This is a question I get on a regular base: How can I convert my Static HTML website into a WordPress website?

Let me give you a warning in advance, a WordPress website needs to be kept updated!
A static HTML site can run for years without you ever touching it for things like security updates. Just to make you aware of the need for updates!

Another thing that needs really close attention is to make sure that your rankings in Google and other search engines stay intact.
That means you need to make sure your URLs of your old site will stay the same with your new WordPress based website.

Luckily this can be done and for those few links you want to change you can redirect them via your .htaccess file.

But first things first, the conversion of your website.

First, what do you need:

• good hosting that support php
• a mysql database: databasename, username for that database and the password for that useraccount
• the possibility to use a .htaccess file

If you are not sure about the above mentioned items, ask your website hosting provider!

Installing WordPress in a Subfolder

The first thing you will do is to install WordPress into a Subfolder like /cms .

After you finished the installation you have to set the Privacy setting so that Search Engines are not allowed to visit and index your site (Settings -> Privacy) so your new URLs are not getting into the index until you are ready with your conversion.

Now you can strat building your WordPress website next to your current site, that site will say active while you build a new one.

Keeping Old URLs

Like a mentioned before, it is very important that you keep the URLs for the new site the same as the old one!

That is why you need to set the Permalinks to custom with the value /%postname%.html this will result in Posts links with the extension .html.

During the development of your new site the urls will be like /cms/pagina-url.html zijn, but after the final steps this will become /pagina-url.html , that same as the old site.
Make sure that the “slugs” are the same as the old site, and there is a plugin you will need is “.html on pages” . I take it you will have some pages that use the extension .html

You can now start to convert your old pages to WordPress by copying the text or the HTML code of the content from the old website into the HTML code screen of WordPress.

Your page URL is created by the Title of your page, but you can change them by editing the Slug permalink.

There is a plugin that could help you convert old pages: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/import-html-pages/ Attention! For this plugin to work you really need  PHP5! Ask your hosting provider if you are not sure.

Website Layout

The conversion from your old site to a WordPress based site with the same layout is completely different exercise than what I am describing here, to do that your will have to get a complete custom Theme / Layout. But why not take this opportunity and change the look of your site together with the conversion? Choose a nice premium or free theme  that will fit you company / website topic and customize it to your needs.

If you are happy with the look and feel and the content of your site you can follow these step to get it “live”:

1. delete or rename the index.html file in the root of your old site.
2. copy the index.php and .htaccess file from the /cms folder to the root of your site
3. change one rule in the index.php file into require(‘./cms/wp-blog-header.php’); (only with the index.php file in the root, not in the folder  /cms!!)
4. change only the Site address (URL) in the general setting (Setting -> General) into the domain name. (remove the /cms part)

Change Site Address Only!

5. remove or rename the old  .html files.
6. change the privacy settings so the Search Engines can access and index the site again.

If you handle the change over it this manner, than your old site is not reachable during the 5 minutes you need to change the index.html to the index.php and if you kept your URLs you are not loosing any visitors from the search engines like Google.

And of course you had taken a Back-Up of your old static website so you can restore you old side if you should encounter an unexpected error.

If you want new URLs for your pages than you can redirect the old URLs to the news ones in two ways:

• use a plugin http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
• via the .htaccess file in which you have to write a rule per url you want to forward:  redirect 301 /olde-url.html http://www.example.com/new-url.html

Good luck and if you still have some questions, please use the contact form.

If you have other tips and additions that might help others, please write them in the comments section below.

One last question: Is there a need to have this information in an even more detailed form like a pdf manual with screen shots and tips? if so, please leave a comment.

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Brain Gardner, WordPress theme designer extraordinaire, just announced the release of a new theme specifically targeted to Real Estate Agents.

This theme comes with great features like automatic thumbnail creation and special pages for your real estate listing.

There are separate writing panels for your listings with fields for price and other items pertaining to the property. You write the data, and the theme will handle the layout so that every listing has the same format.

For Google maps code, there is a special field where you only need the location code.

It comes with four different color schemes that give you the ability to use the one that best fits your company. You also get the PSD files, so you can make your own changes or hire AgentPress to do further customization for you.

Different ideas for usage

Although this theme was developed by Brian Gardner together with Nicole Nicolay (of My Tech Opinion) for real estate agents, it looks to me like you can adapt this theme. With a few simple changes, you can make it work for different agents like car dealers, motorcycle companies, and even custom car builders.

In fact, every company that chooses to showcase their products with several photos can benefit by using this theme.

If you want to build a professional website for marketing products in the high end consumer market, the SEO-ready Agent Theme from StudioPress may be just what you need.

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

Brian Gardner is showing off the redesign of his Magazine Theme, which is already a classic.

If you look at the new features in the header, you can see why this is going to be a great theme to use for Building a website with WordPress.

The tabs at the top are great for extra pages, and the category links will make it easy to “theme” your site.

In Brian’s post, he also shows the new configuration panel that will make it a lot easier to work with for the not-so-technical WordPress website builders.

With this theme, just like the Thesis theme, there are extra fields in the posting panel to give writers a simpler method for adding images to a post and have them show up in the correct positions.

I suppose that the new automatic thumbnail creation that is now implemented in a lot of  Studiopress themes will also be part of this theme…

To be honest with you, there is one thing I don’t like about this theme…. the colors used for the links and headers. As you can tell from my new Hybrid Top Cars website, I prefer blue!

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

I have used two different themes on this site now.  The first was Cutline and the second was Revolution Blue.

Both are very good themes and come well-equipped for a Search Engine Optimized website.

Still, I wanted to have a more Magazine-like template. After looking for one that was created for the WordPress versions 2.7 and up, I found the new Mimbo 3.

A new addition, this free magazine theme was built with the ability to use Child Themes.

Changing the style can be done without touching the theme itself. Just change the child theme and all functions from this theme will be there.

A big advantage of this is that if you have heavily customized the theme via child theme, a new version can be installed and will work without you touching any of the core files.

I know, this is a new way of customizing your design with child themes, but I will be looking into these options very soon.  :-)

My Frontpage is not like the standard Mimbo, since that is really built for a blog page, which this site is not.

How about you? Do you work with WordPress theme frameworks yet, or are you still waiting to see how it evolves?

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

I was just thinking about this project of Building a Website with WordPress and the use of a Magazine Style Theme.

As I was working on the manual for the use of that special kind of themes, I suddenly realized that the whole project was not going to work….

You see, if you have a customer that is not so WordPress and Computer savvy as you are, you need to explain how this thing with  ”custom fields”works.
And you need to tell them how to upload and choose the right image, copy the right name and paste it in the right format in the right box…
Before that you need to tell you client that he/she needs to create three images in exactly those three formats because they are needed in that post…

So do you think he/she will go through this kind of proces every time he/she wants to write a post?
If the answer is NO (really big change!) than you need to re-think the use of that kind of WP Templates for a CMS based semi static page.

Just use a standard WordPress Blog Template and recode that in a way that your customer will be able to write and manage its website in the easiest way possible.
Only then, and really only then he/she be much more likely to work on their own website and let it grow to its real potential.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like Magazine Style CMS Like WordPress themes, but you should not use them for the majority of website owners.

What do you think? Is there a WordPress Magazine style template that is easier for “Normal” people to work with?

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

I have been working on this site to provide information on how to build a static website with WordPress.
The Theme I used was Cutline 1.x, but I wanted a better layout more kind off a magazine…

And now I have found one of the best free ones, although I like the other Revolution that Brain Garder brings to us, I found the price for this new them better!
No, the templates are great, but I don’t feel the need right now to buy a template for this website, it is still a work in progress, although this site is doing pretty well in the search engines as it comes to the keywords I targeted.

This new theme is a free version that you can get at the Download page for the free Revolution Blog Theme and you can read more about the theme at the Blog from Brain Gardner on The Free Revolution Blog Theme 

So I am going to take the next step and bring a new vision and layout to the site, I hope you like it, I know I do.
It’s a new challenge to make this site even more informational…

Want to read more about this topic? Go to Building a Website with WordPress.

I am setting this website up as an example on how to use WordPress as a Content Managment System, and will be posting about the things I find and work with.

The Site will have three Silos to work with:

WordPress Setup:
The Configuration settings to use WordPress as a Content Management System with a static Frontpage

WordPress Plugins:
An overview and Manuals on how to use the Plugins that complete the CMS part of WordPress and makes it easier to work with.
You will also get some tips on Plugins you can use to further Optimize your site for Search Engines.

WordPress Themes:
Some themes just work better for Building a Website with WordPress, you can read about them here with tips and trics how to use and improve them to suite your needs.

Enjoy the ride ride with me and scubscribe to the RSS Feed or the E-mail version.

[techtags:WordPress, CMS, Website, Building]

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