How We Moved From WordPress to Webflow and Why

When we built our first website 11 years ago, we weren’t thinking about SEO, conversions, or performance. We simply needed a functional website, and WordPress was the obvious choice. For years, we made only minor updates, adding blog posts or portfolio items occasionally.

But as our business grew and our focus shifted towards content and SEO, we realised that WordPress was no longer the best fit. We needed a platform that offered more flexibility and efficiency.

Here’s our journey from WordPress to Squarespace, and ultimately to Webflow – why we made these changes and what we learned along the way.

Phase 1: WordPress — A Strong Start

WordPress was the most popular platform then, widely supported by developers, and easy to integrate. It served us well in the early years — requiring little maintenance and keeping costs low.

However, as we began focusing on our marketing strategy, content, and SEO, we realised that our website was limiting our ability to grow effectively.

Challenges with WordPress

• Our site was fully custom-built, which made updates and changes difficult.
• Every page had a fixed structure, so even minor modifications required developer support.
• Maintaining the site involved constant plugin updates and security patches.
• Hosting and performance required ongoing monitoring and adjustments to ensure fast load times and site stability. 

From an SEO perspective, WordPress performed well, but for our designers and marketing team, making changes to the site wasn't straightforward. We needed a more user-friendly platform for updates and content management.

Phase 2: Squarespace — A Simpler Alternative

Looking for an easy-to-use platform that didn’t require developer input, we moved to Squarespace. It provided a user-friendly solution that allowed us to create a beautiful website, even without design experience.

What Worked Well on Squarespace

• No need for plugins or manual updates, reducing maintenance efforts.

• Straightforward content management, allowing quick edits and new pages.
• Customisation was simple—grids, components, and themes let us adjust colours, layouts, and text while maintaining a polished design.
• Good starting point for a redesigned structure and fresh layout.

At first, it felt like a big improvement  — editing content became effortless, and we no longer had to worry about site maintenance. Our CEO loved that she could update the design, layout, and content herself while keeping everything looking professional.

However, as we expanded, our design and marketing teams encountered limitations and performance issues that led us to search for a different platform.

Challenges with Squarespace

• Customisation was restricted, making advanced layout changes difficult.
• SEO settings were limited; we couldn't manually adjust structured data, refine indexing preferences, or edit the sitemap to optimise content visibility.
• Page performance issues — our site was slower than expected with our content structure and images.
• Lack of CMS functionality — to add a new blog post, we had to create a new page each time manually.

Squarespace was a good option for a first website, but it lacked the flexibility we needed.

Phase 3: Webflow — More Control and Flexibility

We then decided to try Webflow, a popular platform among designers and marketers for its customisation capabilities and easy design transition.

Why We Chose Webflow

• The design process was seamless – our team could transfer designs from Figma with just one click.
• We had full control over SEO, easily customising meta tags, URLs, indexing, and sitemaps, while also adding tracking scripts to each page for accurate conversion tracking.
• The performance and page speed improved because we could optimise the code directly.
• The built-in CMS made managing dynamic content, like blogs and pages, much easier.
• Reusable components ensured consistency across the entire site.

Challenges with Webflow

Webflow gives us more control, but content editing isn't as intuitive as Squarespace. Simple edits are easy, but more significant changes or new templates require a Webflow designer.

It's also more expensive than WordPress—our plan costs $53/month, which works for us since we update our site regularly. However, the cost might not be worth it for businesses that make fewer changes.

While Webflow wasn't as convenient for editing on the flight as Squarespace, it worked well for our needs and provided more control than our previous platforms.

What We Learned from Our Website Migration

Every website migration is a process of trial and error. Here are some key takeaways from our experience:

• Plan ahead — outline your content structure, SEO priorities, and design goals before migrating.
• Back up everything — ensure all content, images, and metadata are stored safely.
• Test the platform — explore whether the new system meets your needs before making a full switch.
• Protect SEO rankings — use 301 redirects and metadata updates to maintain search visibility.
• Optimise performance — compress images and structure content efficiently.
• Monitor analytics — track performance to identify any post-migration issues.

This was our experience — other businesses may have different results depending on their needs and website complexity.

Was It the Right Choice for Us?

Migrating to Webflow was a great decision for our business. It gave us:

• Faster loading speeds with Mobile Page Speed up from 38 to 71 and LCP down from 9.2s to 2.3s

• Easier content updates without developer support.
• Stronger SEO with better metadata, indexing, and structured data.
• More efficient workflow with CMS and reusable components.
  

Webflow, combined with our content optimisations during migration, helped improve our SEO performance.

These results reflect our experience — other businesses may see different outcomes.

Final Thoughts

Each platform has strengths and weaknesses — the right choice depends on your business needs. 

For us, Webflow provided the flexibility and SEO control we needed.

If you're considering a platform switch, evaluate your priorities — SEO, customisation, ease of use, or scalability — to determine what works best for you.

Thinking About a Website Migration?

If you're exploring different website platforms and need advice, feel free to reach out.