Wordpress To Shopify Migration: All You Need To Know

Shopify is now the biggest eCommerce platform in the US, powering 30% of the country’s online stores. Boasting a user-friendly interface, an extensive app ecosystem, and robust scalability, Shopify makes it very hard for businesses not to make the switch.

Many stores that use WordPress are migrating to Shopify as their new CMS of choice. In this article, GemPages will guide you through the migration with an in-depth step-by-step. Discover the best practices to preserve existing SEO rankings, products, customer data, design elements, and more! 

Here’s how you can transition from WordPress to Shopify with minimal downtime. 

WordPress vs. Shopify: What Are The Key Differences?

WordPress and Shopify are meant for different purposes. WordPress serves as a powerful CMS for publishing content. It can double as a managing platform for eCommerce with plugins (WooCommerce). On the other hand, Shopify offers a more robust solution for online businesses. Shopify is a complete toolkit that enables you to do everything and anything eCommerce!

Let’s deeply dive into each platform and why it makes sense to switch from WordPress to Shopify as an online merchant. 

Overview of WordPress vs. Shopify

As we established, WordPress and Shopify are different “beasts”. WordPress emphasizes flexibility and customization for websites and content management. On the other hand, Shopify excels in eCommerce functionalities. 

WordPress is a super popular content management system, especially for bloggers.

WordPress is particularly strong in content production and SEO. If you run content-heavy websites, WordPress is the perfect platform. However, being an open-source CMS, it does take some technical skills to set up, maintain, and update. 

Meanwhile, Shopify is built for simplicity and efficiency. It can function as a CMS but geared more towards supporting eCommerce activities, rather than specializing in managing content. It may lack some of the advanced customization and SEO capabilities of WordPress but will perform all the basic CMS functions that an online store needs. 

Shopify Key Features

Here’s the list of features that make Shopify a prominent choice for online businesses: 

• Robust eCommerce Functionality: Shopify is designed for eCommerce. It’s an all-around solution that performs product management, inventory tracking, payment processing, and shipping. The platform also supports popular payment gateways, providing merchants with all the tools they need to build a thriving business.
• User-friendly Interface: Shopify enables everyone to quickly set up a beautiful store, regardless of their experience. You can get your store running in hours even without technical expertise. 
• Integrated Apps and Tools: Like WordPress, Shopify offers a huge selection of apps and tools. This ecosystem empowers online businesses, allowing them to boost efficiency even further. Apps such as GemPages streamline the creation of websites and landing pages for merchants to start selling with minimal hassle. 
• Fast Hosting and Optimized Performance: Shopify hosting is fast and secure. There’s no need to find external hosting services as with WordPress. Shopify guarantees your store is always up and running.
• Multi-channel Selling Support: Shopify merchants can sell on multiple platforms, including online marketplaces (e.g., Amazon, eBay), social media channels (e.g., Facebook, Instagram), and physical retail through Shopify Point of Sale (POS). 

Why Should You Migrate from WordPress to Shopify?

If you’re running a WordPress website, here are a few scenarios where you should consider moving to Shopify:

#1 You Want to Focus on eCommerce

WordPress is great at many things. Unfortunately, eCommerce isn’t one of them. WordPress is designed with content management in mind, offering unparalleled support for SEO and blogging. However, if you want to focus more on eCommerce, Shopify is the far superior choice. 

Shopify offers a more robust toolkit for eCommerce. Its entire infrastructure, features, and updates are centered around enhancing the online selling experience. On top of that, migrating to Shopify unlocks access to a bustling community of sellers worldwide where you can learn from industry experts. 

WordPress doesn’t offer as much support for eCommerce as Shopify.

#2 You Find WordPress Lacking Scalability

WordPress is simply not built to handle increased demands. Shopify’s infrastructure accommodates high levels of traffic and large product catalogs, maintaining speed and responsiveness even during peak periods. 

Moreover, Shopify helps your business scale through its extensive app ecosystem and multi-channel sales capabilities. You can seamlessly integrate with Amazon, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram, expanding your reach without complex configurations. 

When your business reaches the enterprise level, Shopify Plus provides automation features to handle high-volume operations. This allows you to scale with minimal technical overhead.

#3 You Want to Access a Powerful App Ecosystem

Shopify’s extensive app ecosystem is one of its major selling points. Pretty much any function of your store can be streamlined and enhanced using an application. 

There are thousands of apps, each designed to solve challenges that a Shopify merchant typically faces. Whether it’s for marketing, sales, inventory management, customer support, or shipping, you can always find an app that fits!

#4 You Want to Go Global

Shopify is the perfect launching pad for businesses who want to jump outside of their comfort zones. Its powerful features and complete app ecosystem allow merchants to expand globally with minimal downtime. 

Shopify can display prices in multiple currencies, with real-time exchange rates. Shopify provides apps that can translate the information if you don't speak the local language. The platform also supports international payment gateways and custom shipping profiles to keep your customers happy.

#5 You Want to Diversify

It’s never wise to put all of your eggs in one basket. For sustainable growth, always diversify. You can try expanding your product offerings, exploring new channels, or targeting new markets. Whichever direction you wish to diversify, Shopify allows you to do it with ease!

Shopify supports omni-channel sales and does not limit how many products your store can hold. However, if you wish to expand product-wise, make sure your store is built to handle complex product catalogs with multiple variants for different sizes, colors, and specifications. 

7 Steps to Migrate from WordPress to Shopify

Follow these 7 easy steps to transition your website from WordPress to Shopify.

Step 1: Backup Your WordPress Website

Backing up your website creates a fail-safe that you can turn to when things go south. Most WordPress hosting services now offer backup as well. However, this may not be the case for cheaper hosts. 

You can always choose to manually back up your WordPress website using plugins or tools provided. Here are a few popular options to consider: 

• UpdraftPlus: Easy to use with a set of powerful features. It also has a free plan, which still suits the majority of WordPress websites.
• cPanel Backup Wizard: Most hosting companies will offer cPanel for you to manage your website. You can access the Backup Wizard from its interface to back up your files. 
• Manual backup with FTP and phpMyAdmin: This always works, but requires a little more technical know-how. Connect to your website server using FTP and an FTP client like FileZilla, then proceed to download and back up your files.

For general usage, we highly recommend using a plugin. It’s less of a hassle, saving hours of your precious time. 

Step 2: Set Up Your Shopify Store

Next, you’ll need to set up a Shopify store for the migration. If you’re new to the platform, Shopify offers a 3-day free trial and only charges $1 for the first month. 

Shopify allows merchants to import data from WordPress for quick setup.

You can log into your existing Shopify account or sign up for a new one from the official website. We have already made a detailed guide on registering a Shopify account. It packs all the information you need to get a store up and running!

Once you’ve successfully logged in, Shopify will guide you through the steps to set up a new store. It will prompt you to provide data such as store name, location, currency of choice, contact details, and industry. The key is to make sure you do everything right from the start.  

Step 3:  Choose a Theme and Customize Your Shopify Store

Next, pick a theme that seems right for your business. This is an important step, as it decides whether your store appeals to the target demographic. Shopify offers a vast selection of compatible themes, some even made by Shopify. 

Filter to find themes that fit your niche and provide the necessary features. The perfect theme should both align aesthetically with your brand and functionally with your business needs. 

Pay close attention to how a theme appears on both desktop and mobile devices. 70% of the world’s population uses mobile devices to access the Internet. Having a responsive website will cater to this growing demographic. 

GemPages aims to help Shopify merchants streamline the creation of high-conversion websites.

Pro tip: Leverage GemPages’ Powerful AI to create fast, high-converting websites. 

GemPages builder offers Shopify merchants a robust toolkit to streamline and customize website creation. Our AI engine can process your Shopify store and convert them into editable pages in minutes. Express your creativity with GemPages Editor. Drag and drop different elements to design a unique storefront that captures shoppers’ attention.

Step 4: Migrate WordPress Data & Content to Shopify

Once you have the new Shopify all setup, it’s time to move all the files and data! Shopify allows merchants to import products, customer information, website content, and more from other CMS. 

This process is rather tricky since you’re essentially creating a new website with the same domain address. Luckily, there are apps that can make the whole process easier. We highly recommend LitExtension. It’s a wonderful tool for transferring data from WordPress to Shopify. 

Step 5: Post Migration Product Organization

Clean up your store products after the migration. Identify and remove any duplicates, old variants, or products that you no longer have in inventory. Then categorize your offerings into relevant categories for maximum SEO effects and user experience. 

Navigate to your Shopify dashboard. Select "Products", then "Collections." Create collections based on categories, product types, seasonality, or any other classification that makes sense for your business. For future products, set rules to automatically classify them. 

After this step, you’ll want to end up with a clean, clearly structured Shopify store.

Step 6: Configure Your Shopify Settings

This is where you ensure that your store runs smoothly and meets all regulatory requirements. A few important areas to inspect are:

• General Settings: Double-check your store name, address, and contact information. Select a primary currency, measurement system, and standard time zone. Also update your store preferences, ensuring that all title and meta description tags are filled. 
• Payment and Shipping Settings: Set up your store payment gateways. Shopify supports terminals such as PayPal, Stripe, and Square. Next, configure shipping zones and rates based on the regions you plan to ship to. 
• Set up Your Taxes: Enable automatic tax calculation based on your shop’s location and your customers’ shipping addresses. In case you have specific tax rates or VAT rates, you can manually configure these settings.
• Redirect Your WordPress URLs: To preserve SEO value and prevent broken links, set up 301 redirects from your old WordPress URLs to the new Shopify URLs. 
• Set up SEO and Analytics: Incorporate keywords you want to rank for in the website. Set up tools to track the store's performance. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Managers are the “holy trinity” that you want running as soon as possible. We recommend generating an XML sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console for faster indexing. 

Step 7: Checkup and Monitor

Give everything another check. Go through all of the important pages to make sure there are no broken links, missing images, or any layout issues. Stress test your website to see whether it can handle the amount of traffic you expect. If you have any apps installed, verify their impacts on the store’s performance. You want a fast, secure, and stable Shopify store.

When everything’s ready, place a few test orders to see how the system goes. Use different payment methods to see if the transaction is processed correctly.

As a rule of thumb, always monitor the performance of your Shopify after launch. Ideally, you want to collect data from Google Analytics and analyze them for insights weekly. These findings are crucial to maintain and enhance your store’s efficiency. 

Wrapping Up!

Migrating from WordPress to Shopify can greatly enhance your eCommerce operations. The transition might seem daunting, but with proper planning and the right tools, it can be smooth and rewarding.

Evaluate your current site and identify what you need to migrate. Export your data and import it into Shopify, ensuring all elements align perfectly. Optimize your store for SEO, and test rigorously before going live.

Plan meticulously, execute carefully, and enjoy the benefits of an optimized online store. The shift to Shopify can elevate your business, providing a more efficient and effective platform for sales and customer engagement.