Should I move my website off WordPress?
An honest guide to when to stay and when to move, what moving involves, how your content and search rankings come with you, and what it costs.
By Gary Blake · Bath IT, Radstock
Guides
WordPress
Stay on WordPress if your site is in good shape, you need something only WordPress does, or someone looks after it well. Think about moving if it keeps breaking, has been hacked, is slow because of how it was built, or costs more each year in licences and fixes than it's worth to you. It's a decision about your site, not about WordPress in general, and sometimes the honest answer is to fix it and stay.
When to stay
The site is reasonably up to date, quick enough, and does what your business needs.
You rely on a plugin that does something specific, like bookings or a members' area, and it works well.
You publish a lot and like WordPress's editor.
Someone looks after it properly: updates, backups and security.
If that's you, moving may cost more than it saves. Fix what's wrong and carry on.
When to move
It breaks after updates, and you've stopped updating because of it.
It's been hacked, or it runs abandoned plugins nobody can easily replace.
It's slow, and the cause is the page builder the whole site is made with.
You pay for a premium theme and several plugin licences on a site that's really just a few pages.
The person who built it has gone, and nobody understands how it works.
You want to change your own words and photos without worrying about breaking something.
One or two of these can usually be fixed. Several together mean the site will keep costing you, and a move is worth pricing up.
What moving involves
Moving isn't starting from nothing. Your words, photos and pages come across, and the site gets a new design on a platform that's simpler to run.
Content. The text and images from your existing pages are moved across and tidied where they need it. Anything out of date can be left behind, and you decide what stays.
Redirects. Every old page address that people or Google know about is pointed at its new home, so links in old emails, social posts and search results keep working.
SEO kept. Page titles, descriptions and the addresses that matter are carried over, so the move doesn't throw away what the site has built up in search. Google follows the redirects to the new pages.
Your old site can stay up while the new one is built, so there's no gap where customers find nothing.
What it costs
A move costs the price of a new site plus £300 for moving your content and redirecting the old addresses. Bath IT's sites start at £495 for 5 pages, £895 for 10 and £1,295 for 20. Hosting is £100 a year on Essentials, £300 a year on Care, or from £30 a month on Business, with no contract. It's all on our prices page.
Compare that with what the WordPress site costs you each year in hosting, licences and fixes, and with what it would cost to put right. Sometimes fixing is cheaper. We'll tell you which.
An example: Fastspeed Legals
Fastspeed Legals, a firm in Cornwall, moved off WordPress onto a faster site that it runs itself. Read about Fastspeed Legals. That's the usual aim of a move: a site that loads quickly, that you can change yourself, and that doesn't need a developer every time something is updated.
Not sure yet?
Start with our free security check or free SEO check. Either shows how your current site is doing. Then see WordPress help: we fix and look after WordPress sites as well as moving people off them, and we'll say honestly which is better value for yours.
Quick answers
See your new homepage before you decide
Send us your current WordPress site. We'll build a free mockup of a new homepage, so you can compare the two before you decide anything.