If you’re thinking of moving from Business Catalyst to WordPress by migrating platforms then read this guide first.
Instead of any short cut ways we’ve migrated a few sites to WordPress now and remade the pages manually. So this takes a bit more time but we use the process to improve and upgrade the website.
News Posts can be automatically exported and imported which does save a lot of time.
In our other article we’ve already discussed the Business Catalyst Alternatives available.
Business Catalyst is dead. So what next?
Adobe Business Catalyst (BC) has been a popular choice for web agencies and businesses because It offered a good solution for Content Management, ECommerce, Customer Relationship Management, Email Marketing and Reporting. It was a convenient all-in-one solution… but now BC has announced it’s finishing in March 2021, existing BC customers are now looking to migrate their sites away to a new platform. They’re now seeing the value in changing to WordPress CMS and alternative systems for organising their website. It can insitally be an overwhelming task and daunting prospect to change the website CMS away from the Adobe platform but by switching to WordPress we’ve found that it’s even improved SEO rankings. Plus there’s no point in continuing to develop on a platform that doesn’t have any future.
Migrate Business Catalyst To WordPress
WordPress already powers 30% of the web! Because it’s basicaly really good and simple to use. But it’s also extendable if you need to build in extra functions, with the use of plugins.
WordPress brings lots of opportunities for websites. It’s an open-source CMS platform and the worlds most popular website platform ever! It brings cheaper development, it’s easier for clients to use and update regularly. There’s also Search Engine ranking advantages and more benefits.
In this article we will share some WordPress alternatives and the processes in moving your existing Business Catalyst website to WordPress. To help the switch go as smooth as possible.
So you’re ready to move to WordPress? What next? Following the steps below to guide you through the moving process.
Choosing a WordPress website host
The hosting is where your new wordpress files will be kept and stored on a server.
There are many web hosts to chose from but we recommend Bluehost because the overall price and service is good.
And they offer 1 click WordPress installation which will save us some time.
Read our Bluehost web hosting review here.
If you signup with Bluehost then there’s an option to install WordPress with one click which is available in the customer control panel.
Choosing a WordPress Theme
Over the years we’ve tried out dozens of different themes but after all this research we reccomend a theme called Avada as the BEST theme available. You can purchase the theme from ThemeForest website for approximately $60 and the cost is definitely worth it because it will save you a lot of time. The theme framework is mobile responsive and has an excellent Fusion Builder built in whoxhballows you to create columns and design grids easily.
We’ve been able to match the design of any business Catalyst site using the Avada theme so far. So no need to look any further. It also has free support.
You can copy and paste existing CSS styling code from BC into WordPress though.
Exporting Pages and Blogs
Unless you have lots of pages we would suggest that these pages are manually recreated. See it as an opportunity to improve the layout, check links and text copy to read better. If the pages don’t need any improvements then this will make it quick and easy for the recreation in WordPress.
If you have lots of Blog posts, then you can export them from BC and import them quickly into WP. To automate this process then we would typically import them via an RSS feed. This can be simply accessed/created from within the BC dashboard.
Ecommerce & Online Shops
Woocommerce is the ecommerce shop for nearly all WordPress users. All payment gateways are supported plus there’s also subscription payments and event bookings. Adobe Business Catalyst makes it easy to export your existing products from your shop. Then, once you have a cold or cvs spreadsheet containing your product data then you can import the data into woo commerce. is relatively straightforward and you will find a number of plugins that will allow you to do this.
Custom WebApp Functionality
Unfortunately there’s no easy way for custom BC Webapps to be transition into the WordPress system Webapps will need to be rebuilt the WordPress way. But there’s lots of plugins to help with customisation.
Multiple Users
WordPress makes it easy to manage different users and their roles for your site. It’s simple to add a user and modify the permissions such as administrator, editor, author, contributor and subscriber.
WordPress offers flexibility with the backend users so you can have more than just one administrator, if you require. There can be multiple people managing the site at any time so multiple users can contribute to the site without needing to go through the administrator each time. This can help you to streamline website updates and keeping the site updated consistently.
Recommended plugins
The WordPress platform is open source so there’s over 50,000 plugins available which allow you to do just about anything to customise your website. However we do suggest a less is more approach with plugins so they don’t slow your site down. Here’s some essential plugins below.
Yoast SEO
For SEO, Yoast is a great plugin. it has a free version and once installed you have control of the page title, page description, no-index and canonical settings.
Wordfence
From a security point of view we reccomend the Wordfence plugin whixhbis excellent for keeeping hackers out.
WordPress Security
I’ve heard WordPress isn’t secure?
This isn’t true! While WordPress can be a huge target due to its huge popularity. Howver, it doesn’t take much work to make it secure. Install a reputable security plugin such as Wordfence and keep everything updated. We also reccomend automating regular backups.
WordPress sites get hacked when they run out of date plugins, themes, or use insecure passwords. Sonalways make your password a long complicated one.
Reporting and Analytics
Also remember to update your Google Analytics code when you convert your business Catalyst site over to WordPress.
NEED HELP converting your business Catalyst site to WordPress?
We can help convert your site for you. We’ve done it with several sites we manage already so we know what we’re doing.
Email us at: thedigitalsizzle@gmail.com and detail your current business Catalyst site address so we can give you a cost for transferring and doing the migration for you.
We can take your website and make it work on WordPress. So if you need your existing website converted to a new platform then we are the experts to help. It’s time for an upgrade!