Migrating from Shopify to a new Wordpress site on InMotion?
Currently, we are running a shopify ecommerce store, with the domain registered on godaddy. We are now developing a new wordpress site to be hosted on inmotion. My current domain on inmotion while I develop the wordpress site is simply an IP Address, so I'm unsure what steps I need to take once I shutdown my shopify site, to then change from the IP Address domain of my new Wordpress site, to our actual domain?? Hopefully I stated this clearly enough to understand...
Hello Doug,
Thanks for your question in regards to migrating from Shopify to a WordPress site. Shopify is a separate ecommerce website application that does not directly migrate into WordPress. WordPress is by itself not an ecommerce platform, but can easily be converted into one with an ecommerce plugin like WooCommerce.
While there's not a direct migration path, it is possible to move product data from Shopify to a WordPress site running WooCommerce. You can use these steps:
BEFORE you begin the migration to WordPress, you should map out the pages you want to build using an ecommerce plugin like WooCommerce. You will need to become familiar with the software and everything that is needed to be set up per your needs. Your old site should remain functional at this point until you're done with development if you don't want downtime for your online ecommerce presence. Once you're done building your WooCommerce site, you can then create 301 redirects on your old site that brings visitors to your new site. You IP address will not carry over and you can purchase a new dedicated IP through InMotion. You will need to consult with the Shopify documentation to determine if you can create a redirect that leads to your new site.
To build a WordPress site in development with your InMotion account, I would recommend using the Staging feature of Softaculous. This will allow you to create a site in a DIFFERENT name (e.g. site-name-dev-version.com) instead of using just an IP address. You can then publish it to the eventual domain name through the Softaculous interface. There are many different ways to do this, but this is definitely one of the easiest.
Once you have given sufficient time for your customer base to be familiar with the change in location, you can then close your old site. Your WordPress site shouldn't be available to customers until you're sure it's ready. If you're using the same domain name (URL), then you will need to allow for a 24-48 period (at most) when you change the nameservers to point to the new location.
I hope that helps to answer your question! If you have any further questions, please let us know!
Kindes regards,
Arnel C.