Moving your Jimdo website to WordPress - that's what matters

Are you hosting and managing your website with Jimdo, but wondering whether the modular system is sufficient for your purposes? Then you've come to the right place. This article explains when and why it might make sense to switch from Jimdo to WordPress. You'll also get a checklist with all the steps you should take if you want to move your Jimdo website to WordPress.

What is Jimdo?

Simply put, Jimdo is a website builder that makes it relatively easy to create, design and maintain websites or online stores using drag-and-drop. The system is primarily tailored to the needs of freelancers and small businesses and is kept very simple: Content is always placed in blocks one below the other on a Jimdo website. These can be selected, arranged on the page and customized with just a few clicks.

Jimdo also offers various templates and layouts as well as a free image database. The price for a website with the modular system is currently between 9 and 39 euros per month, depending on the package (Start, Grow or Unlimited).

What is WordPress?

WordPress, on the other hand, is open source software, meaning it is free of charge and the world's most popular content management system (CMS). WordPress can basically be used to create all types of websites - whether blogs, company websites, online stores or personal portfolio sites.

WordPress is particularly popular because it can be expanded and customized almost at will using WordPress themes (design templates), WordPress plugins (extensions for new functions) and page builders. This means that WordPress can be used to create professional websites quickly and easily in a modular system without in-depth programming knowledge. Online stores can also be created using the WooCommerce extension or plugin.

At the same time, WordPress also offers extensive options for developers to realize very individual website projects. The CMS is used by freelancers and agencies as well as small, medium-sized and large companies.

Why switch from Jimdo to WordPress?

You've had the feeling for a while that your Jimdo website no longer does your business justice - but you don't know whether a change is really the right decision? Then the following sections might help you decide. Here you'll find an overview of Jimdo's strengths and weaknesses, as well as the most important advantages of switching to WordPress:

The strengths and weaknesses of Jimdo

Jimdo impresses above all with its simplicity. Building a website with Jimdo requires practically no training. This makes the modular system ideal for beginners who have no experience with web design, development, etc. Overall, Jimdo is particularly suitable for simple stores, smaller websites or portfolio sites that are not constantly filled with new content.

However, as soon as your business grows and you want your website to get a little bigger, Jimdo's weaknesses become apparent :

• Jimdo does not have comprehensive solutions for interfaces to other tools.
• Although Jimdo comes with store functionality as standard, this is limited. This means that Jimdo is not always ideal for digital articles, for example.
• Jimdo does not currently allow you to create individual accounts for users. Online courses for which you have to log in individually can therefore not be offered via a Jimdo website.
• Although Jimdo offers a selection of templates for different industries, the customizability of the designs is limited.
• Jimdo only offers basic SEO functions and the sites sometimes perform worse in the Google ranking than (well-optimized) WordPress websites, for example.

Jimdo also hosts your website, so you don't need additional website hosting, which can be advantageous - but also makes you dependent on one provider. Then you're dependent on the performance, support and pricing of a company that can't be changed.

The advantages of WordPress

Where Jimdo reaches its limits, WordPress can score points. The CMS has been around for 20 years now and has developed considerably over time. WordPress could be the better choice, especially if you want your website to grow continuously.

Here are some of the benefits of switching from Jimdo to WordPress:

• Manage more content: Jimdo is not a CMS. If you have multiple pages and regularly create new content (e.g. in a blog), Jimdo can quickly become confusing. WordPress is much more professional and structured here.
• Flexibility: WordPress now offers plugins or integrations for almost all use cases. This makes the CMS extremely flexible. Many functions can be added individually as required. Anyone with programming skills also has unrestricted access to the website code and can make individual adjustments.
• Choose hosting freely: Jimdo includes hosting and a domain. This is practical, but you are also bound to the packages and prices on offer. In principle, WordPress can be hosted by (almost) any provider. This means you can choose more freely and compare tariffs and services. Raidboxes, for example, not only provides you with storage space, but also helps you manage all your WordPress websites with managed WordPress hosting.
• Scalability: While Jimdo is designed more for simple websites with fixed offers, WordPress grows with your business. A blog, an online store or even an area for online courses can be easily set up within the existing website - without having to change provider or domain.
• More SEO options: WordPress is much better positioned in terms of search engine optimization (SEO) and supports you with plugins such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math to bring your website to the front in Google searches.
• Individual design: Jimdo also offers design templates, but only a limited selection. For WordPress, there are now an almost endless number of themes and design elements for all kinds of websites and online stores. If you want to let off steam even more freely, you can also create and change the design of your website completely freely using a page builder (e.g. Elementor).
• Large community: As the leading content management system, WordPress has more resources for support and a much larger community that has a solution for (almost) all questions and problems.

Moving your Jimdo website to WordPress - the most important steps

Convinced? Then let's take a closer look at the best way to move your old Jimdo website to WordPress - without being left without a website in the meantime.

These are the most important steps at a glance:

1. Do not change anything on your existing website for the time being. It will remain online until the transfer is complete.
2. Check your current contract and take a close look at the term and notice period. You can then use this information to determine the time frame for the migration. Important: You should only cancel your Jimdo website once the new WordPress website is up and running. Otherwise, important content could be lost.
3. Create a sitemap, i.e. a list of all your pages and content. Use it to record how your website is currently structured. You can also consider whether you want to adopt everything 1:1 or restructure it a little.
4. Save all important data from your old website (texts, images, emails, etc.) locally on your computer. E-mails and contacts, for example, are not transferred with a domain transfer (we will come to this in a moment). Important to know: Unfortunately, there are no good tools (yet) that can do the (admittedly tedious) copy-and-paste work for you. You will have to save all your text modules and images manually. The best way to do this is to copy your texts together into a file with different sections. Use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word, Google Docs or OpenOffice for this. 
5. Create a list of all the widgets (extensions) that you currently use on your website and would like to use on your new WordPress website. Note: It's possible that you won't find a WordPress counterpart for all Jimdo plugins. You will therefore need to take a closer look at your plugins, research new plugins with similar functions and compare them. You may also have to say goodbye to some functionalities - but WordPress also offers many new possibilities. In any case, the plugins must be set up again after the WordPress installation. 
6. Find a suitable WordPress hosting and install WordPress. With most providers, this is a simple 1-click installation (including Raidboxes).
7. Ask Jimdo (via the menu item Questions on your Jimdo page) for a so-called Auth-Code . You'll need this to transfer your existing domain to the new provider.
8. Put your new WordPress website into maintenance mode first and make sure that it is not crawled by search engines before the move is complete.
9. Create your new WordPress website. First decide on a design and then fill it with your content. This step can be quite time-consuming because you have to set up the design from scratch. You will probably find a similar theme on WordPress, but not all the elements you have used so far. So you'll have to get a little creative and perhaps make some compromises.

This can all mean a lot of work - but it's also a good opportunity to give your website a new look and tidy up your content. You can find detailed instructions on how to do this in our article Create your own WordPress website - in 8 steps. Put your new WordPress website online as soon as you're happy with it.

Frequently asked questions about switching from Jimdo to WordPress

Which is better, Jimdo or WordPress?

The question of whether Jimdo or WordPress is better cannot be answered in general terms. The answer depends on the individual requirements: Jimdo, for example, is well suited for beginners who want to quickly put together a small website with fixed content due to its simplicity.

WordPress is better suited for larger websites and stores, professional blogs or special designs. WordPress is also usually better for those who want to be at the forefront when it comes to SEO.

How much does a website with WordPress cost?

There's no one-size-fits-all answer to how much a WordPress website costs. Among other things, the price depends heavily on the type of hosting you choose, which theme you select, which functions your site should have and whether you can implement everything yourself. If you need help with the implementation, there are special WordPress freelancers and agencies.