• Our school nonprofit organization currently has a website through a vendor that is not getting us any results for the costs it’s incurring. We’d like to move our existing website to a blog. Is it possible to build and move all of our content over to a blog, and then flip the switch from our old vendor to WordPress once we terminate our contract with them? We already own the domain name, but frankly, we are all volunteers and none of us are this tech savvy! I’ve built and managed my own blog previously, but this transfer process is not a road I’ve been down. Any suggestions, tips, or tricks would be greatly appreciated!

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Jason King

    (@jasoncharlesstuartking)

    Yes you can move a website from one hosting provider to another. But you’d need to give more details so we can advise you on the best way to tackle it.

    I’m guessing that your current website doesn’t use WordPress, is that right? So what does it use instead?

    What do you intend to transfer? The entire website, or just the content?

    Do you want exactly the same design/layout on the new website, or will it be redesigned? Probably, the better the branding your nonprofit has, the more this would matter.

    What’s your site’s address?

    Thread Starter slgarcia77

    (@slgarcia77)

    Awesome! Our current site is http://www.southeastpto.org, which is through a vendor specifically designed for PTO/PTAs called Our School Pages. We own the domain name seperately from them.

    My plan is to just transfer the content, and reorganize/streamline/clean up while I’m at it. It will be a total redesign to simplify it as much as possible for users.

    My hope was that I could create the WordPress blog and have everything updated, reorganized all nice and neat, and then once we terminate with OSP, we could move the blog to the http://www.southeastpto.org address, so anyone with bookmarks to the site will continue to be navigated to the redesigned page.

    Thanks!

    Jason King

    (@jasoncharlesstuartking)

    Glad to hear you control the domain name – that’s important!

    To transfer the content, you’d probably have to copy one page at a time from OSP then paste into WordPress pages. But it might be worth finding out (from OSP) whether there’s a way to export the content in one go, ready to import into WordPress (probably not but it’s worth asking).

    I can see it would be a complete redesign. Here’s a suggested roadmap:

    1) Buy hosting. There are plenty of reputable companies out there that do good, inexpensive WordPress hosting.

    2) Install WordPress. Some hosts install it for you or have a one-click installation tool.

    3) Choose and install a theme: it could be a free or premium theme that you customise with your own branding; or you could pay a developer to build one to your specific needs. Before you do anything, write a brief so you’re certain about what you want.

    4) If you need extra functionality – such as a calendar – you’ll need to install plugins or use some third party code.

    5) When you’re ready to launch, change the domain’s DNS settings so it points to the hosting. This bit is simple if you’ve done it before, confusing if you haven’t.

    6) There are a few post-launch tasks and checks you can do to ensure that Google and other search engines notice the changes quickly.

    How much of this you’d be able to do yourselves and whether you’ll need to hire someone to help or find volunteer assistance, depends on your own skills and time/willingness to learn, and how much customisation you need to do to the theme.

    These forums are for help with the self-hosted WordPress but it would be remiss of me not to mention the hosted-for-you version, which is WordPress.com. It’s less flexible but a good bet for simpler websites, provided you can find a theme that meets your needs.

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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