Converting a site from HTML to WordPress can be dictated by various needs.

There are those who want to move from a showcase site to a dynamic and more graphically appealing WordPress site.

Or, you designed a website for your business years ago, and you think it’s time to update it with more modern and accessible tools.

But it is also common for a company to simply want more autonomy over editing its pages.

Converting a Site from HTML to WordPress: What You Need to Know

If you have turned to an agency to design your site in HTML and you do not have a programmer at hand, every time you want to make a small change you have to bother a developer or a consultant. Therefore Converting your site to WordPress is a surefire way to save and cut time.

With WordPress, in fact, you won't need to contact the agency every time you need to update the contents: everything is immediate and at your fingertips.

So, before you go down the content migration road it is important to know:

• How does moving a site from HTML to WordPress work from a technical point of view;
• what are the pros and cons of the two solutions;
• what are the steps you will have to go through.

To understand how the process works, let's start with some basic notions, starting with that of CMS.

What is a CMS?

WordPress is a CMS, an acronym that stands for Content Management System. CMS is a tool for building and updating a website flexibly, without the need for programming knowledge.

Practical examples of how a CMS works

While in an HTML site to upload images or texts you have to interface directly with your server, with a CMS like WordPress you just drag the image file directly into an intuitive library. As you can see below, this is very understandable at a glance.

To make the same changes with an HTML site you would need to contact a programmer, wait for the response time and finally get the change.

This is not only true for uploading images, but also for updating, inserting new products into an e-commerce, adding or modifying text, buttons, interactive elements such as a search bar or a chatbot that automatically speaks to customers who enter your site.

A CMS serves to make the site user more autonomous in all these activities.

Why WordPress is the most popular CMS

Converting a site from HTML to WordPress is definitely the most common path for business sites, because WordPress is an exceptional CMS:

• In the face of very low (or no) costs allows you to choose from a large variety of different graphic themes and templates;
• It also offers an extreme ease of insertion of contents;
• Allows one great customization.

For example, texts from pages and blog posts can be entered as in a simple text editor (similar to Word).

After insertion, with a minimum of training, it is still possible to access more technical details of the page and modify the SEO parameters that you need to make your site visible on search engines.

In short, WordPress is very famous and used because it is probably the most complete, economical and easy to use tool on the market today.

Converting a Site from HTML to WordPress: Pros and Cons

Pro

• Cost reduction
• Simplification in future changes
• Flexibility
• Greater autonomy
• No programmer needed
• Improvement of the SEO

Cons

• While an HTML site is fully customizable, WordPress is less so.

Let's clarify this last point: if you don't have experience, you tend to choose a WordPress theme and simply fill it with content. This will make your site the same as many others on the market, which can be fine for many companies, but is not advisable for those who deal with graphics, design or in general products that want to convey a message, even of an artistic nature.

Fortunately though to counteract the lack of customization you can resort to a web designer, which after having helped your company in the initial phase can then leave you with the autonomy necessary to manage your site on your own.

How does converting your site to WordPress work?

There is no software or system to transfer all the content and functions from an HTML site to a WordPress site. The only alternative is to manually import the content by inserting it into the WordPress CMS.

The most complex phase, for which the experience of a web designer is required, is the basic setup of the site.

Types of transfer

There are three paths that are normally followed:

• Completely manual import;
• Editing a child theme;
• Import via plugin and old site content in HTML.

Typically, completely manual importing is longer and more error-prone.

Unfortunately, transferring via plug-ins allows little customization and requires adapting to the characteristics of the chosen graphic theme.

Although it must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, the best solution for transforming an HTML site into a WordPress one is usually the Editing a Child Theme.

How to Edit a Child Theme in WordPress

In short, the programmer and web designer you have chosen to work alongside will take care of:

1. Choosing a WordPress theme;
2. Create a theme folder;
3. Create a CSS stylesheet;
4. Create a functions.php file, which starts with
5. After creating and successfully compiling all these files, the programmer will place them into a zipped folder that he will upload to your new WordPress site.

Transforming from HTML to WordPress: the first tasks to carry out

After the programmer has taken care of all the technical aspects mentioned above, it is time to review the site graphics together and make the appropriate changes.

You will have to evaluate what form to give to the new pages, whether to review the link structure, how to set up any e-commerce.

Once this phase is completed, you can proceed to clone the other contents.

Remember that transferring an old site to WordPress is a very simple operation, thanks to the intuitive interface of this CMS. Obviously, you need to be careful not to make mistakes and take care of every little detail.

update content on a WordPress site

As we said, people tend to move from an HTML site to a WordPress site because it allows them to become independent from programmers. Updating a WordPress site is in fact very easy.

First of all, to access your site as an administrator, simply enter your site's URL followed by "wp-admin" in the address bar.

From here you will enter the main WordPress dashboard, from which you can navigate the site using a sidebar, manually modifying the various sections.

Automatic updates

Once you have set up your new WordPress site with the help of a web designer, updating it on the “technical” side is very simple.

It simply works automatically. All you have to do is click on the notifications that appear whenever a new update is available.

Inserting images and texts

To update texts and images, you just need to become familiar with the WordPress interface.

It won't be difficult because these are interfaces designed for those who don't have programming skills..

In any case, in the initial phase with the web designer you can set up some graphic measures that are valid for the pages or for the articles. For example, you can create a custom spacing for the paragraphs of your site, or set up some colors to influence the shopping experience Client.

Who to contact if you have an HTML site that you want to transform into WordPress

To transfer a site from HTML to WordPress requires a minimum of programming and web design skills, as well as a certain amount of experience in this type of operation, which hide pitfalls, slowdowns and common errors.

Do you want to avoid headaches, improve your site and create a new one correctly?

Contact Pizero Design!