Why I’m Switching Myself (and All of My Clients) From WordPress to HubSpot

WordPress has been the go-to choice for web development for us and our clients for years. It’s an open-source platform that is highly customizable and easy to use. 

While WordPress offers great flexibility, it can be time-consuming and resource-intensive when making changes or updates to your website. That’s why we’re switching from WordPress to HubSpot — the leading marketing automation platform in the world today.

HubSpot is a powerful yet simple solution that allows us to create beautiful websites quickly with no coding required. We can easily update content without relying on IT support or hiring developers whenever something needs updating on our site.

Is this just a marriage of convenience between HubSpot CMS and Flagstone? Or are there more compelling reasons why switching to HubSpot is a sound decision for us and our clients? 

We’ll take an in-depth look at these two web development platforms and why HubSpot is the superior choice.

HubSpot CMS Vs. WordPress: What’s the Difference?

Before we begin our litany of reasons why HubSpot is better, let’s look at how they differ. We admit that WordPress may be better suited for some companies. After all, it’s a content management system (CMS) at heart. On the other hand, HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing platform that includes a content management system (CRM) and more.

That’s why, if your focus is more on long-term marketing and customer relationships than tinkering with website design, HubSpot may be the better choice.

Another key difference is in the way each platform allows for website customization. With WordPress, you can customize almost anything — from the look and feel of your site to the functionality. HubSpot has a more limited set of features but provides a much more integrated experience across all its tools. If you want to create an easy-to-use, unified customer journey from marketing emails to product pages and checkouts, then HubSpot may be the better bet.

There’s also the scalability factor. WordPress offers a lot of flexibility for scaling up, while HubSpot is designed for businesses that plan to scale quickly and easily by integrating their custom content into automated workflows.

Going off of just these differences alone can clarify which platform you should get. The more customization and scalability you need, the more likely WordPress will fit better. But if customer relationships are paramount, then HubSpot should be your go-to platform.

Technically Free — With a Catch

We hear you: WordPress is free, so why go with HubSpot at all? 

It’s a valid point.

You don’t have to pay for WordPress. But people don’t realize that when you build your site on WordPress, it can get costly quickly — between plugins, hosting fees, and paying a developer, it adds up fast. Plus, if you want to make changes or updates without the help of IT support or developers, you’ll need to learn coding basics — also not free (or easy)!

HubSpot offers a different approach. It’s not technically free, but the company provides a basic package that allows you to get started quickly and easily. From there, you can add additional features as needed. While still cost-effective, it eliminates the need for complex coding knowledge and costly plugins.

On top of that, as a marketing platform, HubSpot also offers an array of tools and features to ensure your website is optimized for the right audience and provides a great user experience. This means more visibility and better conversions for your business without the additional cost of integrations.

Not to mention, it also makes things easier on you — no need to contact IT support or hire developers whenever something needs updating on your site.

Why the Switch?

Let’s answer the million-dollar question, what made us switch to HubSpot? There are several reasons, and we’ll discuss them more in-depth below. However, all these reasons boil down to giving our clients maximum reach to their customers and having the best technology to cultivate relationships.

Let’s examine why HubSpot was a better choice for our team and clients.

SEO and Conversion-friendly Websites

Blogging plays a massive role in CMS platforms — WordPress is one of the most popular blogging platforms out there. It’s great for SEO and you can customize it for any website design. This is why HubSpot vs WordPress SEO is our first main focus.

HubSpot takes it up a notch by providing powerful yet easy-to-use tools that allow you to quickly create SEO-friendly blogs and pages. They also provide analytics to measure performance, increasing your chances of getting more clicks and conversions.

HubSpot does this for you without the need for coding knowledge or additional plugins, making it a much easier and cost-effective option.

Since SEO is baked into the platform, you won’t have to worry about installing and setting up plugins. You just focus on creating content that ranks well — no complicated setup is required.

HubSpot’s platform is also marketing-oriented, meaning all their designs and templates are designed with conversion in mind. This makes it easier for you to turn visitors into leads and customers.

HubSpot’s themes and apps marketplace also has a wide variety of products that helps you improve your website design and user experience, something WordPress does offer, albeit very expensively.

Built-in Marketing Automation

Speaking of marketing, HubSpot’s automation makes it easier to nurture leads and turn them into customers. With the platform, you can create automated workflows that help you stay in touch with customers and segment them according to their needs.

You can also customize the emails or messages sent to ensure each customer gets the most relevant content possible. It’s a great way to nurture relationships with your audience.

This leads us to another point of comparison: their dashboards.

WordPress has an excellent dashboard and analytics tool that smoothly integrates with other tools like Google Analytics. However, HubSpot’s dashboard is much more comprehensive. It provides an in-depth look at the performance of your website and different analytics to measure customer engagement.

On top of this data, HubSpot allows you to track customer journeys across other tools in your HubSpot toolset, making it easier to keep track of customer behavior.

As we said, HubSpot isn’t just a CMS. It’s also a CRM, marketing platform, and analytics suite in one. It’s a powerhouse that helps you get the most out of your website and other related campaigns that takes your audience from cold leads to loyal patrons.

Active Community of Partners

Another thing about HubSpot is its community of partners who help businesses get the most out of their HubSpot subscription. The community supports everything from email campaigns to data analysis and custom development.

This is an invaluable resource that opens up a lot of possibilities for your business — all in one place.

We’re not saying WordPress’ community is inferior in any way. We know it’s one of the largest and most active communities out there.

We’re saying that if community support and customer service are your primary concern, HubSpot does not lack in that department. You can check out their Inspire page for some sparks of web design inspiration and their Community section for handy tutorials.

If you need help on-demand, then HubSpot’s chat widget and email support system is always available.

Better Security

This is a bit tricky since WordPress and HubSpot have different approaches when it comes to security.

WordPress is an open-source platform that allows you to pick your hosting provider. The argument for this approach is that you can customize your security to fit the needs of your exact website.

On the other hand, HubSpot has a closed-door approach when it comes to hosting. They take care of it for you and have their own security measures in place. The upside is that you don’t have to worry about maintaining your own server or doing manual updates. You also get access to their team of security experts who ensures your website is safe from cyber threats.

In our opinion, though, HubSpot’s closed-source security is better suited for our clients that need an extra layer of protection without the constant hassle of manual updates.

Further, if you’ve been in the digital space long enough, you’re familiar with the constant news of websites getting hacked due to a lack of security. That’s something you don’t have to worry about with HubSpot since it’s their job to keep your website secure.

What Should You Do When You Make the Switch?

Migrating our website to HubSpot wasn’t the easiest thing to do. We had to accomplish several things over the course of a few weeks just to make sure everything was going well and we didn’t miss anything.

It was a grueling but rewarding process for our team. However, we don’t want you to feel overwhelmed when you make the switch. Here are a few steps and tips to make the process easier for you and your team.

Catalog Your WordPress Website

First, download your WordPress website and catalog all your content. You don’t want to lose any of that valuable data when switching over, so it’s essential to back up everything ahead of time.

To do this, you’ll need to use a plugin like WP Migrate DB Pro to migrate your entire WordPress website. Once it’s done, you can start importing the content into HubSpot and create new pages for everything.

Don’t forget your tags, categories, and custom fields as well. These are the bread and butter of SEO, and you want to ensure that all these pieces are accounted for.

Export Your Current Rankings

Speaking of SEO, you should also export your current rankings from WordPress and upload them into HubSpot. This ensures that you maintain the same level of visibility as before.

One thing we did (and you should do as well) is prioritize the most important pages and focus on getting them to their original rankings as soon as possible.

For example, if you have a blog post that ranks for a high-volume keyword, make sure to link to it from your homepage and other essential pages on your website.

Export Your 301 Redirect Settings

Your 301 redirect settings are your secret weapon for seamlessly transitioning from WordPress to HubSpot.

These redirects basically tell search engine bots where they should find the new version of your page, so make sure you export them before making the switch.

Exporting these settings can be done in two ways:

• Through plugins: If you have a WordPress plugin that supports redirects (like Yoast SEO), you can use it to export your 301 redirects.
• Through .htaccess: You can also directly access the .htaccess file on your server and edit and export from there.

If you have a large website like ours with frequent edits, new publications, and other changes, we recommend pausing all those activities for a few weeks until everything is fully migrated to HubSpot.

Update Imported Content

It’s important to remember that HubSpot CMS and WordPress are different platforms. That means any content you migrated over from WordPress must be formatted well for HubSpot.

For example, if your image links are pointing toward a specific URL, you might need to modify the links. Or, if some of your scripts aren’t compatible with HubSpot, you’ll have to rewrite them.

Fortunately, HubSpot cleverly equipped its CMS with tools that make editing and modifying your content accessible. During this migration stage, HubSpot points your anchor links to their original URLs, allowing you to quickly update any incompatible scripts.

This saved us a lot of time and maintenance costs. Sure, 301 redirects will always help you maintain your rankings and visibility, but updating the content itself is even more critical. In the long term, it will be better for your SEO.

Import Pages and Blog Posts Into a HubSpot CMS Theme

After importing your website’s content into HubSpot, it’s time to set up a CMS theme. This is where you control the layout and design of your website.

One thing we always do when migrating client websites is to choose a theme that looks great and maintains ease of use. Our goal in this phase is to empower the website owners to fix website issues without needing web developers and incurring more costs in the long run.

What we usually do is create a custom theme and enable HubSpot’s drag-and-drop page builder. This allows us to create pages with dynamic designs and structure while making it easier for website owners to update their own content.

Review Your Migrated Website

Everything’s not done and dusted until you double-check it for any mistakes.

Once you’ve imported your content, updated scripts and links, and set up a CMS theme, review the website for errors. This includes:

• Checking the design of each page
• Testing functionality
• Making sure all meta tags are in place

We also recommend conducting an SEO audit of your website after migration. This ensures that all your content and URLs are once again optimized for search engine visibility.

Get volunteers for unbiased, external feedback and review each page individually. Don’t forget to monitor your analytics data for spikes or drops in traffic and conversions in the initial days after migration.

Launch Your Website

Now, it’s time to go live.

We recommend double-checking everything one final time before you launch your website on HubSpot. If possible, try to schedule the launch for a non-peak hour or during off-hours to avoid disrupting user experience with downtime.

Once your website is ready, hit that publish button and take a bow. You’ve just completed one of the most complex (yet necessary) operations in digital marketing — migrating your website from WordPress to HubSpot CMS.

A few things to note when launching your website:

• Ensure all 301 redirects are in place to ensure users don’t receive 404 errors
• Enable caching for faster loading times
• Update your sitemap and submit it to search engines

Submit Your Website to Google Search Console

We want to expand on this last step. After you launch your website, it’s essential to submit a sitemap of all your pages and URLs to Google Search Console.

This helps search engines understand the structure of your website better and crawl more efficiently, which results in improved visibility and rankings in SERPs.

That being said, submitting your website to Google is far from a one-time affair. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, so you need to stay on top of your SEO game and optimize your website as required.

Being on Google Search Console helps you stay on top of changes and makes it easier to troubleshoot any issues that are affecting your website.

Hiring a Fractional CMO

No matter how many tutorials and guides you follow, migrating your website from WordPress to HubSpot can be complicated.

Aside from the actual migration, you need to consider plenty of things, such as SEO audits, analytics tracking and optimization, content strategy, and more. Navigating all these elements while managing other aspects of running your business is no easy task.

Even after you’ve gone through the migration process, a lot of work is still needed to ensure that your website performs at its best. One solution is to hire a fractional CMO.

Hiring a fractional CMO opens several opportunities to optimize, streamline, and troubleshoot your website and marketing campaigns. They can help you create a comprehensive content strategy to increase organic traffic to your site and develop systems that drive conversions.

Flagstone is a fractional CMO service equipped with a comprehensive marketing tech stack that:

• Helps you migrate your website from WordPress to HubSpot quickly and painlessly
• Provides deep analysis of all the data points in the migration process
• Helps diagnose any issues that could affect user experience
• Designs systems to track performance metrics, optimize campaigns, effectively plan content distribution, and more

If HubSpot is your all-in-one destination for marketing success, Flagstone is the fractional CMO service that gets you there.

We’ll help with onboarding and getting your website up and running quickly so you can focus on other aspects of running your business. We’ve done it before with our website and our clients’ websites, so we’re confident that we can make the complex process a lot simpler for you.

HubSpot-powered Websites With Flagstone

Is WordPress better than HubSpot? That ultimately depends on the needs and goals of your business.

However, if you’re like us and prioritize user experience, HubSpot is a no-brainer. The platform boasts an impressive array of features that make creating and managing your website infinitely easier than WordPress.

Further, since we and our clients want to cultivate better customer relationships without adding tons of costs, extra work, and complexity, HubSpot is the ideal solution.

Flagstone’s fractional CMO service includes a comprehensive marketing tech stack that helps you easily migrate to HubSpot. From lead acquisition to nurturing campaigns and customer segmentation, our experts help you make the most of your HubSpot website.

We also can take care of content creation, brand development, customer service, and lead generation for you.

Get in touch with us today for a free audit and consultation! Let’s elevate your website’s performance and get you one step closer to success.

References

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