For anyone starting an online store or creating a basic website, Weebly is a great option. But if your website develops and your needs increase, you could think about switching to WordPress.
Consider updating to WordPress since it gives you more ownership and control.
You Have More Ownership and Control
You have complete ownership and control over the code, content, domain, and website with WordPress. Because Weebly hosts your website on their platform, you don’t have the same freedom.
Increased Customization and Flexibility
WordPress has dozens of open-source themes and plugins that allow for customization and flexibility. WordPress websites may be customized to have distinctive layouts and features. Weebly offers more limited choices.
Greater Community of Support
Because WordPress has a larger community and market, there are more resources available for support, security updates, and ongoing design releases. Keeping current is simpler.
Enhanced SEO Skills
WordPress plugins such as Yoast SEO provide more robust built-in SEO capability. Your internet presence and search engine rankings may both benefit from this.
Increased Output
Because WordPress sites may use flexible caching plugins and web hosting, they often function better and load quicker. Sites hosted by Weebly only use its servers.
Greater Expandability
WordPress expandability is easier to handle if you wish to add features like membership sites, forums, marketing automation, etc. WordPress’s open architecture makes expansion easier.
As the table below illustrates, there are a number of benefits to switching from Weebly to WordPress, including improved customization, scalability, and SEO potential.
Table 1: Weebly vs WordPress
| FEATURE | WEEBLY | WORDPRESS |
| Ease of Use | Intuitive drag-and-drop builder | Some learning curves required |
| Customisation | Limited options | Extensive options |
| SEO Capabilities | Basic SEO tools | Advanced SEO tools and plugins |
| Scalability | Suited for small to medium websites | Ideal for websites of any size |
| Control and Ownership | Hosting provided by Weebly | Full control and ownership |
It is important to keep in mind that switching from Weebly to WordPress might provide some difficulties. Although WordPress allows for greater customization and flexibility, there may be a greater learning curve for those who are unfamiliar with the platform. Furthermore, moving the information on your website might take some time and could potentially affect its functionality.
Due to these intricacies, it could be advisable to look for expert help from a website design specialist in order to prevent problems and downtime.
How to Transfer Data from Weebly to WordPress Correctly
Weebly’s simplicity may become a hindrance as your organization expands and demands more sophisticated functionality. With its wide selection of themes and plugins, WordPress provides a more reliable and customizable option in these situations. Thankfully, switching from Weebly to WordPress is not as difficult as it might appear. We will walk you through the procedure in this part.
Step 1: Get a domain name.
Select a hosting company and get a domain name. To provide the best possible experience, use a host that specializes in WordPress. After selecting a web server and registering a domain name, you may transfer your Weebly content to your newly created WordPress website.
Step 2: Export Information from Weebly Website
Go to your Weebly settings panel and input your email address in the General page to export your content. To get HTML files for every page on your website, choose the Email Archive option. Next, navigate to your active Weebly website, select the RSS feed option, and save the XML document that appears. Your content will be imported into WordPress using these files.
Step 3: Add Content to Weebly
To import your content, you’ll need WP All Import and HTML Import 2. After installing and activating these plugins, select Tools > Import from the WordPress dashboard. Select the HTML importer and then upload the Weebly files that you have exported. Next, choose New Import under All Import. Select the XML file from your Weebly RSS feed, then adhere to the instructions. Your new WordPress website should now have your content transferred across.
Step 4: Set Up Redirects
Create redirects to point your Weebly domain to your newly created WordPress website after importing your content. Go to the Weebly Domains settings and get the nameservers from your WordPress hosting company. After entering the new nameservers and clicking on Change next to the nameservers, save the modifications.
Step 5: Modify the Permalink Structure
Because WordPress and Weebly have different default permalink formats, users accessing posts with outdated URLs may receive 404 errors. To correct this, go to Settings > Permalinks in your WordPress dashboard. In the text area, type /blog/%postname%/ after selecting Custom Structure.
Install the Add Any Extension to Pages plugin to add the .html extension to pages. Once activated, navigate to Settings > Add Any Extension to Pages, enter in .html, and update settings. Your permalinks should now be updated.
Step 6: Check Out the Updated Website
To guarantee that the migration of information, photos, and links is effective, thoroughly test your new website. Keep an eye out for mistakes in formatting, absent images, and miscategorized or tagged posts. Once these problems are resolved, you may fully utilize the potent potential of the WordPress platform by configuring your theme and plugins to your preference.
When the time comes to switch from Weebly to WordPress, TheTeamWp’s experts would be happy to assist with our industry-best Website Migration option.