How To Move Your Website From RapidWeaver To WordPress

by Greg Swan

Let me first say that I have nothing against RapidWeaver. I have found it to be an extremely useful website software platform and I actually use it on some of my websites.  But, due to the fact that the majority of my sites are self hosted WordPress, I have found it easier to manage multiple sites when they are all on the same platform.

As I searched the internet looking for information about changing from RapidWeaver to WordPress, I didn’t find much information about it.  So, I thought that I would post this instructional article to help anyone who may be wondering about how to do it.

Please read this entire post before attempting this procedure.

Before you do anything, back-up your website (of course) and save a copy of the back-up to your desktop.  You should be backing up your site on a regular basis anyway, but make sure to back it up before you attempt this procedure. Please note that you will be deleting all of the files in your public_html folder in order to transfer your site from RapidWeaver to WordPress. So back it up and make sure you have it saved on your computer before you proceed.

Another thing to do before you get started is to save any information that is currently on your site, meaning copy and paste anything that you want to keep onto a word document for future reference. (Like text, blog posts, photos, google analytics code, etc.) Unless you are making a completely new site, copy everything before proceeding!

First, go to your web host and log into C-Panel.

Go down to Files and click on File Manager

This Opens the File Manager

Go down the left hand side of File Manager and click on public_html.  This will open all of the files in the public_html folder.

Now this is the part where you delete all of the files in the public_html folder.  Now if you didn’t back-up your site, Stop everything and go back it up. Also double check that you have copied  everything that you want to keep on your original site, because, once we delete these files, they are gone!

Once you are sure that you have your site backed up and you have copied everything that you want to keep from your RapidWeaver website, you may proceed.

OK, now select the box on the left side of each file in public_html and click the delete button on top of the file manager.  This will delete the selected file.  Continue doing this until you have deleted all of the files in public_html.  Your screen will look like this after the files are deleted.

Now, it’s time to install WordPress. Go back to the main menu of c-panel, which should still be opened from your original login to c-panel.  Scroll down to Software/Services and click on Fantastico De Luxe.  You will come to this screen.

Go down the left side of the screen under blogs and select WordPress. This will bring up the new WordPress installation.

Click on New Installation. This will bring up the installation screen (Install WordPress 1/3).  The Installation location – Install on domain – should have your domain already selected.  Leave Install in directory blank.  Go down and enter your user name and password under Admin access data area.  Then under Base Configuration, enter your Admin nickname. Then click Install WordPress.

Your next screen Install WordPress 2/3 will automatically create your database and provide your website url. Click Finish Installation to continue.

The last screen Install WordPress 3/3 shows that your site is configured.  Enter your email to have the details of your installation sent to your email.  Your WordPress installation is now completed.

Now login to your site and clear your computer cache.  You should have your new WordPress Site.

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The Website Heat Map and Other Analytics

by Greg Swan

A website heat map is a tool that allows you to see what parts of your pages are most frequently scanned by your visitors.  Numerous vendors provide software that allows you to make use of this tool and other web analytics.

The tools help internet marketers and website publishers judge the performance of their websites.  You must be able to accept constructive criticism in order to use these tools.

Computer programs cannot take your feelings into consideration.  They can only give you the facts.  You might be disappointed sometimes.

Of course, webmasters that feel their sites are perfect don’t make use of these tools anyway.  They are confident that what they have built is the best performing site on the internet.

The rest of us would like an unbiased “eye” (so to speak) to tell us how we are doing.  A website heat map could tell us if people are looking at the portion of our websites where the ads are located.  That could be important.

The maps can also help us decide where to place ads.  After publishing a site and attracting some visitors, the maps direct us to locations where our visitors spend the most time.

It’s not exact of course.  No web analytics are exact.  It’s not a good idea to rely on any tool too heavily or even to worry about them too much.  They are just good to have around.

Other web analytics can be used to gauge where your traffic is coming from.  80% of your traffic might come directly from the search engines.  10% might come from referrals.  3% might come from an email marketing campaign.

These are very important considerations, because it tells you where your advertising dollars are best spent.  Knowing that the majority of your traffic comes from the search engines might make you decide to become one of the “sponsored results”.

On the other hand, it could make you even more determined to improve your referral rate or try other marketing campaigns.  You might find out that most of your traffic comes from the search engines, but that most of your buyers come from other sources.

Web analytics can also tell you where your visitors are located, based on the location of their IP address.  This is not a street address, of course.  You can see the cities or countries that your visitors reside in. This would help you decide if you need to add a second language, among other things.

What’s the bottom line?  It’s worth your time to take a look at a website heat map, as well as the other analytical tools available today.

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