Introduction
When building an Elementor hosted website, you can choose to start out with one of our kits, or start without a kit. This could be that you prefer to design on your own. You could also be migrating a current website that you have previously created. We will try to help each of these scenarios below.
Starting fresh with your prepared assets
It is time to gather all your prepared assets and start to plan the page layouts you will need for each of the pages and the site parts you will need for your website. You may create your theme by using the Elementor Theme builder and begin adding your content.
Migrating an existing Elementor website
If you already have an existing Elementor based website on a different host, you may use the Import/Export tools to migrate your current website to an Elementor hosted website.
Exporting current site
Start by exporting your current website by bundling it up into a single file.
This file will be created and be downloaded to your designated downloads folder on your computer. It will be a .json extension file.
You may ask: What is a JSON file?
“JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation
JSON is a lightweight data-interchange format
JSON is plain text written in JavaScript object notation
JSON is used to send data between computers”
Source: W3schools
Importing content to your Elementor Website
You may now navigate to the same Import/Export feature and import your packaged content.
Follow all the steps mentioned in this article. If you encounter any errors you may troubleshoot these in the linked document.
You will need to do the following:
- In your WordPress Dashboard > Settings > General, make sure that the URLs are similar
- Use the Replace URL tools to change the old location to the new location
- Under the WordPress Dashboard > Tools > General Tab > Regenerate CSS, click Regenerate Files
- You may also need re-save the permalinks located at the WordPress Dashboard > Settings > Permalinks
- Visit your site and locate any missing dependencies and assets
Note: If you developed your website locally using Local by Flywheel, Xampp, or other server solutions, you must allow inbound/outbound traffic to your local web server. The importer must be able to reach the source files in order to grab images and other dependencies.This is generally done by setting up Port Forwarding on your router. Refer to your server and router documentation. If unable to do so, you will need to manually replace the missing dependencies on the new website.
Migrating additional content
If you use additional plugins on your current website, these plugins will also need to be installed and activated on your Elementor hosted website. It is important to install any dependent plugins on your new site before starting the migration. Some plugins are incompatible with Elementor hosted websites. Please review the list here to make sure of your dependent plugins compatibility.
WordPress and Third Party controlled content
The import/export tool provided by Elementor does not migrate some third-party content that you may have on your old site including, but not limited to, custom post types, custom fields, memberships, forums, e-commerce, and events. You will need to use an alternative method to import this data.
Summary
If you are creating your own content, you will need to start planning the design and site parts you will need for the Theme builder.
If you are migrating a current Elementor or WordPress website to an Elementor hosted website, you may begin doing that now.
What’s Next
You may assign the homepage of your website from the WordPress Dashboard or your theme’s customizer.
Create and edit menus for your website from the dashboard, or your theme customizer.
If you are ready to launch your website, we can help you get started.