How to Migrate from Joomla to Webflow: A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

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Table of Contents

• Migrate from Joomla to Webflow: Who This Guide Is For?
• Why Migrate: Joomla vs. Webflow
• Limitations of Joomla
• Webflow’s Strengths
• Cost of Ownership Comparison
• Joomla vs Webflow: Important Insights on Cost and Maintenance
• Pre-Migration Checklist: Joomla to Webflow
• Joomla to Webflow Migration Process (Step-by-Step)
• Why Choose WP Creative for Joomla to Webflow Migration

A few months ago, one of our clients, a mid-sized consulting firm, came to us frustrated. They had spent thousands maintaining their Joomla site, constant plugin updates, template conflicts, and a backend their team avoided. Every small change needed a developer. Even basic content updates took days.

They weren’t alone.

Over the past year, we’ve seen a surge in businesses leaving legacy CMS platforms like Joomla. The main reason is control. Teams are tired of relying on developers for minor edits. They want flexibility, speed, and a clean design system, all without touching code.

That’s where Webflow shines.

With Webflow, users get:

• A modern UX that’s intuitive even for non-tech users
• Visual development tools that combine design and responsiveness
• No reliance on plugins. Everything from animations to forms is built-in
• Cleaner code output and faster page speeds

For teams looking to modernise their site and reduce technical bottlenecks, migrating to Webflow is no longer a trend. It’s a smart, strategic move.

Migrate from Joomla to Webflow: Who This Guide Is For?

This guide is designed for:

• Small to Medium Businesses (SMBs) looking to simplify their website management and reduce technical overhead.
• Marketing and creative agencies that want more design control and faster deployment cycles.
• Content-heavy websites like news portals, educational platforms, or knowledge bases that need structured CMS control without the bloat.
• Business owners and decision-makers frustrated with Joomla’s complexity or plugin dependency, and ready for a clean, scalable alternative.

If your current website feels outdated, hard to manage, or limited in design, this guide will help you make the move to a platform that gives you full creative control with far less hassle.

Read: How to Migrate Your Webflow Website to WordPress

Why Migrate: Joomla vs. Webflow

Joomla has served many businesses well over the years, but times have changed. As expectations for design, speed, and usability rise, Joomla often falls short in areas that matter most to modern teams.

Here’s a quick comparison that explains why many companies are moving from Joomla to Webflow:

If you’re tired of managing clunky dashboards, constant plugin updates, and rigid design limitations, Webflow offers a faster, more agile way to manage your online presence.

Limitations of Joomla

Joomla has been a popular choice for content management over the years, but for many businesses, it’s starting to show its age. As digital expectations evolve, Joomla’s architecture can create more friction than flexibility, especially for marketing teams, content editors, and design-focused businesses.

Here’s why Joomla often becomes a burden:

• Plugin Dependency: Most custom features rely on third-party plugins, which can conflict with each other and require constant updates.
• Complex Backend: The admin interface is not intuitive, making content edits or site updates challenging for non-technical users.
• Slower Development Cycles: Even small changes often require developer support, leading to delays and higher costs.
• Outdated Design Limitations: Customising layouts and interactions takes more effort compared to modern visual builders.
• Security Risks: Frequent plugin vulnerabilities increase the maintenance and security workload.

Read: How Much Does Webflow Development Cost?

Webflow’s Strengths

Webflow offers a modern alternative that addresses many of Joomla’s challenges. It’s powerful visual builder allows designers and marketers to create fully custom, responsive websites without writing code. This not only speeds up development but also empowers non-technical users to make updates directly. Webflow generates clean, semantic HTML and CSS, which improves site performance and makes maintenance easier. Additionally, it has built-in SEO tools that simplify optimising your content, meta tags, and sitemaps, helping your site rank better in search engines without extra plugins.

Key benefits include:

• Visual Builder: Drag-and-drop design tools with full control over layout, interactions, and animations. No coding required.
• Clean Code Output: Webflow produces lightweight, standards-compliant HTML, CSS, and JavaScript that loads fast and is easy to maintain.
• SEO-Friendliness: Built-in features like customisable meta titles and descriptions, automatic XML sitemaps, and easy 301 redirects help improve search engine rankings.
• Responsive Design by Default: Websites automatically adapt to all screen sizes, enhancing user experience across devices.
• No Plugin Hassles: Most features are native, reducing security risks and maintenance overhead.

Read: Webflow vs WordPress – Which Platform is Better for Australian Developers?

Cost of Ownership Comparison

When choosing between Joomla and Webflow, it’s important to look beyond the initial setup cost and consider the total cost of ownership, including maintenance, hosting, development resources, and theme development.

Joomla vs Webflow: Important Insights on Cost and Maintenance

• Joomla’s plugin dependency and complex architecture often lead to unexpected costs such as fixing plugin conflicts or upgrading legacy code which increases your total spend over time.
• Theme development on Joomla can be expensive and time-consuming because of its rigid structure and need for constant customisation and testing.
• Webflow’s integrated visual builder significantly reduces theme development time allowing for quicker launches and lower initial costs.
• With Webflow, automatic platform updates and no plugin hassles minimise maintenance overhead making long-term costs more predictable and manageable.

Read: Should You Prefer Joomla or WordPress?

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Pre-Migration Checklist: Joomla to Webflow

This pre-migration checklist outlines the essential steps to audit, backup, and prepare your Joomla site before moving it to Webflow, helping you avoid common pitfalls and achieve a smooth, efficient migration process.

1. Audit Your Joomla Site

Review your current site to understand all content, extensions, and SEO elements. This ensures nothing important is missed during migration.

• Inventory all pages, content types, and dynamic elements
• List custom modules, plugins, and their functionality
• Crawl the site to export all URLs and SEO metadata

2. Backup Joomla Website

Create a complete backup of your site before making changes. This provides a fallback in case anything goes wrong.

• Full backup of all files and the database
• Export all articles and media assets

3. Define Migration Goals and Scope

Clarify what needs to move and what can be improved. Set a plan that aligns with your business and design objectives.

• Decide what to migrate, improve, or discard
• Confirm new design direction and project timeline

4. Prepare Content for Webflow

Clean and organise your content for compatibility with Webflow. This will save time and improve user experience.

• Edit outdated or broken content
• Group content logically for Webflow CMS Collections
• Resize and compress images for faster loading

5. Plan SEO and URL Strategy

Preserve your search rankings by planning redirects and optimising SEO fields.

• Create a URL map from Joomla to Webflow
• Prepare 301 redirects to avoid broken links
• Ready your SEO titles and descriptions for import

6. Set Up Webflow Project

Start fresh by building a well-structured Webflow project. Define your visual system and CMS framework.

• Create a Webflow account and new project
• Build your style guide and CMS Collections
• Design responsive templates for key pages

7. Test Content Import

Run a trial import to catch issues early. This helps fine-tune your formatting and CMS setup.

• Import a small batch of content
• Check layout, SEO metadata, and structure

8. Migrate Media Assets

Transfer your media library efficiently and optimise for performance.

• Upload all images and videos to Webflow
• Ensure all files are properly compressed

9. Set Up SEO and Analytics Tools

Maintain visibility and tracking by configuring analytics and on-page SEO.

• Add meta tags and alt text across the site
• Integrate Google Analytics and Search Console

10. Plan Launch and Post-Migration Tasks

Ensure a smooth go-live and monitor closely for any post-launch issues.

• Schedule launch and notify stakeholders
• Thoroughly test the staging site
• Set up redirects and monitor analytics post-launch

Joomla to Webflow Migration Process (Step-by-Step)

Now that you’re ready to migrate from Joomla to Webflow, follow the step-by-step process below to ensure a smooth and successful transition.

1. Set Up Webflow Environment

Before migrating any content, start by creating a new project in Webflow that will serve as the foundation for your new website. This includes:

• Creating a fresh Webflow project where your migrated site will be built and managed.
• Defining your global styles, such as brand colours, typography (fonts and sizes), and spacing, to ensure a consistent look and feel across all pages.
• Reviewing your existing Joomla content types like articles, blogs, products, or event pages to fully understand how your content is organised.
• Setting up corresponding CMS Collections in Webflow that mirror these Joomla content types. These Collections enable you to manage dynamic content efficiently with Webflow’s intuitive interface.
• Ensuring that these CMS Collections are structured in a way that aligns with your Joomla setup to facilitate a smoother content migration and easier ongoing management.

2. Export Joomla Content

To prepare your content for migration, you need to export everything from Joomla carefully:

• Use the Akeeba Backup extension, a trusted and popular Joomla tool, to create a complete backup of your website including files, database, and media assets.

• Export menus and navigation structures separately to help rebuild your site hierarchy in Webflow.

• Download all media files like images and videos, ensuring you have a full copy of your assets.
• Export SEO metadata such as meta titles, descriptions, and URL slugs if possible to preserve search engine rankings.
• Organise the exported files and data clearly to streamline the import process into Webflow.

3. Clean and Format Content

After exporting your Joomla site, it’s essential to review and prepare the content before importing it into Webflow:

• Remove duplicates and outdated content to keep your new site focused and relevant.
• Fix formatting issues such as broken HTML tags, unsupported styles, or inconsistent layouts to ensure content displays correctly in Webflow.
• Standardise the structure by organising headings, paragraphs, lists, and images consistently, making it easier to map content into Webflow’s CMS Collections.
• Optimise media files by checking image sizes, formats, and alt text, and removing unused files to improve site speed.
• Verify SEO metadata like meta titles, descriptions, and URL slugs to preserve search rankings.
• Prepare content fields (such as summaries, categories, and tags) in formats compatible with Webflow, often requiring clean HTML or CSV formatting for smooth import.
  

4. Import Content to Webflow

With your content cleaned and formatted, the next step is to bring it into Webflow’s CMS:

• Prepare your import files (usually CSV or JSON) that match the structure of your Webflow CMS Collections, including all necessary fields like titles, body text, images, categories, and tags.
• Upload the content files into the appropriate CMS Collections in Webflow using the built-in import tool.
• Map each field carefully to ensure titles, text, images, SEO metadata, and categories correspond correctly between your files and Webflow’s CMS fields.

• Check relationships such as linking categories or authors to ensure the site’s content hierarchy and navigation work properly.
• Validate imported content by previewing pages and collections within Webflow to confirm everything appears correctly formatted and complete.
• Fix any errors or mismatches immediately to avoid broken content or navigation issues.

Accurate import and mapping are crucial to maintaining content integrity and ensuring your new Webflow site functions smoothly.

5. Rebuild Site Structure and Navigation

Once your content is in Webflow, it’s time to reconstruct your site’s structure and navigation:

• Recreate menus by setting up the main navigation, footer menus, and any secondary navigation to mirror your Joomla site or improve usability.

• Establish page hierarchies by organising pages and CMS Collections into parent and child relationships, ensuring logical site flow.

• Configure internal links throughout your content and menus to connect pages properly and maintain a smooth user experience.
• Use Webflow’s CMS and link tools to dynamically generate navigation elements where possible, especially for blog categories or product listings.
• Test all navigation paths on the site to ensure no broken links or dead ends.
• Consider UX improvements such as clearer menu labels or simplified navigation if Joomla’s structure was complex or outdated.

6. Design, Customise Pages, and Optimise Media Assets

With your content and structure in place, focus on creating visually appealing, responsive pages and handling your media assets effectively:

• Use Webflow’s visual builder to design and customise both static pages (like About or Contact) and dynamic templates (such as blog posts or product pages) that pull content from your CMS Collections.
• Ensure responsiveness so your site looks great and functions well across all devices including desktops, tablets, and mobiles.
• Upload all media assets including images, videos, and downloadable files into Webflow’s Asset Manager.
• Optimise media for web performance by compressing images, using appropriate formats (like WebP), and setting proper dimensions to reduce loading times without sacrificing quality.
• Add alt text and SEO-friendly file names to images for better accessibility and search engine ranking.
• Link media correctly within your pages and CMS items to ensure smooth display and user interaction.
• Test media loading and responsiveness across devices to maintain a fast, seamless user experience.
  

7. Migrate and Optimise Media Assets

Next step after migration to WordPress is to optimise the media files to Webflow after exporting them from your Joomla site.

• Upload all images, videos, and downloadable files into Webflow’s Asset Manager.
• Compress media and convert to modern formats (e.g., WebP for images, MP4 for videos) for faster load times.
• Set proper dimensions and enable lazy loading to improve performance across devices.
• Use clear, SEO-friendly file names and add alt text for accessibility and search ranking.
• Add assets correctly within static pages and CMS items to ensure proper display and function.
• Test all media for loading speed, responsiveness, and compatibility on desktop, tablet, and mobile.

8. Set Up SEO Elements

• Configure unique meta titles and descriptions for each page to improve search engine visibility.
• Add descriptive alt text to all images to support accessibility and image-based SEO.
• Use clean, keyword-rich URL slugs that reflect the content of each page.
• Set up 301 redirects from old Joomla URLs to new Webflow URLs to maintain search rankings.
• Adjust SEO settings in Webflow to manage indexing, canonical tags, and sitemap behavior.
• Test SEO performance using tools like Google Search Console or Ahrefs to identify and fix issues.
  

9. Test & Launch

• Review all pages for layout accuracy, broken links, missing content, and media load times.
• Test forms, buttons, and interactive elements across major browsers and devices.
• Verify SEO elements like meta tags, alt text, and URL slugs are properly configured.
• Ensure all 301 redirects are functioning and SSL is active for secure browsing.
• Switch DNS settings to point your domain to the new Webflow site.
• Monitor site performance, analytics, and user feedback closely after launch to catch any issues early.

Why Choose WP Creative for Joomla to Webflow Migration

Choosing WP Creative for your Joomla to Webflow migration means working with a team that understands both platforms and delivers a smooth, reliable transition.

We carefully move your content, design, and structure without losing any data or disrupting your site. Our Webflow builds are responsive, optimised for SEO, and ready to grow with your business.

From planning and redirects to testing and launch, we take care of every step. After the migration, we continue to support you with updates and improvements, so you can focus on running your business while we handle the technical details.

Contact Us Today

Get Your Free Website Audit

($3,000 Value)

• Uncover performance issues
• Identify SEO opportunities
• Security gaps, and quick wins

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