What Is Basalt and How Does the Free Conversion Work?

Basalt moves small business websites off WordPress to a platform with nothing to hack and nothing to update. The conversion is free. Here is exactly what that means and what you can expect at every step.

What problem does Basalt solve?

WordPress powers a large portion of the internet. It is flexible, well-supported, and has a plugin for nearly everything. It is also the most attacked website platform in the world because that large footprint makes it attractive to automated attack tools.

11,334 new WordPress vulnerabilities were found in 2025. Roughly 13,000 WordPress sites are hacked every day. The average recovery from a small business hack costs $14,500.

For a service business that uses WordPress for 5 to 10 pages and a contact form, the maintenance burden is out of proportion to what the site does. You are maintaining a complex system when you need a reliable one.

Basalt converts your existing WordPress site to a platform that has no plugin ecosystem to exploit and no CMS to update. Same content. Same design. No maintenance burden.

What happens during a conversion?

Step 1: You enter your web address.

You provide your existing site URL. The conversion reads your site: your pages, your text, your images, your design elements, your navigation structure.

Step 2: The conversion runs automatically.

Your content is transferred to the new platform. Inner pages transfer faithfully, with your layout, your words, and your images. Your homepage gets a polish pass: the core message and structure stay the same, but the presentation is tightened.

Redirects are set up automatically. Every old URL gets a forwarding instruction to its new location. This protects your Google rankings.

Step 3: You review the converted site.

Before anything is live, you receive a link to a staged version of the new site. You can view every page, test the contact form, check images, and verify that your content is correct and complete.

If something looks wrong, you say so. Adjustments happen before launch, not after.

Step 4: You approve it.

When you are satisfied, you give the approval to go live.

Step 5: DNS switches.

Your domain is pointed at the new site. Your old site stays live during the DNS propagation period, which takes up to 24 hours. Visitors see one site or the other without any gap.

Step 6: You are done.

No more update emails. No more security alerts. No more plugin conflicts. The new platform handles security, performance, and uptime. Your job is to run your business.

What does the subscription cover?

After the free conversion, the monthly subscription covers:

• Hosting on a platform with no CMS vulnerability surface
• Security and performance managed by Basalt
• Ongoing support for content updates and changes
• All future improvements to the platform

You do not hire a developer to update plugins. You do not pay separately for security scanning. You do not manage backups. All of that is inside the subscription.

What stays yours?

Your domain name. You own it and it points wherever you direct it.

Your content. Your words, your images, your pages.

Your files. If you leave Basalt, you receive the repository with all your site files. Nothing is held hostage.

What to expect if you decide to move

The process takes days, not weeks. Your involvement is one review session. The conversion is free, and nothing goes live without your approval.

The full step-by-step process is here. The honest comparison of alternatives is here.

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