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Wordpress2Wagtail

Deploy & Migrate a WordPress Website to Wagtail

Goal:

You will need the scripts linked below. By the end of this lesson, you will:

  1. Deploy a Wagtail site behind an Nginx reverse proxy with SSL encryption.
  2. Migrate a WordPress website to Wagtail.
  3. Optimize SEO and images for better performance and search engine ranking.
WordPress2WagtailDownload

Step 1: Deploy Wagtail on Debian Behind Nginx with SSL

Before migrating your WordPress content, you must set up Wagtail on your new server. We will use the deploy_wagtail.sh script to automate this process.

1.1 Upload and Run the Deployment Script

  1. Transfer the script to your Wagtail server via SCP: scp deploy_wagtail.sh user@wagtail-server:/tmp/
  2. Log into the Wagtail server: ssh user@wagtail-server
  3. Make the script executable: chmod +x /tmp/deploy_wagtail.sh
  4. Run the script: sudo /tmp/deploy_wagtail.sh

1.2 Script Functionality

The script will:
✅ Install Wagtail, PostgreSQL, Nginx, and Certbot.
✅ Prompt for a domain name to configure Nginx.
✅ Set up SSL encryption using Let’s Encrypt.
✅ Restart all necessary services (Gunicorn, Nginx).

1.3 Verify Deployment

  1. Visit your domain (e.g., https://yourdomain.com).
  2. You should see the Wagtail welcome page.
  3. Log into Wagtail Admin: https://yourdomain.com/admin/
  4. Default Admin Credentials:
    • Username: admin
    • Password: (set during installation)

Step 2: Export WordPress Data

We will use the script export_wordpress.sh on the WordPress server to export the posts, pages, the database, and media files into a single compressed .tar.gz archive.

  1. Log into your WordPress server.
  2. Upload export_wordpress.sh to the server.
  3. Make the script executable: chmod +x export_wordpress.sh
  4. Run the script: ./export_wordpress.sh You will be prompted to enter:
    • WordPress database name (e.g., wordpress_db).
    • WordPress database user and password.
    • WordPress site directory.
    The script will create a wordpress_export.tar.gz file containing all necessary data (content, database dump, and media).

Step 3: Transfer the Export File to the Wagtail Server

Use SCP or another file transfer method to move the wordpress_export.tar.gz file from the WordPress server to the Wagtail server.

Example using SCP:

scp wordpress_export.tar.gz user@wagtail-server:/tmp/

Step 4: Import WordPress Data into Wagtail

On the Wagtail server, we will use the import_wordpress_to_wagtail.sh script to import the data (posts, pages, media) into the new Wagtail site.

  1. Log into your Wagtail server.
  2. Upload import_wordpress_to_wagtail.sh to the server.
  3. Make the script executable: chmod +x import_wordpress_to_wagtail.sh
  4. Run the script: sudo ./import_wordpress_to_wagtail.sh You will be asked for:
    • Wagtail project name (e.g., mywagtailsite).
    • Domain (e.g., example.com).
    The script will:
    • Extract the content from wordpress_export.tar.gz.
    • Import posts and pages into Wagtail.
    • Create redirects for WordPress URLs (e.g., /category/, /tag/).
    • Place media files in the Wagtail media directory.
    After running, your content will be successfully imported into Wagtail.

After migration, we’ll focus on optimizing images and restructuring permalinks to ensure that they’re SEO-friendly.

  1. Upload optimize_images_and_permalinks.sh to the Wagtail server.
  2. Make the script executable: chmod +x optimize_images_and_permalinks.sh
  3. Run the script: sudo ./optimize_images_and_permalinks.sh The script will:
    • Compress images (JPEG and PNG) to reduce page load times.
    • Convert images to WebP format for modern browsers.
    • Update permalinks to follow SEO-friendly practices (e.g., removing /index.php/ and /category/ from URLs).
    • Restart services to apply changes (Gunicorn and Nginx).

Step 6: SEO Optimization After Migration

Once the content has been migrated and optimized, it’s essential to fine-tune the SEO aspects of your site. This includes:

1. SEO-Friendly URLs:

  • Ensure all URLs are clean, readable, and reflect the content (e.g., /about-us/ instead of /index.php/about-us/).
  • The script automatically handles this during the migration, but check the URLs in Wagtail’s admin for consistency.

2. Meta Tags and Titles:

  • Wagtail doesn’t automatically import SEO metadata like title tags, meta descriptions, and Open Graph tags from WordPress. To address this, you can use a custom Wagtail SEO app.
  • Install a Wagtail SEO package such as wagtail-seo to manage meta tags, social media integration, and other SEO features.

Example installation:

pip install wagtail-seo

After installation, you can add the SEO fields to your Wagtail page models, like so:

from wagtailseo.models import SeoFields

class MyPage(Page, SeoFields):
    ...

3. Structured Data:

Structured data helps search engines understand the content on your site better. Adding JSON-LD markup for articles, reviews, and other content types will help improve your SEO.

You can include structured data in your templates:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "{{ page.title }}",
    "author": "{{ page.author }}",
    "datePublished": "{{ page.date_published|date:'YYYY-MM-DD' }}",
    "image": "{{ page.featured_image.url }}"
}
</script>

4. XML Sitemap:

Generate an XML sitemap for search engines to crawl your website. If using Wagtail 2.14+, you can install the wagtail-sitemap package for automatic sitemap generation.

Install the package:

pip install wagtail-sitemap

Configure it in your settings:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'wagtail.contrib.sitemaps',
    'wagtail.sitemaps',
]

This will automatically create a sitemap at /sitemap.xml.

Step 7: Verify and Test the Site

After running all scripts and SEO optimizations, verify that the site is working properly:

  1. Check the Wagtail site:
    • Visit the home page, posts, and pages to ensure everything looks good.
  2. Verify redirects:
    • Test URLs from your WordPress site (e.g., /category/my-category/) to ensure they properly redirect to their new Wagtail equivalents.
  3. SEO Testing:
    • Use Google Search Console to monitor the site’s indexing and performance.
    • Use SEO tools (e.g., Ahrefs, SEMrush) to track keyword rankings and crawl errors.

Conclusion

You have now successfully migrated a WordPress site to Wagtail, optimized images, and implemented SEO best practices.

By following this lesson, you will:

  • Retain your site’s SEO performance with properly structured URLs, metadata, and redirects.
  • Ensure faster page loads with optimized images and WebP conversion.
  • Integrate structured data and sitemaps to help search engines understand and index your content.

🚀 Your site is now set up for success in both content management and SEO performance!

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