Changing Platform of established site to WordPress (.org)

If the WordPress installation would be on a different ip-address, then you might leave the current site working while you’re setting up your new site. You’d just need to put an entry in your hosts file so that you would reach the site under construction instead.
Is possible, lower the TTL on the name server, so that when you point it towards the new server, the incoming traffic will cut over quicker.

Alternatively, yes, you can run WAMP/XAMPP/MAMP on your own system and afterwards migrate everything. It’s not totally trivial, but quite doable. There are plenty of articles out there, describing that process in detail.

Tor,

I should have pointed out that I am a novice. So, I didn’t follow everything you said. For example, I don’t know what it meant when you said: “lower the TTL on the name server, so that when you point it towards the new server…” If you can dumb that down a bit, I’d appreciate it! Also, that running WAMP/XAMPP/MAMP on my own system isn’t trivial kind of scares me. So, I would lean towards buying another domain address, building the new site there and then moving the new site to my old domain IP address. Is that a safe thing to do and not risk losing my established SEO rankings? How would you word a search that I should use in Google to find articles on that process? Thanks!

Sorry if I put the answer on the wrong level.
Based on what system you’re using today, I think that you’re currently on a Windows server. Although it’s possible to run WordPress on a Windows system, the typical setup you’d use for WordPress would be on a Linux or Unix system.

If you move to a new URL, if you set up the right type of forwarding (so called 301-Moved permanently), then you shouldn’t be punished too much by google for this. Especially if you manage to forward each single page to the corresponding page on the new address.

But ideal, of course, would be to just “magically” switch over the same address to the new system, once everything is up and working.

The easiest solution would be to set up a staging domain with a different name. Here you build everything exactly the way you want it to be. Then you might simply have someone help you to migrate all of this to the target server and re-point DNS towards the new location.

(TTL is a parameter a DNS server will send together with its response, indicating how long it is ok to reuse the address without checking back with the DNS server. If it’s not very important that the whole world switches over to the new server within the hour, then you don’t need to bother about this…)

Tor,
Thanks, again, for the help! Yes, I have Windows on my home computer. It sounds like I should not try to build the site on it.

When you say “If you move to a new URL,” I just want to be sure you understand that I intend to leave my web site at its current URL (I just want to change it to a WordPress platform). Do you think I can handle these “301-Moved permanently’s” myself, (remember, I’m an idiot) or should I just find a local pro to handle the whole migration (and I think I know one)? I don’t mind paying a few hundred dollars if it improves the odds of getting it done properly.

It’s not that hard to download XAMPP, unzip the WordPress installation package into C:\xampp\htdocs and get things running. Google for “install WordPress XAMPP Windows” and I’m sure you’ll find enough info to get started.

That will allow you to design your site inside your own computer. Just remember: in order to work with your WordPress site, you always need to remember that XAMPP must be running and Apache and MySQL need to be active (i.e. green light). The other parts of XAMPP you won’t need.

But when it’s time to migrate this stuff, then it’s good to get help from someone who knows about migrating a WordPress installation, pointing your domain to a new server, activating SSL (i.e. httpS). That will substantially shorten downtime and lower the risk for bigger problems.

Tor,
Even though you think I can do it on my computer, I think I’ll just buy another domain name and build the site there (I can tell the search bots not to crawl, right?). Then, like you suggest, I’ll pay someone to migrate it. I have recent experience building a WordPress site online (mikehenebry.com), so I won’t have to find, download and learn everything that is necessary to build the site on my own computer. By the way, the site I am replacing (upgrading) is bigbandtranscriptions.com.

Well, unless you have anything to add (or talk me out of), I think I’m good. I really appreciate your help! Tack s? hemskt mycket!