WordPress may be the most popular website builder in the world, but it doesn’t have to be the first one you use to create your website. There are many different website builders to choose from. Blogger, Squarespace, Wix, and even Medium are some of the popular solutions. GoDaddysome celebrity registrar and hosting companies also have a website builder and this might be the perfect solution you need to create your first website.
It can also be an easy-to-grow solution. If you decide to migrate your website from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress, it would be wise to do so sooner or later and be prepared to work hard because GoDaddy is not going to make it easy. In this article, we’ll show you why and how you might want to migrate your website from GoDaddy Website Builder to WordPress.
We will cover topics including:
GoDaddy is a highly reputable company that you should come across when looking for website hosting providers or trying to register a domain name. Besides hosting your WordPress website and allowing you to register a name for it, GoDaddy also offers you to use its Website Builder to quickly create a professional looking website.
If you do, you’ll get a website that looks great and is very quick and easy to set up. You will have the option to customize it by choosing different themes, fonts and colors. You can add a blog, upload your images, decide what kind of pages you want. You can make an appointment with additional GoDaddy tools or engage in some email or SEO marketing. You will even be able to use Website Builder to create your own store.
The problem, and the reason you eventually want to migrate, is because WordPress does all of this better, except for the part where you can get your website up and running in a matter of minutes. With WordPress, you spend more time setting up everything because, for example, you have a lot of great premium themes to choose from and they allow you to customize your website down to the last detail. With GoDaddy you have a very limited number of themes and many restrictions on what you can and cannot customize.
While the additional tools offered by GoDaddy will certainly come in handy when trying to build a store or market your website, it’s fair to say that they don’t even come close to WordPress’ plugin ecosystem. All in all, while GoDaddy website builder can get your website up and running quickly, WordPress will likely help it run harder and longer.
Before you start preparing for the migration, you should know that GoDaddy Website Builder doesn’t have many features to make the migration easy for you – except that you can download the images you upload to your website.
Content on your website pages, blog posts, products in your store – even if you imported it using a .csv file – cannot be exported. It’s important to make the transition as soon as possible because you will have to do everything manually in an effort that could easily turn into a big project.
Some tools can help you along the way and you won’t have to do everything at once. For example, if you want to back up your GoDaddy website, you can use a tool to download each page to your computer instead of downloading it individually. You will also be able to download almost any image you upload to GoDaddy at once – however, you cannot do the same with the GoDaddy stock photos you use on your website.
So if you’re wondering how to prepare for the GoDaddy to WordPress migration, you can first prepare mentally. After that, you’ll need to devote a fair amount of time to this in your program, although it will depend on the size of your website. Next, you must proceed to the first step.
Before you start migrating the website, i.e. copying and pasting the content of your GoDaddy website onto your new WordPress website, it would be a great idea to have that entire WordPress website installed. Ideally, it should resolve hosting and use staging site If you need to transfer the domain name from GoDaddy to your new website or a site with a temporary address.
You will want to make any changes to this website that you want to be there before you start copying the content. Take a long look at how your GoDaddy website looks. Determine what you like and dislike about it. Find out which features you like and which you want to have.
Then start looking at WordPress themes with their demos for a layout similar to the one you use at GoDaddy. Or you can go a completely different route – use this as an opportunity to give your WordPress website a new look and choose a completely different layout. Maybe try our free Qi theme. However, keep in mind that unless you plan to use this opportunity to rebrand, you must remain consistent with the branding of the previous website.
You should do the same for the plugins you want to use. For example, if you are planning to own an online store, you should install WooCommerce and look at its extensions. At the very least, you should consider installing a caching and backup plugin, something for SEO, and something for security. There is a complete list of things to do after installing WordPress – review it and implement the ones you think you need most.
Now that your WordPress website is ready to receive the content, it’s time to copy and paste it. Before doing so, you may find it worth taking a copy of your entire website using the following. HTTrack Website Copier, an app that will make a copy of your website available for offline browsing. So basically, it will download all or at least most of your website onto your computer because some images may fail to do so.
As for images, what you upload to your GoDaddy website can be downloaded in bulk from the image gallery. Stock images you use that are provided by GoDaddy are also not available for download. If HTTrack didn’t catch them, navigating, right-clicking on them, and saving locally is the only other option you have.
There are two ways to populate your new website with content from your GoDaddy website. One is to copy and paste the content, creating one page and one post at a time. This is tedious work and the more pages and posts you have, the worse it gets.
Another option you can try would be to copy the HTML code from your GoDaddy pages and posts and paste it into your new WordPress pages and posts. Again, you’ll have to create all those new pages and posts and you’ll have your hands full removing stray items you won’t need on your new website, but that’s how it is.
When it comes to images, you have to manually upload them one by one on each page or post. Again, it’s a tedious task, so you should do it before your website grows.
After you’ve successfully migrated all the content from your old website to your new website, you’ve done most of the work – but you’re not done yet. The next steps you need to do include:
With this, you can say that you have finally migrated your GoDaddy Website Builder website to a WordPress website. You better enjoy it because it has to be a journey.
Let’s wrap it up!
For all the good things a GoDaddy Website Builder website can do for you, you will soon find that moving away from that site and moving to a most customizable solution like WordPress can be a daunting task. However, if you equip yourself with patience and attention to detail, you can make the transition in the process without any loss of quality or performance. You can even have fun shopping for the right WordPress themes.
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