As long as you keep the same domain and don’t change the page URL’s you shouldn’t have a problem.
If you use an htaccess file to do 201 permanent redirects you should also have no problems. You’ll probably need to do this because it’s unlikely you’ll be able to preserve your existing URLs.
I had experience of doing this with a much large site than yours and my Google traffic has gone up on the whole. You’ll find it’s so much easier to add content with WordPress that your site gets larger and you get more PageRank as a consequence.
What Chrisber said. Sure, why not? There is a trick to make page end in html so as long as you do the planning to make sure that each html you recreate in WP has the same URL, no problem.
I am curious why though. IMHO with an asset of 250 pages, if I were the only author and owner of the site, as much as I love WP, I prefer the orgnization of files in a folder structure available in DW for e.g. with easy FTP for changed files/folders, plus, I don’t have to worry about upgrading the software 3-4 times a year. Imagine scrolling down the Manage > Pages setting of 250 lines…
Perhaps adding WP in a directory of its own to set up a blog then add iframe of latest blog posts in html home page…
In any case, good luck.
I am making the change because I am tired of making a change to one part of the website, not I have to go in and change all the pages to reflect this change, Its just a pain. WordPress is so much easier. I have even noticed that when i make one change to my html pages and do something on the wordpress blog, if I have different content, but the same key words, my wordpress pages get picked up by google so much quicker and usually get a higher ranking.
It’s a rare site that will have a structure that can be duplicated in WordPress — but it’s sometimes possible. However if it’s not possible putting in permanent redirects works just fine — visitors are seamlessly transferred, and so is PageRank.
The main advantage, as I mentioned, is that it becomes much easier to add new material. My writing output has increased enormously. When I add a new page to a section I no longer have to go through every other page in that section, adding links.
“Imagine scrolling down the Manage > Pages setting of 250 lines…”
I simply don’t do that. Most of the editing I do is by clicking on the “edit this page” link from the site. It’s easy.
