Do you want to make the transition from Weebly to WordPress? Yes, you could also move the whole of your Weebly content to WordPress without having to employ a developer or know how to code. We created a free Weebly to WordPress importer tool that handles everything for you. In this article, we will demonstrate how to successfully transition from Weebly to WordPress (step by step).
Most people, in our experience, do not choose the best blogging platform when they first start out. Instead, you’re more likely to choose one of the many hosted solutions, such as Weebly, because you heard how simple and free it was.
When you become more involved in blogging and learn about SEO, monetization, customization, and so on, you will have that oops moment when you realize you made the wrong decision.
And this is when you begin to panic because you don’t want all of your hard work to be for naught.
Don’t be concerned; it won’t happen. Hundreds of people have moved from Weebly to WordPress with our assistance. No, you do not need to be a coding expert. You can transfer your Weebly site to WordPress if you can follow instructions and point-and-click.
Yes, the migration from Weebly to WordPress will take about an hour, but it will be well worth your time.
Bonus Free Offer: Due to popular demand, we are now providing free Weebly to WordPress migration as part of our free WordPress blog setup service. This means that one of our knowledgeable team members will handle the entire migration for you (100 percent free). Yes, you can switch from Weebly to WordPress with no risk.
However, if you enjoy learning and doing things on your own, you can follow our step-by-step tutorial below.
Ready? Let’s get this party started.
Step 1: Get Started
You’ll need two things to get started with a WordPress blog:
- a web address (this is the name of your blog i.e yourblogmaster.com)
- An internet hosting account (this is where your website lives on the internet)
While WordPress is free, domain and web hosting are not ($14.99 per year for domain and $7.99 per month for web hosting).
Fortunately, Bluehost, an official WordPress recommended hosting provider, has agreed to provide our users with a free domain name and up to 60% off web hosting.
If you need more options, you can check out our list of the best WordPress hosting companies.
After you’ve set up your domain and hosting, you’ll need to install WordPress. We have a step-by-step guide for installing WordPress.
After you’ve finished installing WordPress, you can proceed to the next step, which is to migrate your Weebly content to WordPress.
Step 2: Export Your Weebly Website’s Content
Initially, it was much too difficult for users to transition from Weebly to WordPress as there was no easy way to transfer data from Weebly.
We decided to address this issue by creating a free Weebly to WordPress Importer.
It is a free online tool that converts your Weebly content into a WordPress-compatible import format. It makes no changes to your existing Weebly site, so it is completely safe to use.
Go to the Weebly to WordPress Importer website and enter the URL of your Weebly website.
You will be prompted to enter your name, email address, and choose an export format.
The default format is WXR, and you should leave it alone unless you run into problems later.
Following that, you must decide whether or not to include pages in your export file. The default mode is ‘Yes,’ and you do not have to alter it if you wouldn’t want to export Weebly pages at all.
After that, click the ‘Export my Weebly Website’ button.
Weebly to WordPress Importer will now fetch content from your Weebly website and convert it to a WordPress export file.
You will see a download button for your Weebly export file. You must right-click on it and choose ‘Save link as’ from the menu.
This will save the file export.xml to your computer.
Step 3: Import Weebly Content into WordPress
Once you’ve converted your Weebly content to a WordPress-compatible format, it’s time to import it all into WordPress.
Log in to your admin area and navigate to the Tools » Import page.
You will see a list of importers for various platforms. Scroll down to WordPress and then click the ‘Install Now’ button.
Without refreshing the page, WordPress would then obtain the importer plugin as well as install it on your WordPress site. Once installed, you must launch it by clicking on the ‘Run Importer button.
This will take you to a page where you can use the WordPress importer. Select the export.xml file you downloaded earlier by clicking the ‘Choose file’ button.
To proceed, click the ‘Upload file and import button.
The WordPress importer will now upload and analyze your export file. It will ask you to assign authors on the next screen.
You now have the option of importing an author from your Weebly site, creating a whole new author or allocating all content to an existing WordPress user.
Remember to check the box next to the option to “Download and import file attachments.” It will import images from your Weebly website into your WordPress media library, allowing you to use them in the future.
You can now run the importer by clicking the Submit button. The content from the export file will now be imported into your WordPress database. It will also attempt to retrieve images from your Weebly blog posts and pages.
A success message will appear once the task is completed.
Congratulations, your content from your Weebly blog has been successfully imported into WordPress. You can now check your content in the WordPress admin area by going to posts, pages, and categories. To see the images imported from your Weebly site, go to the media library.
You can always restart the import process if it fails in the middle. Duplicate content is detected by the importer and is skipped. It will only import content that failed to import in the previous attempt.
Step 4: Configure Redirects
If your Weebly site had a custom domain (such as yoursite.com), you’ll need to point it to your WordPress hosting provider.
To begin, sign in to your Weebly account and navigate to the Domains page. Click on the domain name you want to edit, then click the change button next to the nameservers option on the domain settings page.
The nameservers for your new WordPress host must be entered on the next screen. These are ns1.bluehost.com and ns2.bluehost.com for Bluehost.
To save your settings, click the save button.
Changes to nameservers may take some time to propagate across the internet. Visitors will begin to see your WordPress site once the changes take effect.
Here’s how to set up a redirect on your Weebly site if you’re using a subdomain URL (like http://example.weebly.com).
Edit your website by logging into your Weebly dashboard. After that, go to Settings and then to the SEO tab.
Now go to the header code option and add the following code:
http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;url=http://www.yourdomain.com/”>meta http-equiv=”refresh” content=”0;url=http://www.yourdomain.com/”>
Replace yourdomain.com with the domain name of your new WordPress site.
Remember to save and publish your changes by clicking the save and publish buttons.
You can now go to your Weebly site, which will be refreshed and redirected to your WordPress site.
Step 5: Create Permalinks
The URL structure for blog posts and pages on your Weebly website may differ. It’s usually something like this:
http://example.com/blog/your-post-title/ for blog posts
http://example.com/page-title.html for pages
Users visiting a post on your old Weebly blog will see a 404 error if you used a custom domain on your Weebly site.
Here’s how you can ensure that users are directed to the appropriate post.
To do so, go to the Settings » Permalinks page. Select ‘Custom structure’ from the drop-down menu, then type /blog/ percent postname percent in the text field next to it.
To update your permalinks, don’t forget to click the save changes button.
You must now add.html to the end of your WordPress page URLs.
The Add Any Extension to Pages plugin must be installed and activated. See our step-by-step guide to installing a WordPress plugin for more information.
You must go to Settings » Add Any Extention to Pages after activation. Simply type.html into the plugin’s settings and press the “Update Settings” button.
To update your permalink structure, navigate to Settings » Permalinks and click the Save Changes button.
Step 6: Troubleshooting
Following the transfer of your site from Weebly to WordPress, you may require the following items.
1. Adding or removing images
During the import, WordPress will attempt to import images from your Weebly website. If your images aren’t already in your media library, you’ll have to import them.
2. WordPress Error Fixing
If you’re having trouble with your WordPress site after the migration, check out our comprehensive guide to common WordPress errors and how to fix them.
3. What to Do After WordPress Is Installed
If everything goes well, you’ll be able to customize your new website and take advantage of WordPress’s incredible flexibility. Check out our checklist of things to do after you install WordPress.
That’s all there is to it; we hope this article assisted you in making a smooth transition from Weebly to WordPress. You might also be interested in checking out our list of 24 essential WordPress plugins for business websites.
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