adventure.
Need help Moving from Wix to WordPress?
Our best recommendation is that you take our in-person 2-day WordPress intensive workshop. We will walk you through all the steps to setup your own WordPress site and you can copy and paste from your Wix site as you learn.