WordPress is the most common platform teams leave for Framer, and the reasons are familiar. Plugin updates that break things, security patches nobody wants to own, a page builder that slows every page down, and a simple text change that somehow needs a developer.
Framer fixes most of that. But a WordPress site usually carries years of posts, plugins and URL patterns, and each of those needs a plan before you switch. This guide covers how to move a WordPress site to Framer without losing the traffic you’ve built. If you want the general picture first, start with our overview of migrating to Framer.
Before You Start
Check Framer fits your site
Framer handles most B2B marketing sites well: service pages, case studies, blogs, resources and landing pages. It isn’t the right move if your site depends on WooCommerce or another store built into WordPress, memberships or gated content, heavy server-side logic or custom databases, or a WordPress multisite setup. If none of those apply, you’re likely a good fit.
Pick the right Framer plan
Plan for Framer’s Pro plan. Framer lists site redirects as a Pro feature, and a WordPress migration almost always needs redirects. Pro also includes a staging environment, so you can test the new site before it goes live. Check the CMS limits too: Pro allows 10 collections with 2,500 items each, which covers most B2B blogs comfortably.
Record your baseline and cut what’s dead
Before anything changes, export your top pages and queries from Google Search Console and note your organic traffic. This is how you’ll know, after launch, whether anything dropped. It’s also the moment to cut: pages with no traffic and no backlinks for a year or more usually aren’t worth migrating. Make a full backup of the WordPress site before you touch anything.
List what your plugins actually do
This is the step most WordPress migrations skip. Go through every active plugin and write down what it does on the live site. Most fall into a few groups:
SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math): titles, descriptions and schema. These carry over as page settings and custom code in Framer.
Forms (Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, WPForms): rebuilt with Framer’s native forms or an embedded form tool.
Analytics and tracking: added back through Framer’s custom code.
Redirect plugins (Redirection): any existing redirects need to be recreated in Framer’s redirect settings, or they stop working.
Translation plugins (WPML, Polylang): replaced by Framer’s localization.
Caching and security plugins (WP Rocket, Wordfence): not needed. Framer handles hosting, speed and security.
Page builders (Elementor, Divi): nothing to move. The pages they built get redesigned in Framer.
Anything left on the list that has no clear replacement is worth a decision before you start, not after launch.
Moving Your Content
Export from WordPress
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Tools, then Export. This generates an XML file with your posts, pages, categories and authors.
Convert it to CSV
Framer’s CMS imports CSV files, so the XML needs converting first. Each row becomes one post. A few details make the import go smoothly:
Include a slug column, and keep each post’s existing slug so its URL stays the same.
Keep the post body as HTML so headings, links and formatting survive.
Use full image URLs, not relative paths.
Strip out shortcodes and page builder markup. They mean nothing outside WordPress and will show up as broken text.
Import into Framer’s CMS
Create the collection fields in Framer first, then import the CSV. Columns match fields by name, so name them to match. A few things to check after each import:
Images. Framer downloads images from the URLs in your CSV, which is why your WordPress site needs to stay live until the import is done. Spot-check image alt text, since it can drop during bulk imports.
Categories and tags. Map categories to a single-select or reference field and tags to a multi-select, so posts stay filterable.
Re-imports. Importing again with the same slugs updates existing items instead of creating duplicates, so you can fix the CSV and re-run safely.
For very large sites or ongoing syncs, Framer also has a Server API for scripted imports.
Rebuild the pages
Your blog posts move as content. Your main pages don’t. Homepage, services and landing pages get rebuilt in Framer, and that’s the point: it’s the chance to fix the layouts and structure that made the old site hard to work with.
Redirects and SEO
Map your permalink structure
WordPress URLs often follow patterns like /2024/05/post-name/ or /category/post-name/. If your Framer blog uses /blog/post-name, every old URL needs a redirect. Framer supports wildcard redirects, so a single pattern rule can cover a whole date-based archive instead of hundreds of single rules. If your old slugs and new slugs match, this is most of the redirect work done.
Don’t forget the URLs WordPress creates automatically: category pages, tag pages, author archives and attachment pages. Most of these don’t need a new home, so redirect them to the closest relevant page, usually the blog index.
Two WordPress traps worth checking. Old links in the /?p=123 format still get clicked from older sites and emails, so the important ones need redirects too. And WordPress URLs often end in a trailing slash, so test both versions of your top URLs after launch. Keep your redirects in place for at least a year.
Carry over your metadata
Export your SEO titles and meta descriptions from your SEO plugin along with your content, and import them into dedicated Meta Title and Description fields in Framer’s CMS. Losing these is one of the quietest ways a migration costs you rankings.
Add structured data back
Schema that a WordPress plugin used to generate needs to be added in Framer through custom code. Article schema for blog posts and Organization schema site-wide covers what most B2B sites need.
Launch and After
Test everything on staging first: every page, form, link and redirect. Then point your domain to Framer using the DNS records Framer’s setup screen gives you. Leave your email (MX) records alone so email keeps working, and lower your DNS TTL a couple of days before the switch so the change takes effect faster. Keep WordPress running until the new site is live everywhere.
Then submit your new sitemap in Google Search Console and watch rankings and traffic against your baseline for the next 8 to 12 weeks. Small dips while Google recrawls are normal. If a specific page drops and doesn’t recover, check its redirect, metadata and indexing status first.
Is It Worth It?
For most B2B marketing sites on WordPress, yes. You get a faster site, no plugins to maintain, and a team that can edit pages without a developer. Budget for it properly, though. A WordPress migration’s cost scales with how much content and how many plugins you’re replacing.
If you’d rather not handle the redirects and plugin replacements yourself, we migrate WordPress sites to Framer with your content, rankings and integrations carried across. Get in touch and tell us about your current site.
