Website Migration to Webflow: Ultimate Guide

Migrating your website to Webflow can feel like a daunting task, but there are many reasons why businesses are making the move. Whether it’s moving away from WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or a custom-coded solution, many find that their current platform no longer suits their needs.

In this guide, I'm not talking about a full redesign—just a migration. You want the same website, but on Webflow. If that sounds like your goal, here are some helpful tips and tools to make the process as easy and efficient as possible. If you want step-by-step instructions for your specific platform, I also have guides for migrating from WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and custom HTML and CSS. Let’s dive into the essentials for a successful Webflow migration.

‍

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• How to download a full website sitemap
• Extracting meta titles and descriptions from your current site
• Using Google Sheets to format and edit content
• Webflow redirect rules to speed up your migration
• Importing content, testing and launching

Key Takeaways/Tools

• Download a full website sitemap: https://www.bulkgpt.ai/tools/xmltocsv‍
• Extract meta titles & descriptions: https://tools.buzzstream.com/meta-tag-extractor‍
• Download all images from a website: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/download-all-images/nnffbdeachhbpfapjklmpnmjcgamcdmm‍
• Export Wordpress content collections: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/wp-all-export/‍
• Website scraper to scrape content: https://webscraper.io/cloud-scraper

‍

1. Download a Full Website Sitemap

One of the first steps in migrating your site to Webflow is gathering a full sitemap of your current website. This is essential for understanding all the pages that need to be migrated, ensuring you don’t miss anything.

Tool to use: XML to CSV by Bulk GPT

This tool will allow you to quickly download a full XML sitemap from your current website and convert it into a CSV format. The CSV format makes it easy to review and edit within spreadsheet software like Google Sheets.

How it works:

• Paste your XML sitemap URL into the tool.
• Download the CSV version, which will contain a list of all URLs on your site.
• Use this as a reference during the migration process to ensure every page is accounted for.
  

This tool helps you get a clear overview of the entire structure of your site so you can efficiently rebuild it within Webflow. One caution: a sitemap only lists the pages your site chooses to include. It can miss pages that still receive traffic or backlinks, so also pull your top landing pages from Google Search Console and Google Analytics and add them to the list.

2. Plan out your New Website Sitemap in Figma

Once you have a list of pages from the old sitemap, you can start to organise the new website, including pages you can turn into CMS powered collections, and pages you don't plan to migrate.

You can use this free migration sitemap planner Figma file that I designed as a starting point. With the file, you'll be able to set your new website goals, and outline all the pages for the new site.

3. Extract Meta Titles and Descriptions from Your Current Site

‍

Migrating a website isn’t just about moving the content; you also need to ensure your SEO metadata (meta titles and descriptions) carry over to the new site. This will help you maintain your current search engine rankings.

Tool to use: Meta Tag Extractor by Buzzstream

This free tool makes it easy to pull meta titles and descriptions from your old site and transfer them to your Webflow site.

How it works:

• Enter your website’s URL into the tool.
• The tool will generate a list of all meta titles and descriptions across your website.
• Export the data and save it as a CSV for easy reference.

By using this tool, you’ll save time manually copying meta tags, ensuring that your SEO data is consistent between your old and new sites. If you use an SEO plugin on your current site, its titles and descriptions are the values to carry over, not the defaults. Once the new site is built, my guide to auditing your Webflow site's SEO before and after a migration shows how to check that nothing was lost.

4. Format and Edit Content Using Google Sheets

When migrating a website, organizing and editing your content in a structured format is key. Google Sheets provides a middle ground where you can format and review content, meta tags, and redirects before implementing them in Webflow.

Tool to use: Google Sheets

You can use Google Sheets to:

• Organize your blog content: Export blog posts from your current CMS (like WordPress or Squarespace) and list them in Google Sheets. You can edit and format text, images, and metadata to match your Webflow structure.
• Manage 301 redirects: Input the old URLs alongside the new Webflow URLs to streamline the redirect process.
• Format metadata: Copy meta titles and descriptions from the Meta Tag Extractor tool into Google Sheets for easy reference and editing.

How it works:

• Export your site’s content (e.g., blog posts, page data, etc.) and import it into Google Sheets.
• Make any necessary updates or edits to the content, redirects, or meta data.
• Use this as your master document to easily copy and paste content into Webflow.

Google Sheets acts as a collaborative space for your team to review and manage content before finalizing the migration.

5. The Most Handy Webflow Redirect Rules

Once your content is in place on Webflow, one of the most important aspects of migration is setting up redirects. This is crucial to avoid broken links and to make sure visitors (and search engines) are directed to the correct pages on your new site. My complete guide to Webflow 301 redirects covers every case in more detail.

Here are some handy Webflow redirect rules that will save you time:

• ‍Exact Match Redirects: If a URL hasn’t changed, you don’t need to create a redirect. Webflow will automatically keep these working. Every URL that does change needs its own 301 redirect to the closest matching page.‍
• Wildcards: Use wildcards to set up redirects for entire sections of your site. For example, if all blog posts used to be in /blog/ and you’re moving them to /posts/, a single wildcard rule can map every /blog/ page to the matching /posts/ page. In Webflow, you write the old path with (.*) at the end, and use %1 in the new path to carry over whatever matched.‍
• Bulk Redirects: You can import redirects in bulk. In Webflow, open Site settings, go to Publishing and find the 301 redirects section, where you can add rules or import a CSV for large-scale migrations. Importing a CSV replaces your existing redirects, so export the current list first.

Example redirect rule:

Old path: /old-url-path/(.*)
New path: /new-url-path/%1

This rule will redirect all pages under the old URL path to their corresponding new pages. Remember that redirects only take effect after you publish the site.