Switching to Athena CMS
Leave WordPress. Keep everything that matters.
Your pages, posts, images, products, members and rankings come with you. The plugins, the updates and the 2 a.m. security emails stay behind. Here is exactly how the move works.
- Every URL kept or redirected
- No downtime on launch day
- Domain and email untouched
- 30 days of watching after launch
What comes with you
Everything you built. None of what you put up with.
Pages and posts
Every page and blog post, with its headings, links and images, imported into Athena fields. Nothing retyped by hand.
Your media library
Every image moved, resized for the web and given a description where it was missing.
SEO titles and descriptions
What you set in your SEO plugin comes across field for field, along with your structured data.
Every URL
Same address where we can keep it, a permanent redirect for every one we change. Your rankings travel with them.
Forms and leads
Contact and quote forms rebuilt with spam protection, sending to the same inboxes.
Your store
WooCommerce products, variants, prices and categories move into Athena's built-in e-commerce, with a secure checkout. We plan customer and order history with you.
Members and subscriptions
Membership levels, protected pages and members move across, and recurring billing moves to Stripe subscriptions, planned with you so nobody is billed twice.
People and roles
Everyone who edits the site gets an Athena sign-in with the right role: author, editor or administrator.
Speed, for free
The new site is pre-built by Next.js and served from the edge. No caching plugin required, because there is nothing to cache around.
Your plugins, replaced
Every plugin does a job. Here is who does it now.
Some jobs become part of the site itself. The ongoing ones go to Athena’s agents, which work through Athena like staff and never run inside your site.
| On WordPress | Its job | In Athena |
|---|---|---|
| SEO plugins (Yoast, Rank Math) | Titles, descriptions, sitemaps | Built into every page, with a live search previewIris |
| Security plugins (Wordfence and friends) | Firewall, malware scans | No plugins or wp-admin to attack; daily checksAegis |
| Caching and speed plugins | Make slow pages faster | Not needed: pages are pre-built and served from the edge |
| Image optimizers | Compress and resize images | Every upload is sized and compressed before it landsPicasso |
| Broken link checkers | Find dead links | Links and forms tested around the clockArgus |
| Internal linking plugins | Suggest links between posts | Links recommended, then inserted on approvalAriadne |
| Backup plugins | Save copies of the site | Every version of every page kept, plus database backups |
| Form builders | Contact and quote forms | Built into the site, with spam protection |
| WooCommerce | Sell online | E-commerce built in: products, inventory, orders, checkout |
| Membership plugins | Members-only content, paid plans | Password-protected areas, membership levels, Stripe subscriptions |
| Social sharing and auto-posting | Share new posts | Posts drafted for every new page and offerHermes |
| Translation plugins | Second-language pages | Spanish versions drafted and kept in stepHarmonia |
How the move works
Six steps. Only the last one needs you.
- 01
Audit
We crawl every URL, list every plugin and what it actually does, and record your traffic and rankings, so we can prove nothing was lost.
- 02
Map
Each kind of content becomes an Athena content type with plain fields: services, locations, posts, products, reviews, whatever you have.
- 03
Design and build
A custom Next.js site around your business, not a theme. You review it on a private preview address as it comes together.
- 04
Move the content
Pages, posts, images, products and SEO settings imported automatically, then checked by a person, page by page.
- 05
Redirect and launch
Every old URL mapped to its new home, sitemaps submitted, Search Console watched. Launch takes minutes, with no downtime.
- 06
Hand over and watch
Your team learns Athena in an hour. We watch rankings and errors for 30 days, and switch on the agents you want.
What does not change
Your customers will notice one thing: it is faster.
Same domain, same email, same phone number, same Google Business Profile. The links people saved still work, and the pages Google knows still answer. What changes is behind the door: you edit plain fields, preview on the real page, and never install another update.
Get a migration plan for your site
Tell us about your WordPress site. We will audit it and send a plain plan: what moves, what changes, how long it takes and what it costs.
Which of these sounds like you? (pick any)
Questions, answered
Switching from WordPress
Most small business sites move in a few weeks: about a week to audit and plan, two to three weeks to build and move the content, and a day to launch. Large sites and stores take longer, and the audit gives you a firm schedule before anything starts.
Not if the move is done properly, and that is most of our job. We keep every URL we can and permanently redirect every one we change, carry over your titles, descriptions and structured data, and watch Search Console for 30 days after launch. Faster pages usually help rankings rather than hurt them.
Each one is replaced by something built into the site or by an Athena agent. SEO, forms, image optimization, backups and caching become part of the site itself; security checks, broken links, internal links and social posts become agents' jobs. Nothing runs inside your site that we did not put there.
Yes. Athena can have e-commerce built right into it. Products, variants, prices, inventory and categories move across, checkout is rebuilt with a secure payment provider, and we plan customer accounts and order history with you so nothing your business relies on is left behind.
Yes. Athena can run a password-protected membership site with as many levels as you need and recurring payments through Stripe subscriptions. We move your levels, protected content and members, and plan the billing switch with you so every member keeps access and nobody is charged twice. More on membership sites.
Yes. Your domain stays yours, and email is not affected: we only change where the website points. Your Google Business Profile and other listings keep working the whole time.
No. Your WordPress site keeps running while we build. On launch day we switch where the domain points, which takes minutes, and keep the old site available privately in case anything needs checking.
It depends on the size of the site and what it does, so we quote after the audit, in writing, with every line item. Athena itself is included with the site. 0% financing is available, with 25% down.
More on the technology side: WordPress to Next.js · Website migration