How to Migrate from Magento to WordPress: 6 Simple Steps

Today, let’s dive into how you can migrate from Magento to WordPress with easy, detailed steps to ensure a smooth and seamless transition!

If you’re using the Magento site for e-commerce and are considering switching to WordPress, you’re on the right track. As your business grows, this transition can be a fantastic move.

While Magento is an excellent platform for getting your online store up and running, switching to WordPress can help you better meet your expanding needs. With its user-friendly interface and an extensive plugin ecosystem, WordPress is ideal for growing businesses.

So, let’s dive in and get started with the migration!

Understanding Magento and WordPress 

Before moving on to the migration process, let’s first understand both platforms individually to know more about their features and functionalities. 

What is Magento?

The Magento platform, now owned by Adobe, is a powerful and feature-rich e-commerce platform that is specially designed for the e-commerce store. It is one of the top e-commerce platforms for setting up medium to large-size stores.  

Magento is known for its flexibility and wide range of features, including product management, order status and processing, inventory management, and customer relationship management. 

Although Magento emerges as a highly customizable and scalable solution, it requires technical knowledge and professional developer skills to maintain and manage the platform. 

So, if you are someone who has expertise in handling a powerful yet complicated platform, then Magento is a comprehensive e-commerce solution for you. 

What is WordPress?

WordPress is an all-rounder Content Management System(CMS), which is a free and open-source platform. There is nothing that you cannot do with WordPress today. 

It is a highly flexible and user-friendly platform initially designed for blogging. However, it has now evolved into a full-fledged, enterprise website builder that powers a significant portion of the web, over 43% to be precise.

WordPress offers a vast collection of both free and paid themes, plugins, and extensions. It is an ideal platform for creating and managing various types of websites, including e-commerce stores. WooCommerce is an authorized WordPress plugin that has in-built e-commerce functionality and customizable themes to get your store up and running. 

Magento Vs WordPress: Which is Better?

Confused about switching from Magento to WordPress? Here’s a quick comparison to clear your doubts and help you make the right choice.

Feature	Magento	WordPress
Primary Use	E-commerce platform	Content management system with e-commerce plugins
Ease of Use	Steep learning curve	User-friendly interface for beginners
Customization	Highly customizable with coding skills	Extensive plugin and theme ecosystem
Scalability	Excellent for large, complex stores	Best for small, medium-sized as well as large stores
SEO Capabilities	Good SEO tools	Strong SEO plugins available
Performance	Requires powerful hosting for best results	Lightweight, but depends on plugins/theme
Security	Robust security features	Excellent security with additional plugins
Cost	Can be expensive (hosting, extensions)	Generally lower cost.
Community Support	Has a developer community	Large community with extensive resources

Also read: Magento Vs WooCommerce

Magento to WordPress Migration: Pre-Migration Steps 

Before moving on to the main process of moving from Magento to WordPress, let’s see what we need to prepare to make the migration process easy and seamless. 

Hosting and Domain

Since WordPress is an open-source CMS platform, it allows you to customize your website completely. However, there are a few things you need to take care of when migrating to WordPress. 

The platform does not come with a self-host, so you will require a new web host for your website before starting the migration process. You must have a reliable web hosting provider that supports WordPress installations and provides ample server resources to manage an online store.

They should also have a dedicated support team to resolve issues immediately. Additionally, you need a domain name for your WordPress online store (if you don’t already have one).

Some recommendations for hosting and domain registration are:

• WP Engine
• Pressable
• DreamHost
• Hostinger
• Indystack
• Kinsta

WordPress Installation 

After sorting the hosting and domain name, install WordPress on your hosting server. Once you have selected your hosting server and installed WordPress, you can now access the main WordPress admin dashboard. 

You can access it by going to the URL yourdomain.com/wp-admin from the browser’s address bar and start with your migration process. Ensure that you have the latest version of WordPress installed. 

Theme Selection

It’s just the right time to pick a WordPress theme suitable for your new e-commerce platform. WordPress comes with several themes specifically designed for online stores. It helps you with seamless integration with popular e-commerce plugins like WooCommerce.

However, in case, you already have a strong brand identity with your old theme, you may use the same theme so that your users understand all the changes. If not, you can completely revamp your whole website as you like. 

Read: List of Free WooCommerce Themes

E-commerce Plugin

By switching to WordPress, you get the best e-commerce plugin to set up your new store with robust features and advanced functionalities. Install and configure WooCommerce, which seamlessly integrates with WordPress and offers many features and extensions. 

It is one of the most popular e-commerce plugins for WordPress and provides a comprehensive solution for managing your online store.

Content and Data Backup 

Before you migrate Magento store, remember to create a backup of your data and content. Create a backup of your Magento store’s content, including product information, customer details, orders, and other relevant data. 

This backup ensures you don’t lose crucial information during migration. Several backup plugins available for both Magento and WordPress can help you with this task.

Magento to WordPress WooCommerce Migration: Step-by-Step Guide

Be it a demo migration or a live Magento store migration, partnering with a professional web developer is the ideal choice for importing data safely, handling data security, and importing additional images and media. However, if you want to try out the DIY process, here is a guide that will help facilitate a smooth migration without the worry of data loss.

Step 1: Exporting Magento Data

You can begin by exporting your Magento store’s data, including products, categories, product images, customer groups, grouped products, and orders. Magento’s export function allows you to export data in CSV or XML format.

Make sure to export all the relevant data files to be imported into WordPress. You can export data from Magento’s backend or use third-party migration tools designed explicitly for Magento to WooCommerce migration.

Step 2: Installing and Configuring WooCommerce

Now is the time to get introduced to the best e-commerce WordPress plugin. Install the WooCommerce plugin on your WordPress dashboard. It is simple to install and doesn’t require any technical skills. Just follow the migration wizard setup to configure basic settings. 

WooCommerce helps you manage the products, orders, and inventory all in one place. 

With WooCommerce extensions, you can also set up payment gateways, shipping methods, tax settings, and other necessary configurations according to your business requirements.

Step 3: Importing Products and Categories

To import products and categories, use a plugin Product Import Export for WooCommerce. You must import the exported CSV or XML file containing your Magento products and categories. 

Map the corresponding fields in the import file with the appropriate fields in WooCommerce, ensuring a seamless transfer of your product catalogue. This step requires careful mapping and validation to provide accurate data migration.

Step 4: Transferring Customers and Orders

To migrate customer data, use the Customer/Order/Coupon CSV Import Suite plugin or similar plugins. These plugins allow importing customer and order data from your Magento export file. 

Make sure that the customer details and order history are safely transferred to your new WordPress site. It is crucial to maintain customer relationships and order records during the migration.

Step 5: Designing and Customizing Your Store

Now that all your Magento data and content are migrated to WordPress, you can focus on customizing the appearance and functionality of your store.  

Select a theme of your choice and configure it to match your brand’s identity. With WordPress, you get an extensive range of WordPress plugins to enhance the store’s functionality and tailor it to your specific needs.  

Customize the layout, colours, typography, and other crucial design elements and build a visually appealing and user-friendly store.

Know: How To Migrate From Joomla To WordPress

Step 6: Redirecting URLs and Handling SEO

This is the last and most important step to preserve your website’s SEO rankings and maintain a smooth transition. 

For this, create redirects from your old Magento URLs to the corresponding WordPress URLs. You can use a plugin like Redirection to set up 301 redirects, ensuring that search engines and users can navigate to the correct pages. 

Review your site’s metadata (meta title and meta description), optimize product descriptions and page titles, and implement SEO best practices to enhance your store’s visibility in search engine results.

Final Thoughts

Migrating from one platform to another can seem daunting and risky. However, moving on to better choices is always the right decision. Magento to WordPress website migration can be an intricate process, but with careful planning and execution, it can give you a user-friendly and manageable e-commerce store. 

By following our step-by-step guide, you can quickly transfer your data, maintain SEO rankings, and customize your new WordPress-based WooCommerce store. 

The WordPress platform along with WooCommerce offers a flexible and scalable platform for your e-commerce needs. With its extensive community support and resources, you’ll also find plenty of assistance throughout the migration process. 

So, embrace the change, and with a well-executed migration plan, your business can continue to thrive on the WordPress WOO platform.

FAQs About Magento Store to WordPress WooCommerce