If you’re migrating your content over to HubSpot, one of the most daunting pieces to tackle is your blog. If you’ve already been blogging for a while on another platform, you may have dozens, if not hundreds, of blog posts already published. To avoid the hassle of manually recreating all of those posts in HubSpot, Marketing Hub and CMS Hub users have 4 different options for importing existing blogs.
The best way to import your blog content into HubSpot depends on the type of CMS your original blog is hosted on and the way your blog template was designed.
Here’s a breakdown of each method to import your blog into HubSpot, who it’s best for, and how to use it. Keep in mind that some of these methods are more technical than others, so it’s up to you to choose which better suits your needs.
Method 1: Import your WordPress Blog with WordPress Connect
If you’re moving your blog from WordPress to HubSpot, the easiest way is to use the WordPress Connect feature. All you need is the URL of your blog's homepage. The WordPress connect feature uses the open WordPress REST API to gather your blog content for import quickly, easily, and accurately.
Follow the steps in this Knowledge Base article to import your WordPress blog using WordPress Connect.
This requires no technical expertise, but there are some types of WordPress blogs that won't work. If you run into problems during the import, the WordPress APIs our tool uses to gather your blog content may not be compatible. If your blog isn’t compatible with WordPress Connect, there’s another easy way to import it into HubSpot.
Method 2: Import your WordPress or Squarespace Blog with an XML File
You can import your WordPress blog into HubSpot with an XML file by following the steps in this Knowledge Base article. You can also do this with Squarespace XML files.
This method requires little technical expertise — you only need to download the XML file of your blog. The downsides are that it’s a bit more than grabbing a link, and it only works with WordPress or Squarespace CMS.
Method 3: Import your Blog into HubSpot as a CSV File
You can also import your blog into HubSpot using a CSV file. Based on this sample CSV file, gather the content for each of your existing blog posts. Then, import this file in HubSpot to generate new blog posts that are populated with your existing blog content.
The following fields in your CSV import file are required:
- URL
- Title
- SEO title
- Author
- Meta description
- Publish date
- Post body
Follow the steps in this Knowledge Base article to import your blog using a CSV file.
This method requires little technical expertise, but it does involve more manual work since you’ll need to collect all your blog data into a CSV file to import into HubSpot.
Method 4: Import your Blog Posts from Any CMS with Smart Copy
This feature is currently in beta.
Finally, you can import blog posts from any CMS into HubSpot using the new smart copy tool. This is the fastest, easiest, and most accurate way to import a blog into HubSpot from any platform.
Using a link to one of your live blog posts, the tool will scan the structure of your blog template to gather your live blog content. All types of blogs from any CMS are supported.
It’s important to understand that smart copy works by scraping the pages of your blog. This means that how well it works is directly related to how well the blog is built. So if there is clean HTML markup, it follows web development best practices, and all the sections are clearly labeled with descriptive CSS class names, then the smart copy tool will be able to easily scrape the blog and import it successfully into HubSpot.
Follow the steps in this Knowledge Base article to import your blog using smart copy. Watch the video below for step-by-step instructions.
You will need some basic knowledge of CSS in order to successfully use smart copy. Depending on the way your blog template is structured, you may need to do some additional troubleshooting to map content from your existing blog template into your HubSpot blog. Check out the tips in this HubSpot Community post to learn more about using the smart copy feature correctly.
Since this feature is currently in beta, you’ll have to agree to HubSpot’s beta terms to gain access, but then you'll be on your way to migrating your blog.
To learn more about smart copy and request access to the beta, visit this HubSpot Community post today.