WordPress to Next.js Migration Without Losing Your Rankings

Yes, if the migration is planned around your URLs rather than your design. We crawl the old site, map every URL with traffic or backlinks to its new address, set permanent 301 redirects for anything that moves, and carry over titles, descriptions, canonical tags and structured data. After launch we watch Search Console for crawl errors and fix them quickly. A short wobble while Google recrawls the site is normal. Rankings usually settle where they were, and a faster site often gives them room to improve.

In outline: crawl the current site and list every URL, choose whether WordPress stays as a headless back end or content moves to a new CMS, export content through the WordPress REST API or WPGraphQL, rebuild the templates as Next.js routes, recreate metadata per page, set up redirects, and test everything on a staging site before switching DNS. Doing it yourself is possible for a small site. On a site that earns leads from search, the redirect and metadata work is where most of the risk lives.

Headless WordPress means WordPress is only used to store and edit content. Your editors still log in to the familiar dashboard, but the public website is a separate Next.js application that fetches content from WordPress through its REST API or WPGraphQL and renders fast pages. The WordPress install can sit on a private subdomain, away from visitors and bots. You keep the editing experience your team knows, and you lose the theme, the front-end plugins and most of the speed and security problems that came with them.

Next.js gives you more control and better speed, which helps SEO, but it does not rank a site by itself. A Next.js site renders full HTML on the server, scores well on Core Web Vitals when built properly, and lets developers set metadata, canonicals and structured data exactly. WordPress can rank very well too, with a good theme and careful plugin choices. The difference shows on sites where WordPress has grown slow and plugin-heavy. There, moving to Next.js removes the technical drag so content and links can do their job.

It depends mainly on the number of templates, how much content sits inside page builder markup, and whether you are also redesigning. A small brochure site moves much faster than a large blog with custom post types, multi-language content and WooCommerce. The crawl and URL map at the start tell us the real size of the job, and we give you a timeline with the fixed quote. Content sign-off and testing redirects usually take longer than writing the code, so we plan time for both.

Only if you want them to. With headless WordPress your editors keep using the WordPress dashboard they already know, and only the public site changes. If you would rather leave WordPress behind, we move content into a headless CMS such as Sanity, Strapi or Payload and set up the editing screens around your content, with plain labels, live previews and help text. We run a training session before launch either way, and we write short notes your team can come back to later.

Each plugin is reviewed. SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math are replaced by metadata set directly in Next.js. Caching, image and security plugins are no longer needed because the front end is static or server-rendered and not exposed the same way. Plugins that do real work, such as forms, bookings, memberships or search, are rebuilt in code or replaced by a dedicated service. We list every plugin and its replacement in the plan, so nothing quietly disappears when the old site is switched off.

Yes, but it is a bigger project than a content site, so we scope it separately. One option keeps WooCommerce as the commerce back end and builds a Next.js storefront on top of its API. Another moves the store to a dedicated commerce platform with a headless front end. Product URLs, category pages and their rankings need the same careful redirect plan as blog posts, plus checks on checkout, payments, stock and order emails. We will tell you honestly if staying on WooCommerce is the better call.

If you choose headless WordPress, yes: WordPress still runs somewhere so editors can log in, but it can be a small, private install because visitors never touch it. If you move content to a new headless CMS, WordPress hosting goes away entirely. The Next.js front end is usually hosted on Vercel or a cloud platform such as AWS. We explain the running costs of each option before you decide, and you own every account, so you are never tied to us for hosting.

Admin access to WordPress, or a full export of the database and uploads, plus access to Google Search Console and analytics so we can see which pages carry traffic and links. We also need DNS access, or someone who can make changes on launch day, and a decision on who signs off content. If you have a list of pages you want removed or merged, send it early, because it changes the redirect plan. We reply within one business day once we have your site address.