How to migrate off WordPress without losing rankings

Not if the redirect map is complete. WordPress sites usually have substantial accumulated SEO value, and most of that value sits in the URL structure and the inbound links pointing at specific pages. If every old URL redirects to its new equivalent with a 301, Google forwards the authority within a few weeks and rankings are usually stable or better after the move. Sites that lose SEO in a WordPress migration almost always lost it because URLs changed without redirects.

Yes. WordPress's built-in export produces a thorough WXR file with every post, page and custom post type. Uploads come across as files, and a database dump covers anything structured that the XML misses. That said, for most rebuilds we use the export as a content source rather than a direct import, because WordPress content is often full of shortcodes and page-builder markup that do not translate cleanly. The rebuild ends up cleaner for it.

Yes, for at least two weeks and ideally a full month. Google needs time to crawl every old URL, follow the 301 redirect, and update its index. During that window the old site continues to serve redirects but no real content. Once Search Console confirms the new URLs are indexed and the old ones are redirecting cleanly, the WordPress hosting can be cancelled. Archiving a copy of the site first is a sensible precaution.

Page builder content is the hardest thing to migrate off WordPress because the layout information lives in builder-specific markup, not in clean HTML. We export the text content and the images, look at the pages in the browser to capture the layout intent, and rebuild the pages hand-coded on the new site. The result is usually faster, cleaner and easier to update than the builder version it replaces.

If your email runs through Google Workspace or Microsoft 365, yes, without any interruption. The MX records in DNS stay untouched while the A and CNAME records change to point at the new host. If your email runs on your WordPress web host's built-in mail server (common on shared hosting), we migrate it to Google Workspace as part of the move, which is usually overdue anyway.

Once everything is counted, usually yes for a small-business site. A realistic WordPress setup costs the hosting, the SSL if not included, a backup plugin, a security plugin, a theme licence, a page builder licence, an SEO plugin, and the owner's time dealing with updates. Add those up over a year and most sites are spending £40 to £80 a month on WordPress already, without counting the time cost. Our Starter and Standard plans roll all of that into one managed fee with changes included.