Hi I have a potential client who wants to maintain their own site, they have one site that was designed for them in WP and another which is a static site, they like how they can maintain their wordpress site and want to be able to do the same with the static site. They have asked me to copy their existing site over to a WP site. I have used WP before but I have always worked from scratch, can anyone please advise me or the easiest way to replicate/convert their static site into a WP site? Many thanks in advance Dee PS Their site is HTML (""scarlettsholidayhomes.co.uk""), as you will see very simple 3 page site
Well lots of views but no replies, I was sure someone would know the best way to do this Please can anyone help?
I do this for my customers some times. It is called "copy/paste/save" and then make sure you get paid to do it. Just a few pages - small price - large site - larger price. Huge site - outsource it. Charge them well then hire some on else to sit there and copy/paste/save for days and days. What other way could there be? There is no kind of site scraping tool that will do this automatically that I have heard of. Even if there where some kind of automated tool you have to some times play little games with wordpress to get the text to come out right with spacing and all some times. ------------ Actually, just thought of another way, put up a example site on another domain or subdomain and have them go do all the copy/paste/save until their old site is all copied over to the new site. Then export it in a database dump using wordpress own built in backup. Then pull the old site down and put up the new wordpress install. Then import the backup and bang - most of the work is done. You will have to do all photos manually. The photos will be imported but may wind up with the old subdomain address. There is always some details to attend to but, that is what you charge people for and how you make money right?
As far as i know there is no app to automatic do what you want. Sorry... I agree with AVC the solution is "copy/paste/save". In other words you have to redo the site.
Templates are very simple, converting to wordpress theme could take about 2 hours. Go to wordpress codex if you want to do it yourself.
A THREE (3) page site and you are here asking how to do it automatically? Using your copy and paste features could have had the job done before you got your first reply. Like others have said, larger sites would require massive work, so much so that it may be smart to farm out the work. But for a tiny site like this, just rolling up your sleeves and getting down and dirty is the fastest and simplest way to do it.
Here's what I'll do if I were you.. I'll copy that three pages content, each one of them to new page in wordpress, then I'll find simple wordpress theme - modify its css a little bit so it looks exactly like the old site, and I'm done. For modifying css, you can use firebug and get it done in minutes if you know what you do.
there's no easy way if you don't know php and css. COnsidering you can do php and css a bit and your client wanted to have it done in immediately. First option that i can think of is to look for a premium theme (or even free themes) that has the same layout or structure of their existing site. If you found one then putting all the contents of the sites are very easy as well as editing some css and php codes. If you don't know about this then simply outsource it.
Get the template sorted using the CSS and then copy all the information into the new site. It is simple, easy and quick
What do you mean from scratch? When I make a Wordpress theme "from scratch", I just create it in HTML and CSS first, and then convert it to a Wordpress theme. It's not that hard and you don't have to know a lot about php, there are plenty of tutorials available. However I agree with some of the guys above, converting a three page website to a wordpress theme is just a waste of time. It's probably easier and cheaper for them if they just hire someone to edit html files once a year than to convert the whole thing to a wordpress theme.
Its not so complicated ... just follow below simple step.... - check your domain name -- either with www or without it - Copy All your URL and file extensions (like htm or html) in notepad - install WordPress over the root of the domain or set up in a directory and work on the site and move it to the root of the domain. In my example I’ve installed WordPress in a directory so I can work on the site and then move it. I called mine "test1" - install plugins -- platinum seo, redirection plugin by Urban Giraffe, Site Map, HTML for pages and you may want to consider the enforce preference plugin - Turn search engines off in Settings/Privacy while working on the site in your directory - install a WordPress theme to make it pretty - then add your content - If you have few pages then just do copy and paste to convert I hope this step may help you to convert static to wordpress Thanks.
I have done this many times, and have documented it at http://www.21stsoft.com/wordpress-tutorial-seo-optimized-cms-installation-case-study/. Good luck with it...