WordPress to Shopify and Webflow to Shopify: moving content sites into commerce

Moving from WordPress to Shopify, or from Webflow to Shopify, usually means a content-first site is becoming a store, or a store has outgrown a CMS-based checkout. The first decision is not how to migrate but what stays where: move everything into Shopify, keep the CMS for content alongside Shopify, or go headless. Then come the content model, custom fields, redirects and the design rebuild.

If your WordPress site runs WooCommerce, read the WooCommerce to Shopify guide as well.

Three ways to structure it

For most merchants, moving everything is the simplest to run. Side-by-side set-ups need consistent navigation, shared analytics and careful internal linking between the two sites. Headless adds the most flexibility and the most maintenance.

Moving the content

WordPress

• Posts become Shopify blog articles. Categories become blogs or tags.
• Pages become Shopify pages, but complex page-builder layouts need rebuilding in theme sections.
• Custom post types and custom fields (from ACF, for example) become metaobjects with typed fields, such as a "Recipe" or "Store location" metaobject, rendered by theme templates.
• Media needs re-uploading, with image URLs updated in the content.

Webflow

• CMS collections map naturally to metaobjects: each collection becomes a metaobject definition, and each item an entry. Reference fields become metaobject or product references.
• Blog collections become Shopify blog articles.
• Ecommerce products export to CSV and import as Shopify products. Custom fields become metafields.
• Interactions and custom code embeds have to be rebuilt in the theme.

Figma or custom designs

If your new store design is in Figma, or you want your Webflow design recreated, that's theme development. I don't do theme work. You'd need a theme developer for the design. I handle the parts behind it: the metafield and metaobject model the design depends on, the data migration, redirects, integrations and any custom app features.

Redirects

Content sites often rank for many more URLs than stores do. Collect every URL:

• from the sitemap(s), including posts, pages, categories, tags and author archives if indexed;
• from Search Console's pages report and analytics landing pages;
• from backlink data.

Map each one to its new location. Posts go to /blogs/<blog>/<handle> and pages to /pages/<handle>. Import the redirects in bulk before switching the domain. Where a URL has no equivalent, redirect it to the closest relevant page, not the home page.

A worked example: moving a recipe site with a shop

A food brand runs WordPress with 400 recipe posts built with a custom post type and ACF fields (ingredients, time, difficulty, linked products), plus a small shop on a WordPress plugin. Moving everything to Shopify looks like this:

1. Model: a recipe metaobject with fields for title, image, ingredients (list), time (number), difficulty (choice) and products (list of product references).
2. Migrate: a script reads the recipes from the WordPress REST API and creates metaobject entries through the Shopify GraphQL Admin API, uploading images to Shopify first.
3. Render: a theme template for metaobject pages shows each recipe. Products referenced by the recipe get "Add to cart" buttons, which is the point of the whole move.
4. Redirect: each /recipes/slug/ URL redirects to the new recipe URL on Shopify.
5. Link back: product pages list the recipes that use them, via the same references.

The content becomes structured data that the store can use, instead of text trapped in a page builder.

Search visibility for content-heavy sites

Content sites lose traffic in migrations for predictable reasons. Protect against them:

• keep titles and headings of top posts the same, or close to it;
• keep internal links between posts, updated to the new URLs;
• carry over images and alt text, and redirect image URLs that have backlinks;
• keep publish dates where the theme shows them;
• don't merge or cut content during the migration itself. Do it later, once traffic is stable, so you can tell cause from effect.

Step-by-step plan

1. Choose the structure: move everything, side by side, or headless.
2. Inventory content types, custom fields, media and URLs.
3. Define metaobjects and metafields for structured content.
4. Build or adapt the theme to render them (with a theme developer if needed).
5. Migrate content with scripts or import tools, then check formatting and links.
6. Set up the store: products, payments, shipping and tax.
7. Import and test redirects.
8. Switch the domain, submit sitemaps, monitor 404s and rankings.

Pre-launch checklist

• Every indexed URL redirects to its new equivalent.
• Internal links inside migrated content point to new URLs, not through redirects.
• Structured content (metaobjects) renders correctly on every template.
• Images have alt text and load from Shopify.
• Titles and meta descriptions carried over for top pages.
• Analytics, consent and pixels are in place on the new site.