How to Migrate from Wix to WordPress Without Losing SEO Rankings

You've built something on Wix. Your site has traffic. Google knows you. You rank for certain keywords. And now you want to move to WordPress.

The fear is real: will you lose your rankings? Will Google forget about you? Will your traffic disappear overnight?

The answer: not if you do it right.

A Wix to WordPress migration can actually be smooth. Your search rankings can stay. Your traffic can continue. But it requires planning and specific steps that most people skip.

This guide walks you through exactly what to do.

Why Move from Wix to WordPress?

Before we dive into the technical steps, let's be clear: Wix is a good platform for some people. But WordPress offers things Wix doesn't:

• Complete ownership. You own the site, the domain, all the data. With Wix, you're always renting.
• Customization freedom. WordPress lets you build exactly what you want. Wix limits you to what the platform allows.
• Cost control. WordPress sites are typically cheaper to run, especially at scale.
• SEO flexibility. WordPress gives you more control over SEO fundamentals (though Wix is better than it used to be).
• Developer ecosystem. If you ever need a developer, WordPress has thousands. Wix has fewer options.

If you're making this move, it's worth doing right. Let's go.

Step 1: Plan Your Migration (Before You Move Anything)

The biggest mistake people make is diving straight into technical migration without a plan.

Before you touch anything, do this:

Document your current site structure

• List every page on your Wix site (homepage, about, services, blog posts, contact, etc.)
• Note the current URL of each page
• Write down what that page's purpose is (this helps when building your new structure)
• Check Google Search Console to see which pages get traffic
• Identify your top-performing pages (these are your priority in migration)

This takes an hour. It saves you days of headaches later.

Plan your new WordPress URL structure

Your WordPress URLs might not match your Wix URLs exactly. That's okay. But you need to know the mapping now:

Example: - Old Wix: yoursite.wix.com/wix/our-services - New WordPress: yoursite.com/servicesYou'll need to set up 301 redirects for every change. So knowing the mapping now means you can automate this later.

Backup everything

• Export all your content from Wix (pages, blog posts, images, etc.)
• Download your images and media files
• Save copies of your contact forms and any custom code

You can't break anything in Wix, but having a backup means you can always refer back if you forget something.

Step 2: Set Up WordPress (And Test It)

You need WordPress running somewhere before you can migrate content to it.

Choose hosting and install WordPress

If you don't already have WordPress hosting, get it. Good options include Bluehost, SiteGround, Kinsta, or WP Engine depending on your budget.

Most hosts have a one-click WordPress installer. Use it. It's the easiest way.

Set up on a staging URL first

Don't build this on your live domain yet. Use a staging domain or subdomain (like staging.yoursite.com or new.yoursite.com).

Why? Because you need to test everything—content, forms, performance, SEO—before going live. If something breaks, your live Wix site is still running and serving traffic.

Install essential plugins

Before migrating content, install these:

• Yoast SEO (or Rank Math) — for SEO optimization and XML sitemaps
• WPForms or Gravity Forms — for contact forms and lead capture
• WP All Import — helps import content from external sources
• Redirection — for managing 301 redirects (critical for SEO migration)
• Wordfence or Sucuri — for security

You don't need twenty plugins. These five cover 90% of what you need.

Step 3: Migrate Your Content

There are a few ways to move content from Wix to WordPress.

Option A: Manual migration (best for small sites)

If you have fewer than 10-15 pages, copy and paste is actually fine. Yes, really.

1. Open your Wix page in one browser tab
2. Create a new WordPress page in another tab
3. Copy the text, paste it into WordPress
4. Re-upload images (we'll optimize these in the next step)
5. Format as needed in WordPress

It's tedious, but it gives you a chance to review and clean up each page as you go. Often the content improves in the process because you're rethinking how to present it.

Option B: Using import tools (for larger sites)

If you have 50+ pages, use WP All Import or a similar tool. These can automate content pulling from your Wix site (if Wix exposes the data) or from a CSV/XML export.

The trade-off: faster, but less control over formatting. You'll need to clean up imported content anyway.

Blog posts are a priority

Migrate your blog posts carefully. These are often your biggest traffic drivers and have the most SEO value. For each post:

• Keep the same URL structure (or note the change for redirects)
• Copy the full content, including all images
• Keep the original publish date (WordPress has a setting for this)
• Don't change the post slug unless you have a good reason

Search engines recognize blogs as important. Google will notice if your blog posts disappear and new ones show up at different URLs.

Step 4: Set Up SEO Fundamentals

This is where the migration actually preserves your rankings.

Install and configure Yoast SEO (or equivalent)

Open Yoast SEO and:

• Fill in your site title and tagline (this is your site's identity to Google)
• Set your homepage as your homepage (sounds obvious, but WordPress needs to know)
• Configure the sitemap settings (Yoast creates XML sitemaps automatically)
• Set up breadcrumbs for better structure

Optimize your homepage and key pages

For your homepage and top 5-10 pages with the most traffic:

• Use Yoast to optimize for your primary keyword
• Make sure your H1 is clear and keyword-relevant
• Include your focus keyword in the first paragraph
• Use subheadings (H2, H3) naturally throughout
• Keep the page readable (short sentences, short paragraphs)

Configure permalink structure

Go to WordPress Settings → Permalinks and choose "Post name" structure:

yoursite.com/post-name/

This is the most SEO-friendly structure. Don't change this later—it breaks your URLs and requires redirects.

Step 5: Set Up 301 Redirects

This is the critical step most people miss.

When you move from Wix to WordPress, some URLs will change. Google has indexed the old Wix URLs. If those URLs now return a 404 (page not found), Google loses trust and you lose rankings.

A 301 redirect tells Google: "This page moved to this new URL permanently."

Google then transfers your ranking juice from the old URL to the new one.

How to set up 301 redirects

Install the Redirection plugin (it's free and simple).

1. Go to Tools → Redirection in WordPress
2. For each old Wix URL that changed, add a redirect
3. Old URL: the Wix page (example: /wix/about-us)
4. New URL: the WordPress page (example: /about)
5. Type: 301 (Moved Permanently)

This is where that mapping you created in Step 1 matters. Without it, you'll be guessing at old URLs.

Test every redirect

After setting up redirects, test them:

1. Visit an old Wix URL (while your Wix site is still live)
2. Confirm it loads the WordPress page
3. Check that the URL shows the new WordPress URL (not the old one)

If it doesn't redirect, there's a typo. Fix it.

Step 6: Optimize Images and Performance

Wix sites are often bloated. WordPress can be too if you're not careful.

Compress and optimize images

• Use a plugin like Smush or ShortPixel to compress all images automatically
• Use modern formats: convert JPEGs to WebP where possible (plugins do this automatically)
• Make sure images are appropriately sized (don't upload a 4000px image if it displays at 400px)

Enable caching

Install WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache to cache pages and reduce server load.

This makes your site faster, which helps both user experience and SEO.

Test your speed

Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test your site speed.

Target: 90+ on PageSpeed score.

If you're below that, check what's slow (usually images, unoptimized plugins, or poor hosting).

Step 7: Verify with Google Search Console

Before you go live, tell Google about your migration.

Set up Google Search Console for your new WordPress site

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console
2. Add your new WordPress domain
3. Verify ownership (Google gives you options: DNS, HTML file, or Google Analytics)
4. Submit your XML sitemap (Yoast creates one automatically at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)

Add the URL change notification (optional but recommended)

In Search Console, there's a "URL Inspector" tool. Use it to tell Google about your migration. This speeds up the re-indexing process.

Example: tell Google that wix-domain.com/old-page has moved to newsite.com/new-page.

Step 8: Go Live (The Switchover)

When everything is tested and working on staging, it's time to switch your domain to point to WordPress.

The day of launch

1. Backup everything (your host probably does this, but do it again)
2. Update your domain's DNS to point to WordPress (your host gives you the DNS details)
3. Test the site at your domain (might take 5 minutes to 24 hours to fully propagate)
4. Monitor Google Search Console for errors
5. Keep your Wix site live for at least 2-4 weeks (in case you need to reference something or users try old URLs)

After launch, monitor closely

• Check Google Search Console daily for the first week (errors, crawl stats, indexing)
• Monitor your traffic (Google Analytics) to make sure it doesn't drop
• Test all your forms and contact flows (these break sometimes in migration)
• Watch your page speed

Most issues show up within the first week. If something is broken, you'll know quickly.

Step 9: Post-Migration SEO Checklist

Common Problems and How to Fix Them

Traffic dropped after migration

This is usually because:

• Some redirects are missing or broken (check Redirection plugin logs)
• Pages aren't being indexed (check Search Console for crawl errors)
• Performance is worse (check PageSpeed and compare to Wix)

Solution: Check Search Console first. If it shows indexing errors, fix those. If pages are indexed but traffic is down, check page speed and core metrics.

Old Wix URLs are still appearing in Google

Google takes time to update its index. This can take weeks. It's normal.

Speed it up: use Google Search Console's "Request Indexing" tool to manually request Google recrawl old URLs (they'll redirect to the new ones).

Forms stopped working

Wix forms don't transfer to WordPress. You need to rebuild them in WordPress (using WPForms or Gravity Forms).

Pro tip: Test forms during staging before going live. Don't wait until launch.

Some pages aren't ranking as well anymore

This can happen if:

• New WordPress site has less domain authority initially (Google trusts old domains more)
• Page content wasn't optimized when migrated (fix with Yoast optimization)
• Page structure changed (shorter page, less detailed, fewer internal links)

Solution: Improve the content. Add more detail, add internal links to related pages, optimize for your target keyword.

Getting Help With Your Migration

Migrations are straightforward if you follow these steps. But they're also detail-heavy and easy to miss something.

If you want professional help:

The Bottom Line

Migrating from Wix to WordPress doesn't have to cost you your rankings. Plan it properly, set up redirects, and verify with Google. Your new WordPress site will inherit the authority your Wix site built.

It takes time, but it's worth doing right.

And once you're on WordPress, you have control. You own it. You can customize it. You can grow it. That's the real benefit of the migration.