Thread: Questions about switching my static website to wordpress

If you install WordPress in a sub-folder then your current index page and the other page will still be there, plus any pages you add later. That way you will have your current static index page as the site page and will need to link to your blog from there.

You can see an example of how this is done on Lisa's 2 Create a Website.

That is what I would generally prefer so that you can easily present the same material to new visitors rather than a current blog post, but this is a matter of preference.

James,

Thank you for your info. James, but what if I want to make my website completely Wordpress operational? Is there a way to migrate the entire website without interrupting current visits? I understand that the linking is different in Wordpress, would this change the linking from the current static website, thus ruining current rankings in google?

I think I might be making this too complicated than it should be.

You could try to copy and paste the HTML code into the 'Text' tab in WordPress (formerly called the 'HTML' tab in versions prior to 3.5). It might damage your SEO rankings though because of the duplication, but I guess it's a risk you'll have to take.

Since WordPress has a completely different URL structure, you may have to setup 301 redirects with your host so you don't lose any SE traffic. For example if your static page structure is yourdomain.com/folder/page.html , your new wordpress structure would be yourdomain.com/page.html

What you could do is create the new site and tell WordPress not to index it at all. (There's a setting in the WordPress Settings area to do this). This will prevent duplicate content from existing. Once everything is migrated over, setup 301 redirects with your old site to the new pages. (Most hosts allow you to do this from your control/cpanel very easily).

Next, inform Google of the new URL using Google Webmaster Tools.