In the previous article, we discussed the Pre-migration and migration steps when we visited Joomla to WordPress. In this post, we will discuss the last but not the minor steps: post-migration.
Let’s go on:
Post-migration steps
After migrating the website now, you are ready to Post-migration:
Choosing a theme
After successfully switched the platforms, you need to choose a new theme for your website. While you cannot use the same template of your Joomla website unless you hire a developer to make a custom theme, you can find out something similar will work for you.
I suggest you select a fresh theme for a new website. There are many available for self-hosted WordPress, including those for free in the WordPress Theme Directory and premium ones from lots of online marketplaces.
While choosing a theme, you need to ensure that it was created with quality in mind. There are tons of poorly-coded, bloated themes that you want to stay away from. That can hinder your site’s performance, so ensure that you choose a top-notch one from the start.
Check ratings and read reviews. You need to be able to explain whether it is one you want to install or not.
Creating menus

After all your content migration, now is the time to recreate several items, including any menus you were using. Having a well-structured main menu is critical as it lets your visitors quickly find what they are looking for.
It is effortless to create a new menu in WordPress. Go to Appearance > Menus, and enter the name for the menu and click the Save Menu button. Next, posts, add any pages, custom links, and another thing to it.
Now you made the new menu; you can specify where it appears on the website. Themes need to use different names for the Main Menu and call it Header Menu, Top Menu, or others.

Choose where you want to display the menu by checking the appropriate box in Menu Settings.

After you choose to display your menu, save the changes. Now, preview the site to make sure the menu is where you want it.
Every theme has its different menu locations, so play around with the menus until you get them just right.
Setting up contact forms
You will need to set up some contact forms on the new website. That will help people to contact you, and you can add any functionality to them.
Here are some contact plugins you can use:
- WP Forms
- Ninja Forms
- Contact Form by BestWebSoft
- Gravity Forms
Once you add contact forms to your page, it is good to check that they are working correctly. Fill them out with test information and ensure you receive submitted documents.
Adding widgets

A widget is a content block placed in the website’s footer and sidebar, among other places. They will be added and removed in Appearance > Widgets, the Customize area, and some themes.
Among the widgets, you can add the following:
- Calendar – shows the website’s posts visually in a calendar.
- Audio – adds an audio player.
- Archives – displays a monthly archive of the website’s Posts.
- Contact Details & Maps – displays a map and contact details.
- Content – shows images and text in a flexible grid.
- Categories – adds a dropdown or list of categories.
- Image – inserts an image.
- Custom HTML – adds HTML code.
- Custom Menu – adds a custom menu.
- Pages – displays a list of the website’s pages.
- Meta – shows RSS, login, and WordPress.org links.
- Recent Comments – displays the website’s most recent comments.
- Posts – shows the website Posts in a flexible grid.
- Recent Posts – displays a list of the Recent Posts.
- RSS – a list of the whole from an Atom feed or RSS.
- Search – a simple search form for the site.
- Tag Cloud – shows the most used tags.
- Video – displays a video from the video hosting or media library site (like Vimeo, YouTube, etc.).
- Text – used to display HTML or text.
Additionally, in the widgets mentioned above, some themes have their custom widgets as well.
After activating your desired theme and choose the website’s functionality, you can add widgets that match the specific needs.
Adding image galleries
Several themes have gallery functionality built-in, but you may need to use a plugin.
There are several excellent free gallery plugins.
Installing must-have plugins
WordPress is so unique that the number of plugins you can use to add all kinds of functionality to the website.
When starting your WordPress site, there are some you should install right away, include:
- Wordfence – Protect the website from malicious activity with this excellent security plugin.
- Yoast SEO – Optimize the website for SEO with this killer plugin.
- W3 Total Cache – Speed up the website by caching dynamic pages to create static ones.
- BackWPup – Create partial and complete website backups for free with this super-helpful plugin.
Keep in mind: When you add plugins, don’t just go all willy-nilly and install a boatload of them. Choose the ones as per your need and install those.
Before installing a plugin, check out the review. It is best to use plugins that are actively maintained.
Updating the permalinks
Since you are optimizing your new site, it is essential to concisely ensure that you are using the permalink structure.
In the previous post, I have mentioned pre-migration steps at the beginning of this post, in which I told you to make a list of your Joomla site URLs. That only comes into play if your old site received a good amount of traffic and had many backlinks to it.
If the website received many visitors and planned on changing the permalink structure. In that case, you want to set up redirects to the new website URLs.
To do this, you will use the Redirection plugin.
If the old website sucked and had very little traffic, don’t even worry about redirects. Just focus on attracting quality visitors to the new and improve the WordPress site.
Moving from development to live site
Since you made a temporary domain to move all the content over, you will now have to move everything to the permanent domain.
If you changed to a new web hosting service, you would need to update your DNS settings with the domain name registrar. If you don’t know how to do this, google “update DNS + name of the registrar.”
Once propagation is complete, you will be able to start creating the live site.
You will need to do the following:
- Backup the development site
- Update DNS if you switched hosts.
- Export the development MySQL database tables.
- Upload the WordPress development site.
- Create a MySQL database for the new site and note all details, including the username, database name, and password. You will need them later.
- Edit your wp.config file to reflect the new MySQL database details.
- Import the development MySQL database tables into the new database.
Redirecting old URLs (if need be)
Since you wrote down all the old URLs, you can now redirect them to their equivalent WordPress site.
Download, then activate the Redirection plugin, and do:

- Enter an old page and post URL in the Source URL box.
- Put the new page and post URL in the Target URL area.
- Repeat as needed with every page/post you wish to redirect.
- Click on Add Redirection.
Checking and fixing your internal links
If you updated the permalink structure during your move from Joomla to WordPress. In that case, you must take a look at the website’s internal links.
Go through all pages and posts edit any links to other content on your site.
If you would instead not go through every post and page manually. Install and activate any plugin for that, Like Broken Link Checker.
It will search for broken links in the website’s posts, comments, pages, and other content.
If Broken Link Checker notices any broken links, it will show them in two places:
In a Broken Link Checker widget on the WordPress dashboard
And under Tools > Broken Links.
This plugin helps you update broken links through its interface instead of navigating the source to make changes.
You can keep the Broken Link Checker plugin after you fix all the links. Still, maybe you want to deactivate it and turn it on to check broken links once in a while (like once in a month).
Also, you can thoroughly uninstall it after checking and fixing all your links and using an online tool like Online Broken Link Checker periodically instead.
Plugins that perform ongoing scans tend to slow down your site.
Making sure everything works
After the new WordPress site is up and running, you will want to make sure that everything is running correctly.
Few moves go smoothly. Your website has to load fine with all the content.
Conclusion
Moving a website from one CMS to another is quite a challenging task. Hopefully, this guide helps you to move the website from Joomla to WordPress.
Are you having problems with the website migration? You can comment below; we will try to help out as best we can.