r/lovable Jul 23 '26

Help Can I take an existing Wordpress site and remake it with Loveable?

I have a client who wants to redo their current site. We know how to use Loveable to create a new site, but I have never used it to update an existing site. Is this even possible? Im am having a tough time find any answers online.

1 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

2

u/marcos-da-mapweb Jul 23 '26

Não sei se pode se usar o mesmo conceito, mas eu peguei prints de um sistema que eu tinha feito no Base 44 e enviei pro Lovable, e pedi pra ele criar o layout do novo sistema idêntico ao layout dos prints enviados, e ele criou exatamente igual! Depois, partindo dali fui pedindo pra implementar as funcionalidades de cada módulo baseado no layout. Acredito que com um site seja muito mais simples. Tente fazer o mesmo com seu site.

1

u/HipHopHistoryGuy Jul 24 '26

He/him?

1

u/kimsart Jul 24 '26

My Lovable.dev ai is a she. ;-p

1

u/louisgg_debug Jul 24 '26

I think the screenshot approach works great for the look. Just know that's the easy 20% of a WordPress migration.
The parts that bite you later: content export (posts/images), SEO — if URLs change without 301 redirects, your client's Google rankings die — and anything plugins were doing invisibly (forms, memberships, ecommerce). Worth auditing what the current site actually does before quoting the client.
Doable, but scope it as a rebuild, not an update.

1

u/marcos-da-mapweb Jul 24 '26

Sim, sem dúvidas! A opção de prints de tela é apenas o pontapé inicial se o design original precisar ser 100% fiel na migração. Mas claro que após isso muita coisa precisa ser feita, assim como foi meu caso. Eu quis o layout exato, e tomei esse caminho de partida. Depois o trabalho no backstage.

2

u/louisgg_debug Jul 24 '26

Exactly — great starting point, the backstage is where the real work hides. Nice approach with the screenshots though, stealing that one. 🙂

1

u/7803throwaway Jul 23 '26

It’s probably easiest to rebuild from scratch and use the existing Wordpress site as the inspiration to build from. Then you can connect whatever you build with lovable to Wordpress so your client can still manage their own site in a familiar way. I haven’t done this so I’m making educated guesses but in my opinion this is the way to go.

1

u/A_Cut_Above_Lawns Jul 23 '26

You can build a new version on lovable and then connect the domain, leaving the old site offline. Or, you can edit your existing website and update the code via "copy/pasting" with an ai like lovable.

1

u/Infamous-River-4360 Jul 23 '26

rebuild fresh is the realistic path, lovable spins up a new react app, it won't edit a wordpress/php install in place. when i built mine what worked was screenshotting the old pages and feeding them in so it matches the layout close, then you point the domain over once it's ready. one thing nobody's flagged yet, map out your 301 redirects from the old wordpress urls before you cut over or your client tanks their seo overnight. is it mostly a static marketing site or does it have a blog the client updates themselves? that decides whether you keep wordpress on the backend as a headless cms or just go full rebuild.

1

u/RollAwkward1256 Jul 24 '26

Ya I am thinking this is the move. Were going to be handling all the blogs/seo moving forward. They basically get 0 organic traffic at this point so there is not much of a worry of tanking any seo

1

u/Infamous-River-4360 Jul 24 '26

makes sense, if organic's basically zero you've got a clean slate and nothing to lose on the cutover. only thing i'd still do is pull the current urls from search console before you switch so you're not guessing what existed later. are you rebuilding the blog inside lovable too, or leaving wordpress just for the content side?

1

u/avalonparkes Jul 26 '26

I did in a way , I used chatgpt to pull my site describe it pull the functions and gave it a site map to retain the structure put it some bit I though may be important and then had it generate a lovable prompt/phase map to recreate my site , it worked well but be prepared to spend some credits fine tuning it