MIGRATING FROM DRUPAL TO WORDPRESS: A GUIDE FOR ALL TECHNICAL SKILL LEVELS WHITE PAPER WHITE PAPER Migrating From Drupal to WordPress: A Guide For All Technical Skill Levels Migrating your Drupal site to WordPress might seem like a daunting WordPress is the No.1 CMS. task, however rest assured as there are a number of solutions that can make the process a bit less intimidating, whether you migrate the site yourself or access professional services to do so. Reigning king of all content management systems, WordPress If you wish to migrate content powers more than half the CMS from Drupal to WordPress market share and 26 percent of yourself, it will require an the total Internet. intermediate to advanced level of technical skill, along with Out of the top 1 million websites using a CMS, WordPress powers nearly half of those. enough time set aside to run the It is no wonder then that enterprises such as UBER, Siemens, migration and do post-migration Hallmark, and National Geographic all run their sites on WordPress. Because the platform is such a powerhouse, it offers an immense clean-up. amount of thoroughly developed user resources, like 40,000-plus plugins and thousands of themes to choose from, each of which have been refined by WordPress’ rather large and advanced community of For those with less technical skill, it’s advisable to seek out a service that developers, bloggers, and other end users. can properly migrate your Drupal site to WordPress for you. Although these services come with a price-tag, it’ll save you time and effort in the WordPress is built to support high traffic, long run. complex sites. First, let’s get started with some reasons you might want to migrate your website to WordPress from Drupal. Some of the world’s biggest sites use WordPress, including Forbes, CNN, and more. Among the top 1 million sites in the world, in terms of traffic, nearly 24 percent are on WordPress. Meanwhile, Why Migrate from Drupal to of the top 100,000 sites, more than 21 percent are on WordPress. WordPress? And, 26 percent of the 10,000 highest traffic sites in the world trust WordPress, which has been proven to scale under the most intense Here are a few reasons to consider taking advantage of migrating traffic pressures and spikes, even for the most complex of websites, your Drupal site to WordPress... like multi-million dollar ecommerce sites. 2 WHITE PAPER Migrating From Drupal to WordPress: A Guide For All Technical Skill Levels WordPress’ massive community provides Drupal vs WordPress: Usability incredible support. Differences One benefit to being the world’s Many decide to move their site over to WordPress for its ease of use and flexibility, however there are some technical discrepancies most popular CMS is the large between the two. Here are a few different front-end user element differences to know about between the two platforms, and the community that follows. In 2015 equivalent of certain functionalities. alone, there were 89 WordCamps DRUPAL WORDPRESS that included 21,000 attendees Nodes = Posts Fields = Custom fields and 1,600 speakers across 34 Blocks = Widgets countries. Modules = Plugins Nodes are how content is stored on a Drupal website and can be in Since WordPress is an open-source software, millions of people the form of pages, polls, articles, forum topics, blog entries, and so around the globe can refine the WordPress programming as well as on. This translates to posts within WordPress, which serve to deliver its online documentation, continuously improving the platform and content as well. educating those who use it. Custom fields can be added to a post within WordPress, which is WordPress’ large ecosystem of designers, developers, and specialists the metadata that includes extraneous information. The same goes can also troubleshoot any issue or question you might have through for WordPress user fields, which includes the metadata table that its forums and other forms of support, like developer resources, belongs to users. This is the equivalent to Drupal’s fields, which online manuals, and much more. allow for data to be added to an element, such as the Title or Image. Blocks are the boxes that can be made to appear in various regions WordPress is easier to use. of the Drupal site. WordPress widgets are most similar to blocks as they also allow for site customization without having to code You don’t need to be a web designer or developer to use WordPress. anything. Widgets add content and features to your sidebars and Even if you’re lacking in coding expertise, it’s still easy to use the allow for greater design control. platform’s intuitive front-end facing qualities to immediately start producing and publishing content (as opposed to Drupal, in which To extend functionality Drupal uses modules. WordPress uses strong technical expertise is required in order to publish content). plugins to add on additional features. WordPress will endure into the future. Before You Migrate Checklist Modern development, backwards compatibility and the constant Before you migrate your site, there are certain things you need to take improvement of WordPress allows the platform to grow with your care of to ensure it goes smoothly. Use this checklist as a handy guide: needs. WordPress is also a leader in new technologies, like WP REST API, which extends WordPress’ capabilities as a development Back up your site platform and allows for greater CMS customization. Take inventory of your content (While the list continues, for additional information on the benefits Establish a plan of developing on WordPress, check out this white paper, 5 Reasons Prepare for SEO preservation to Develop Your Web Empire on WordPress and these key benefits of powering your site through WordPress.) Allot time for the migration Now that we’ve discussed some key reasons to use WordPress, here’s Here are a few key things to keep in mind before starting your a few terminology differences between the two. migration from Drupal to WordPress. Back up your site. Be sure to make a backup copy of your Drupal site before you start the migration. Not backing up your site could result in a loss of data should you run into any issues along the way. Be sure to backup your WordPress site too, if applicable. 3 WHITE PAPER Migrating From Drupal to WordPress: A Guide For All Technical Skill Levels Take inventory of your content. Evaluate your site and make a numerous online services that can provide seamless migration from Drupal to WordPress. out there that can help with creating a content inventory. Before you decide on a service, it’s important to have a migration Establish a plan. Start by asking yourself questions about what plan formed that the services can address, as well as any questions exactly it is you’re looking to accomplish with the migration process. you want answered, like how they are able to retain SEO rankings Do you want to keep your current theme? Or are you looking to and URL structures. revamp the design of your site, and only move content? Will the Here are a few services worth checking out: URL structure change? Know exactly what you want to migrate, including domain name, design, site architecture, content, hosting, • CMS2CMS can migrate your site from Drupal to WordPress and so on. By establishing a plan, you’ll be organized enough to ensure a smooth migration process. insurance in case something goes awry during the process. www.cms2cms.com Prepare for SEO preservation. • tool and additional migration services to help move your site This is perhaps the most crucial from Drupal to WordPress. Services starting at $1,000, and they’ll migrate over pages, stories, taxonomies, users, and thing you do if you wish to retain comments; the service price increases for additional migration site rankings, as migrating your features. • Migrate to WP will migrate your content in two to three days site can often result in SEO starting at a little less than $1,000. For full content and theme migration, expect to pay around $4,500 for a two to three week damage. migration. www.migratetowp.com • gConverter provides experienced developers that’ll migrate To ensure SEO preservation, you can use services like Xenu Link your Drupal site to WordPress starting at $75. Services include Sleuth to crawl your site and export URLs to help you understand Drupal to WordPress conversion of content, modules, and your current site’s architecture. If your technical expertise is only templates. www.gconverters.com beginner level, then you’ll want to contact one of the services • CMSHelpLive mentioned later to ask them what measures they take to preserve of Texas and Harvard migrate to WordPress from Drupal. SEO. (See here and here for more info on SEO preservation.) Allot time for the migration. rankings and promises no loss of content or functionality. chunk of your time, depending on the size of the site and the amount www.wordpress.cmshelplive.com/wordpress-migration.html of content being moved over. Make sure that you are conducting the • WordPrax will migrate your Drupal site to WordPress migration during a non-busy time of year for your business. provide responsive templates, SEO optimization, How to Migrate from Drupal to widget ready frameworks, and versatility in themes. WordPress www.wordprax.com/services/drupal-to-wordpress • WordSuccor can help you migrate your site and claim to While there is no entirely correct path for migrating your site from provide responsive templates, SEO optimization, and more. Drupal to WordPress, here are some suggested methods to consider, Hiring a developer starts at $15/hr or you can inquire about based on your level of technical expertise.