Best Way to Redesign an Existing Blog?

  • What’s the best way to redesign a WordPress blog without losing the existing content?

    The new website I am building is going to be very different than the old one (totally new look, new pages, new categorization system, etc.). The problem is that my client wants to retain all of the blog posts and user information from the old site. The way I see it, I have two options:

    OPTION 1: Create a fresh install and start building my new theme. If I do a fresh install, then I can export the posts from the old site and import them into the new one, but then I’ll lose all of the photos and media. There are a lot of posts with a lot of photos, and it is not feasible for me to go through and reupload all of them. If it was easier to move media files between WP installs, this is the option I’d go with.

    OPTION 2: Build a custom theme and test it out with the Theme Test Drive plugin as I build. But if I go this route, once I activate the new theme, I’ll have to go in and create the new pages, rearrange the menus, and reorganize the categories. And I’ll have to do all of this while the site is live, which will be very confusing for site visitors. I’d rather just flip the switch from the old site to the new.

    Anyone have any ideas on the best way to go about this? Is there a third way that I haven’t considered?

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

  • I used ServerPress to design my blog theme. It setups a fake server on your desktop so your browser essentially thinks it’s a live site. Once I’m happy with how the theme looks and works, I can upload that theme to any WordPress site.

    Next, I would upload the new theme on the new live site and import the old site’s contents including the media files. It’s a PIA to do, but that’s how I’d go about it.

    I have just done the same kind of job
    I used the duplicator plugin to create a copy of the existing installation on a different server re-themed and styled it and then once signed off migrate the site back as long as your clients are not posting loads of new content in the interim, just importing the new additional content should be quicker.

    Thread Starter mcography

    (@mcography)

    JohnOHFS: like I said, I’m not really interested in manually reuploading the site’s media files, so it sounds like ServerPress will not be a viable solution.

    Snurfer: I’ll look into Duplicator. Sounds like that might work.

    It does seem like there should be an easier way to do this that doesn’t involve using a third-party plugin, though…

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • The topic ‘Best Way to Redesign an Existing Blog?’ is closed to new replies.