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I have a website with a domain name registered through Ionos and not built using WordPress, but the website itself is old and outdated. I’m looking to create a new, modern website using WordPress. Ideally, I’d like to keep my current website live while I build the new one on WordPress. Then, once the new site is ready, I want to switch things over so that my domain points to the new WordPress site instead of the old one, while keeping SEO. Is this possible? What are the specific steps I need to follow?
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1. Get some WordPress hosting somewhere.
2. Use the temporary domain provided by your host, or set up a subdomain eg [dev.example.com](https://dev.example.com) for your new site
3. Build the new site
4. When when you’re ready to go live, installed the Better Search Replace plugin and use it to search replace [dev.example.com](https://dev.example.com) with [example.com](https://example.com)
5. Point your domain’s DNS to your new hosting IP address
“Keeping SEO” – try and keep your URLs similar – but you’re rebuilding a site, so it’s going to be more complicated than that. Set up 301 redirects for any old > new URLs. Get setup in GSC, submit your new sitemap. Structure your pages using standard SEO practice eg relevant page title, H1, meta desc, etc.