How to Migrate from Strapi to WordPress?

As businesses evolve, their content management system (CMS) needs to adapt to growing demands for user-friendly interfaces, flexibility, and scalability. While Strapi is a powerful headless CMS, many users find themselves seeking the broader ecosystem and easier management offered by WordPress. Whether it’s for enhanced SEO, a vast selection of themes, or seamless plugin integrations, migrating from Strapi to WordPress can unlock a world of possibilities.

However, migrating between CMS platforms can be a complex process. Strapi and WordPress operate on fundamentally different frameworks, meaning there are several considerations to keep in mind. This guide will take you through the WordPress website migration process step-by-step, ensuring that you carry over all your content, media, SEO data, and more while minimizing downtime or loss of data.

Preparation for Migration: Strapi to WordPress 

Planning is essential for a smooth transition, ensuring that you’re ready for any challenges that may arise during the migration process.

Before diving into the migration process, preparation is key. Migrating from Strapi to WordPress involves multiple steps, and a solid plan will ensure a smooth transition without losing important data or functionality.

Learn: Sitecore to WordPress Migration Service

Backup Your Strapi Data

The first step in any migration process is to create a complete backup of your current CMS. For Strapi, this means exporting your content, media, and any custom functionality you’ve built into the platform. Ensuring you have a reliable backup guarantees that you can revert to your original setup if anything goes wrong during the migration.

Use: Best WordPress Backup Plugin

Plan the Migration

Planning your migration should include a comprehensive look at all the content and customizations in Strapi that will need to be ported to WordPress. This could include:

• Content Types: Pages, posts, categories, and tags need to be mapped to their corresponding structures in WordPress.
• Media: Organize & prepare images, videos, and files for export.
• Custom APIs: Any third-party integrations built in Strapi need to be replicated in WordPress.

Understand WordPress Structure

WordPress organizes content into posts, pages, custom post types, and taxonomies (like categories and tags). While Strapi offers flexibility in content modeling, you’ll need to align Strapi’s content structure with WordPress’ predefined system. 

Additionally, familiarize yourself with WordPress themes and plugins that will help recreate the look, feel, and functionality of your Strapi site.

Learn: Why You Need to Migrate from Drupal to WordPress

Migrating Strapi Data to WordPress

Your content is at the heart of your website, so ensuring that it moves smoothly from Strapi to WordPress is critical. Here’s how to migrate your data effectively.

Exporting Data from Strapi

Strapi provides several methods to export content:

1. Using the API: You can use Strapi’s built-in REST API or GraphQL to extract data from your CMS. By sending queries to the API, you can export your collections and content types as JSON files.

2. Manual Export: If you don’t want to use the API, you can manually export content into CSV or JSON files from Strapi’s admin panel. These formats will be easier to import into WordPress using a migration plugin.

Explore: Fix WordPress “Publishing Failed. The Response Is Not A Valid JSON Response.” Issue

Using Import Tools for WordPress

Once your content is exported, it’s time to import it into WordPress. Thankfully, WordPress has several tools and plugins to help with this:

• All-in-One WP Migration: This plugin allows for the bulk import of data, including pages, posts, and media files. It’s a great choice for basic content migration.
• WP All Import: For more complex migration needs, WP All Import can handle custom data and metadata, making it ideal for migrating content that doesn’t fit into WordPress’ default post types.

Handling Custom Post Types

Strapi users often define custom data types that don’t map directly to WordPress posts or pages. To handle this, you’ll need to create Custom Post Types in WordPress. Plugins like Custom Post Type UI or Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) make it easy to recreate your custom content types, ensuring your site structure stays intact during the migration.

Further reading: How to Migrate From Joomla to WordPress

Migrating Media Files: Strapi to WordPress

Media is an integral part of your website, and migrating it correctly ensures a seamless transition without broken images or missing files.

Export Media from Strapi

Strapi stores media files in a Media Library, which you can export manually. Use the Strapi admin interface to download your media files, or if you’re hosting Strapi locally, you can simply copy the media directory.

Learn: How to Migrate from PrestaShop to WooCommerce

Importing Media into WordPress

To upload your media into WordPress, you can use the built-in Media Library. If you have a large number of files, plugins like WP All Import or Media Sync can help bulk upload and organize files.

Handling Large Media Files

For users with a large amount of media, it’s important to optimize the media before importing to maintain site speed and performance. Plugins like WP Media Folder can help organize media, while Smush or Imagify will compress large images to optimize page load times.

Explore: Imagify Vs Smush

Managing SEO and URL Redirects: Strapi to WordPress Migration

SEO plays a key role in maintaining your website’s search engine rankings post-migration. Properly managing redirects and SEO metadata ensures your traffic stays intact.

Migrating SEO Metadata

SEO is a major consideration when migrating from one CMS to another. Strapi often requires custom SEO configurations, and this data can be lost during migration if not handled carefully. Plugins like AIOSEO or RankMath for WordPress allow you to import SEO metadata, such as meta tags, meta descriptions, and keywords.

Setting Up URL Redirects

One of the most common issues during a CMS migration is broken URLs. Strapi’s URL structure might differ from WordPress, so you need to set up 301 redirects to ensure users and search engines are directed to the correct pages. Use WordPress Redirect plugins to manage redirects.

Learn: How to Fix 301 Errors in WordPress

Testing SEO Post Migration

Once the migration is complete, you should use SEO tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to monitor your SEO performance. Check for any broken links, lost metadata, or crawl errors and fix them promptly.

Migrating User Data and Permissions: Strapi to WordPress Website

If your site has user accounts or role-based permissions, it’s vital to migrate them accurately to WordPress to maintain the user experience.

Transferring User Accounts

If your Strapi site has registered users, exporting and importing user accounts is essential. You can export user data from Strapi via the API and import it into WordPress using plugins like Import Users from CSV. Ensure that user roles and permissions are mapped correctly to maintain functionality.

Role and Permission Management

WordPress comes with a robust user role system (Admin, Editor, Author, etc.). Use plugins like User Role Editor to create custom roles that match those in Strapi, ensuring that permissions and access rights are preserved during the migration.

Read: WordPress Importer Plugin

Migrating Custom Integrations: Strapi to WordPress

If you have custom API integrations or unique features in Strapi, you’ll need to rebuild or replace them in WordPress using its extensive plugin ecosystem.

API Integrations

Many Strapi users rely on custom API integrations for things like eCommerce platforms, CRMs, or other third-party services. WordPress offers a similar level of integration flexibility through its REST API and a vast library of plugins. You may need to recreate these integrations using popular WordPress plugins like WooCommerce or custom development.

Rebuilding Custom Functionality

If your Strapi site has any custom functionality (like forms, data submissions, or dashboards), you’ll need to rebuild them in WordPress. WPForms, Typeform, and Custom Post Types are powerful tools that allow you to recreate most custom features found in Strapi.

Know more about: How to Migrate from Magento to WordPress

Testing and Final Adjustments: Strapi to WordPress

Once your migration is complete, thoroughly test the new WordPress site to ensure all content, media, and functionality is properly in place and working smoothly.

Testing Website Functionality

After the migration, thoroughly test your WordPress site to ensure that all content is correctly displayed, forms work as expected, and links are functional. This includes testing on different browsers and devices.

Also read: How to Migrate from Squarespace to WordPress

Checking Responsiveness

Ensure your new WordPress theme is fully responsive, especially if you’re migrating from a custom Strapi frontend. WordPress themes are usually mobile-optimized, but you should test on multiple devices to ensure a seamless user experience.

Find: WordPress Site Launch Checklist

Post-Migration SEO Checks

After the migration, perform a full SEO audit to ensure that your rankings don’t suffer. This includes checking for proper title tags, meta descriptions, structured data, and mobile usability. Tools like Screaming Frog or SEMrush can assist with this audit.

Learn: How to Migrate from Webflow to WordPress

Final Thoughts

Migrating from Strapi to WordPress provides an opportunity to improve your website’s functionality, user experience, and SEO. Planning ahead and using the right tools ensures a smooth migration.

Migrating from Strapi to WordPress opens up a world of possibilities in terms of scalability, ease of management, and SEO. With thousands of themes and plugins available, WordPress offers a rich ecosystem that can meet the needs of growing businesses. By carefully planning your migration and leveraging the right tools, you can transition smoothly from Strapi without losing any important content or functionality.

If you’re ready to make the switch, consider consulting WordPress migration experts or using migration services to ensure a hassle-free transition.