WordPress toShopify migration.
I've worked on WordPress for about twenty years and on Shopify for over a decade, so I can tell you honestly whether to migrate, and how to do it without losing the rankings you've earned. I recently ran this exact process on my own site: every old WordPress page, post and category now resolves through 95 mapped permanent redirects.
Should you migrate at all?
Moving makes sense when your store is the business: plugin sprawl, constant security patching, a fragile checkout, and a team that's afraid to update anything. Shopify takes those off your plate.
It's not automatically right. A content-heavy site with a small shop may be better served by keeping WordPress for content and adding Shopify for commerce, or by a lean rebuild. I'll say so if that's the better answer.
The migration checklist
Every migration I run covers the same ground:
- Audit: every URL, its traffic and its backlinks, from analytics and Search Console
- URL map: each old URL assigned a destination, with permanent 301 redirects
- Catalog: products, variants and options (WooCommerce variations become Shopify variants), images and custom fields mapped to metafields
- Customers and orders: imported, with a plan for password resets because passwords can't transfer
- Content: blog posts, pages, titles, descriptions and structured data carried across
- Plugins to apps: each plugin replaced, built natively, or retired on purpose
- Tracking and email: GA4, ad pixels and Klaviyo flows rebuilt and tested
- Payments, tax and shipping configured and test-ordered
- Cutover: DNS timing, redirect verification, and a launch-day checklist
- After launch: Search Console monitoring for crawl errors and ranking changes
What changes for your SEO
Shopify controls your URL structure: products live under /products/, collections under /collections/, and blog posts under /blogs/. You can't remove those prefixes, so your old URLs will change, and the redirect map is what protects your rankings.
I preserve page titles, meta descriptions, headings and structured data, rebuild your sitemap, and watch Search Console after launch so anything that slips is caught in days, not months.
What WordPress did that Shopify does differently
Custom post types, membership plugins and heavily customized checkouts don't map one-to-one. Metaobjects, apps, or a small custom build usually fill the gap, and I'll flag the awkward ones during the audit rather than after launch.
Proof,not promises.
These are Shopify stores I've built and maintained. My own site's WordPress-to-Next.js move is the most recent migration I've run end to end.
Goodquestions.
Will I lose my Google rankings when I migrate?
Not if it's done carefully. A complete URL map with permanent 301 redirects, preserved titles and descriptions, and monitoring after launch protects rankings. Expect some normal fluctuation in the first weeks as Google re-crawls.
How long does a migration take?
It depends on catalog size, custom functionality and how much redesign is involved. A straightforward catalog move is much faster than a rebuild with integrations. I give a timeline in the written scope after the audit.
Can I keep my WordPress blog?
Yes. Many stores move commerce to Shopify and keep WordPress for content on a subdomain or subfolder, or move the blog into Shopify. I'll recommend based on how much your content drives traffic.
What happens to customer accounts and passwords?
Customer records can be imported, but passwords can't be transferred between platforms. Customers receive an invite to set a new one, and I plan that email so it doesn't look like spam.
Do you migrate WooCommerce subscriptions?
Subscriptions are the trickiest part of any migration because of payment-token and billing-date handling. I evaluate your subscription app and gateway first, then plan a safe path, which may involve staged migration.