Editor’s note: Migrating to WordPress is a typical process; if anything goes wrong, you might lose your precious business data. Therefore, you must follow each step carefully to transfer all your data smoothly and efficiently. Hire a WordPress development company to handle the entire ZenCart to WordPress migration without compromising on data or SEO rankings.
So you’ve changed your mind and see WordPress as a potential eCommerce platform for your business. But the problem is you don’t know how to migrate to WordPress from your current platform.
WordPress is the fastest-growing content management system that powers 33% of all websites, and 22% of the top 1 million eCommerce websites use this plugin. That is some social proof that justifies your choice to migrate to WordPress.
The process of migrating to WordPress has to be done with utter care so that you don’t lose any data and the transfer happens smoothly and accurately.
What is WordPress?
WordPress is a CMS platform that offers the necessary features for online product and service sales, to put it simply. It has become the most widely used eCommerce platform, favored by both small and large businesses worldwide.
It is still possible to add additional plugins to WordPress, known as extensions. However, it is essentially a plugin with basic built-in features (including payments) (just to distinguish them from WordPress plugins).
You must first install and configure WordPress before adding the WordPress plugin to get started with WordPress (you can download it for free from the WordPress repository). You can expand your store with plugins and themes to change how it looks and feels once uploaded to your website.
Benefits of Opting for WordPress
Why should one use WordPress when so many other e-commerce plugins are available? WordPress provides WordPress site owners with unmatched compatibility, flexibility, and usability, to put it simply. But let’s delve a little deeper into WordPress’s advantages. Here are ten reasons for utilizing WordPress in your web business.
WordPress Pricing
Price will play a big role in a new retailer’s platform decision. Ecommerce software might cost nothing or thousands of dollars each year, but there is no direct correlation between price and functionality. So, we’re stressing that WordPress is free to use as our initial argument for doing so.
Because WordPress is free, any company or entrepreneur may benefit from its features without signing up for pricey maintenance contracts or exclusive software licensing. WordPress is competitive with top enterprise ecommerce platforms.
You should be aware that some third-party extensions for WordPress and other shopping carts may charge fees, but these fees will not be paid to WordPress directly.
Flexible Framework
One must look at WordPress’s modular architecture to fully comprehend it. WordPress, like WordPress, comes with a wide range of functionality that may be expanded by including plugins. WordPress users enjoy two benefits from this modularity: they have access to thousands of WordPress plugins and themes and hundreds of ecommerce-specific extensions created just for WordPress.
A monolithic application cannot support a community of developers who create extensions to add specialized WordPress and WordPress features, which is the genius of a modular system. WordPress may be the ideal open-source e-commerce platform for any retailer with the appropriate plugins.
These add-ons can increase functionality in shipping, accepting payments, and managing merchandise.
Search Engine Optimization
Your website must be searchable to score highly on Google and other search engines. WordPress sites frequently score highly for their keywords, primarily because they are updated often and because WordPress contains several tools and plugins for content SEO (search engine optimization).
Linked with WordPress
The inference is that WordPress can’t be as effective as a purpose-built e-commerce solution since its parent application limits it.
The WordPress plugin’s ability to connect with WordPress is a feature of WordPress. Considering how adaptable and useful it is, WordPress is incredibly popular. WordPress offers the best foundation for websites, which is why millions of companies opt to utilize it. It is quick, safe, and simple to use. The integration will go extremely smoothly because your current WordPress themes and WordPress themes are compatible.
WordPress combines WordPress’ robustness and dependability to provide a top-notch online shopping experience for merchants and their clients.
Sell Anything
WordPress is extraordinarily adaptable. You can create a website to sell things, which implies anything. You can use WordPress to sell things, whether by dropshipping through WordPress or by producing digital goods to sell.
Physical goods, subscriptions, memberships, appointments, and much more are also available. WordPress is the Swiss Army Knife of ecommerce apps, regardless of whether you want to sell a single digital item or a huge range of real goods.
Vibrant Developer Community
Both WordPress and WordPress are open source, meaning retailers are free to change or add core features, build new extensions, and create custom themes. For some less popular ecommerce applications, it is difficult to find developers capable of doing that work, and if you can find a developer, they are expensive to hire.
The WordPress advantage here is that retailers benefit from a large pool of developers and WordPress professionals. If you need to make changes to your WordPress store, finding someone to do the work won’t be hard. And further, its widespread use and network of developers make achieving optimal WordPress security much easier.
Powerful Analytics Tools
Another benefit of WordPress is its built-in analytics; the more information you have about your consumers and how they engage with your store and its products, the better.
For instance, you may discover a lot about your clients by using your sales data. You can learn how to construct customer profiles to increase sales even further.
WordPress comes with a comprehensive collection of metrics presented in an easy-to-use interface. Additionally, WordPress integrates easily with third-party analytics tools like Google Analytics e-commerce plugins.
Business Scalability
You might only be getting started now. However, your store will expand soon. A plan for e-commerce expansion is necessary.
It is a good idea to consider your company’s future while selecting an e-commerce application. Even though it may be tiny now, it will eventually expand; therefore, you should pick an application that can handle a busy store without adding too much complexity at first.
WordPress supports stores of all sizes is one of its advantages. It can scale from a few products to many thousands, and from a few customers per day to hundreds per second. Your WordPress website’s functionality might expand as it gets bigger.
World-Class Content Management
WordPress is not a slouch regarding content, as one might anticipate from an e-commerce platform built on the world’s most widely used content management system (CMS). This is encouraging because ecommerce content marketing is essential to a successful online store.
Ecommerce marketing, sales optimization, and search engine optimization all depend on content. Blogging, landing pages, email marketing, and product descriptions are just a few of the many content management options provided by WordPress and WordPress when used together. Retailers can easily improve their content for search using Yoast WordPress SEO plugins, which are compatible with WordPress.
WordPress is Fast
WordPress with WordPress can offer a quick and responsive ecommerce experience for online stores of all sizes. This is one of WordPress’s main advantages.
Combining your WordPress store with performance-optimized WordPress hosting, which is specially designed to maximize performance, will also speed it up. WordPress can be supported by standard web hosting. Still, it is unable to offer the highly optimized PHP, MySQL, server, and network settings required for a responsive, low-latency shopping experience.
Designed for Selling Online
The fact that WordPress is made for selling is another benefit. It provides everything a new online merchant requires to launch their business, including:
- More than 100 payment processors that are simple to integrate with your store.
- With customizable delivery zones and shipping classes, WordPress offers a variety of shipping options.
- An intuitive backend for managing orders, stock, refunds, emails, and all other aspects of effectively running your e-commerce store.
- Choose from thousands of customizable, mobile-friendly WordPress free and premium themes, or create a custom theme to give your business a distinctive appearance.
- Exceptional documentation offers new online retailers the direction they need to get up and keep going.
Ways to Migrate from ZenCart to WordPress
There are 3 ways in which you can migrate your eCommerce business to WordPress.
1. Migrate to WordPress Manually
Your eCommerce data can be manually transferred to WordPress as the initial step. Like posts on a WordPress website, the items in a WordPress store are called products. As a result, you can move your products between websites and export them.
WordPress includes a default CSV product importer that makes importing products very simple. However, ensure sure the data is mapped correctly.
The procedure appears to be very simple on paper, and WordPress’s guide on migrating products between sites does a great job explaining it.
2. Through Migration Tools
Several tools on the market have a built-in migration procedure because of the growing popularity of WordPress. With these tools, you can efficiently migrate to WordPress, allowing you to move all your data to your new website.
The following are the main benefits of using WordPress migration tools:
- The migration process doesn’t cause any downtime for the website.
- Even though importing the previous orders, you can still get fresh ones.
This implies that while switching to WordPress, you can continue operating your old store.
3. Through Third-Party Agency
If you don’t have a lot of technical knowledge, you risk losing your valuable business data, whether you migrate manually or with the software.
The reason for going for a WordPress migration is:
- Your work will be in safe hands first.
- You get to work with subject matter specialists whose expertise you can trust.
- The service providers are familiar with WordPress and other eCommerce platforms inside and out.
Last but not least, and most significantly, you may easily and quickly switch to WordPress.
To Sum Up
Even though it is challenging, switching to WordPress from ZenCart is achievable. You may transition your eCommerce website between platforms smoothly and effectively with the right advice and strategy.
Once you’ve decided to use WordPress, you should speak with an expert. You’ll be able to peacefully concentrate on having everything done in place, which will not only speed up and simplify the move.