What's the process for switching CMSs to Webflow?

[Supermulti]

Been playing around with Webflow recently and really like it, definitely worth checking out if you haven't come across it before. Massive control over the design and seems to remove the need for most plugins. Thinking about changing over from Wordpress but not sure on the steps that need to be taken to switch the CMS over (if you can call webflow a CMS). You have to host the website with Webflow as far as I know.

Wouldn't mind doing some freelance work for small businesses to redesign their websites too which may not be on wordpress of course.

Any pointers? If it's too involved then how much would it cost to outsource it?

 

[Potatoe]

I haven't done this but it looks like Webflow has produced a lot of content on the topic.

Here's an overview: https://webflow.com/live-stream/migrating-a-wordpress-site-to-webflow-cms

A step by step guide including a special plug-in to help: https://university.webflow.com/lesson/migrate-from-wordpress-to-webflow-cms

A case study from someone who switched: https://webflow.com/blog/from-wordpress-to-webflow-case-study-and-site-migration-seo-checklist

What is Wordpress not doing that you want it to do, does it mostly come down to the design stuff?

 

[Supermulti]

I haven't done this but it looks like Webflow has produced a lot of content on the topic.

Thanks for sending these over. I guess what I'm confused about are the technical steps needed to stop seeing the WP template and start seeing the WF one when you view a domain. I might be wrong but I don't think they covered that in those tutorials. The middle one exports site content from WP to WF but what if a local business has a shitty WP website and you offer to create another from scratch with WF?

mostly come down to the design stuff?

Pretty much, yeah, the functionality is pretty awesome, have you used it before? I'm not a coder as you can tell but it seems like even coders would appreciate the speed of design with WF

 

[Ryuzaki]

I guess what I'm confused about are the technical steps needed to stop seeing the WP template and start seeing the WF one when you view a domain.

Sounds like it's simply a matter of pointing the nameservers at the registrar to the new hosting server provided by Webflow. I'm sure they provide that information rather than having you create it all with A records and all that, since this is a WYSIWYG editor "accessible to non-coders" style of operation.

 

[Supermulti]

Sounds like it's simply a matter of pointing the nameservers at the registrar to the new hosting server provided by Webflow. I'm sure they provide that information rather than having you create it all with A records and all that, since this is a WYSIWYG editor "accessible to non-coders" style of operation.

Great, thank you, that makes sense. From what I've read in a few articles about CMS migration, they say to proceed with caution as it can affect things like SEO but presumably that's for larger content-based websites rather than local businesses with 4 or 5 pages of very basic pages. Have you done a migration before?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Great, thank you, that makes sense. From what I've read in a few articles about CMS migration, they say to proceed with caution as it can affect things like SEO but presumably that's for larger content-based websites rather than local businesses with 4 or 5 pages of very basic pages. Have you done a migration before?

The warnings are (assuming you do all the technical stuff right and don't suffer downtime or broken pages, etc) is that your site speed changes, the HTML structure of your site changes, your on-page tends to change, the navigation in the header and footer changes, etc. It takes Google time to recrawl and reprocess all that to confirm they still understand what your pages are about. It can cause a temporary disruption at most when done right. How long "temporary" ends up being can be fairly random.

 

[Supermulti]

The warnings are (assuming you do all the technical stuff right and don't suffer downtime or broken pages, etc) is that your site speed changes, the HTML structure of your site changes, your on-page tends to change, the navigation in the header and footer changes, etc. It takes Google time to recrawl and reprocess all that to confirm they still understand what your pages are about. It can cause a temporary disruption at most when done right. How long "temporary" ends up being can be fairly random.

Thanks, appreciate that.

For anyone else reading this at a later date and isn't sure like me, I found these:
https://university.webflow.com/lesson/migrate-your-domain-to-webflow
https://university.webflow.com/lesson/connect-a-custom-domain

Pretty straight forward it seems