Headless WooCommerce Migration Checklist: The Complete Operational Playbook

Migrating a live WooCommerce store to a headless architecture is one of the highest-impact changes you can make — and one of the most complex to execute without breaking things. This headless WooCommerce migration checklist is the operational playbook for moving from a traditional WordPress theme to a decoupled frontend without losing traffic, breaking checkout, or surprising your customers.

TL;DR

A headless migration has four phases: audit and plan, build and integrate, test everything, and launch with redirects. The critical risks are SEO regression (missing redirects, broken structured data), checkout failures (cart session handling), and performance regression (poorly implemented frontend). This checklist covers every phase with the specific items that matter.

Phase 1: Audit and planning

Before writing any code, document exactly what you're migrating from and to. Skipping this phase is how teams end up three months into a build realising they forgot a critical integration.

Current store audit

Document every page type: homepage, product, category, cart, checkout, account, custom pages
Export all current URLs (products, categories, pages) into a spreadsheet
List every active WordPress plugin and classify: backend-only, frontend-dependent, or replaceable
Record current Core Web Vitals scores as your baseline (PageSpeed Insights)
Screenshot every page template for design reference
Document all custom WooCommerce functionality (custom fields, product add-ons, subscriptions)
List all third-party integrations (CRM, email marketing, inventory, accounting)
Note current monthly traffic and revenue for ROI tracking post-migration

The plugin audit is critical

Plugins that modify the WordPress frontend (page builders, theme extensions, visual customisers) become irrelevant in a headless setup. Plugins that handle backend operations (payment gateways, shipping calculators, inventory sync, email marketing) continue to work unchanged. Plugins that add frontend widgets via shortcodes or PHP hooks need headless alternatives. Classify every plugin before you start building.

Architecture decisions

Choose your frontend framework (Next.js recommended for WooCommerce)
Decide on API approach: REST API, WPGraphQL, or hybrid
Choose frontend hosting: Vercel, Netlify, or self-hosted
Plan your URL structure — will it change from the current site?
Define your caching strategy: SSG, SSR, ISR, or a combination
Decide how to handle cart sessions: frontend state, cookies, or server sessions
Plan authentication: how will customer accounts work in the headless frontend?
Define staging and deployment workflow

For help with these architecture decisions, see our REST API vs WPGraphQL comparison and the hosting strategy guide. If you're unsure about the overall approach, start with what is headless WooCommerce.

Phase 2: Build and integration

With your plan documented, start building. Work through these items in order — each one builds on the previous.

WordPress backend preparation

Ensure WordPress and WooCommerce are on the latest versions
Enable the WooCommerce REST API (it is on by default)
Generate API consumer keys (Settings > Advanced > REST API)
Install and configure WPGraphQL if using GraphQL for content
Set up application passwords or JWT for authenticated operations
Configure CORS headers to allow requests from your frontend domain
Install any API-extending plugins needed (CoCart for cart, WPGraphQL WooCommerce)
Test all API endpoints with Postman or Insomnia before starting frontend work

Frontend build

Set up Next.js project with TypeScript (recommended for API type safety)
Implement product listing pages with pagination and filtering
Build product detail pages with variations, gallery, and reviews
Implement cart functionality with persistent sessions
Build complete checkout flow: shipping, tax, coupons, payment
Create customer account pages: login, registration, order history, addresses
Implement search functionality
Build all static pages: about, contact, FAQ, policies

WPBundle handles this phase

If you're using WPBundle, the frontend build phase is dramatically shorter. The catalogue, cart, checkout, SEO, and account pages are already built. Your work is customisation, branding, and any store-specific features. See our cost breakdown for realistic time estimates with and without a starter kit.

SEO implementation

Meta titles and descriptions on every page (pulled from WooCommerce + custom)
Product schema (JSON-LD) on all product pages with price, availability, reviews
Breadcrumb schema for category navigation
Organization schema on the homepage
Open Graph tags for social sharing (test with Facebook Sharing Debugger)
Twitter card tags (test with Twitter Card Validator)
Canonical URLs set correctly — especially for filtered/paginated views
Dynamic XML sitemap generated from WooCommerce product data
robots.txt configured for the frontend domain
hreflang tags if running a multi-language store

Our headless WooCommerce SEO guide covers every one of these items in detail, including common mistakes to avoid.

Phase 3: Testing

This is the phase most teams rush through. Don't. A broken checkout on launch day costs more than an extra week of testing.

Functional testing

Complete a purchase as a guest customer — every payment method
Complete a purchase as a logged-in customer
Test variable product selection (colour, size) and price updates
Add, remove, and update cart quantities
Apply and remove coupon codes (percentage, fixed, free shipping)
Test every shipping method for each shipping zone
Verify tax calculations for different customer locations
Test customer account: registration, login, password reset, order history
Test search: product names, SKUs, partial terms, empty results
Test category filtering and sorting (price, date, popularity)
Verify 404 page works for non-existent URLs
Test on mobile (real devices, not just emulators)

Performance testing

Run PageSpeed Insights on all page types — compare to baseline scores
Verify LCP under 2.5s on mobile for product pages
Check that images use next/image or equivalent optimisation
Confirm JavaScript bundle size is reasonable (under 200KB initial load)
Test page transitions — client-side navigation should be near-instant
Load test checkout with concurrent users (10-50 simultaneous)
Verify API response times under load (product queries, cart operations)
Test with 3G throttling in Chrome DevTools

SEO validation

Validate every page type in Google Rich Results Test
Check meta tags with browser extension (SEO Meta in 1 Click or similar)
Verify sitemap loads and contains all product URLs
Test canonical URLs are correct on filtered and paginated pages
Confirm no pages are accidentally noindexed
Check Open Graph tags render correctly when sharing on social media
Verify robots.txt is not blocking CSS, JS, or image resources
Run Screaming Frog or Ahrefs site audit on the staging URL

100%

Of payment methods must be tested before launch

<2.5s

Target LCP on mobile for product pages

Broken redirects acceptable at launch

Phase 4: Launch

Launch day is about execution, not discovery. Everything should be tested and ready — the launch itself is just DNS and redirects.

Pre-launch (24 hours before)

Final build deployed to production frontend hosting
All environment variables set for production (API URLs, payment keys, analytics)
Payment gateways switched from sandbox to live mode
SSL certificate verified on the production frontend domain
Redirect map finalised and ready to deploy
Team briefed on launch sequence and rollback plan
Backup of current WordPress site taken (database + files)
Analytics tracking verified on production (GA4, Search Console)

Launch sequence

Deploy 301 redirects for all changed URLs
Update DNS to point your domain to the frontend hosting
Wait for DNS propagation (5-60 minutes depending on TTL)
Verify the live site loads correctly on multiple devices
Place a real test order and complete the full purchase flow
Verify order appears in WooCommerce admin
Check that email notifications sent correctly
Submit updated sitemap to Google Search Console
Purge any CDN caches that might serve stale content

The redirect map is non-negotiable

If your URL structure changes (and it usually does), every old URL must 301 redirect to its new equivalent. Missing redirects means losing all the link equity those pages accumulated. Export every URL from your old site, map it to the new URL, and verify every redirect works. Use a tool like Screaming Frog to crawl the old sitemap and check that every URL correctly redirects.

Post-launch monitoring (first 48 hours)

Monitor Google Search Console for crawl errors every few hours
Check server logs for 404s and 500s on both frontend and WordPress backend
Verify orders are flowing through correctly (payment → notification → fulfilment)
Monitor Core Web Vitals in PageSpeed Insights with real user data
Watch uptime monitoring for any downtime alerts
Check that the WooCommerce REST API is responding reliably
Respond to any customer-reported issues immediately
Compare traffic in analytics to pre-migration baseline — expect a brief dip during indexing

WordPress backend changes post-migration

After your headless frontend is live, your WordPress installation needs some adjustments since it's now an API backend, not a public-facing website.

Deactivate your old theme (or switch to a minimal theme like Twenty Twenty-Five)
Deactivate frontend-only plugins (page builders, theme extensions, visual customisers)
Keep all backend plugins active (payment gateways, shipping, inventory, email)
Restrict direct access to WordPress frontend (redirect to headless domain)
Set up WordPress admin on a subdomain (admin.yourstore.com) if desired
Review API authentication — ensure consumer keys have minimum required permissions
Configure webhooks for real-time sync (product updates, order status changes)
Remove unused CSS/JS enqueueing from functions.php if using a custom theme

Don't rush theme deactivation

Keep your old theme available (but not active) for the first two weeks. If you need to roll back quickly, re-activating the theme and reverting DNS is the fastest path. Only delete the theme once you're confident the headless frontend is stable.

SEO monitoring: the first 30 days

Search engine ranking changes don't happen immediately. Here is what to watch and when.

Days 1-7

Google begins recrawling your pages. You'll see increased crawl activity in Search Console. Watch for crawl errors — any 404s or redirect loops need immediate attention. Your rankings may fluctuate slightly as Google processes the URL changes.

Days 7-14

The new pages start appearing in search results. Verify that rich snippets (product prices, ratings, availability) are showing correctly. Check that your sitemap is being fully processed. If rankings have dropped for specific pages, verify the redirects and canonical URLs for those pages.

Days 14-30

Rankings should stabilise. If your headless frontend is faster (which it should be), you may see ranking improvements as Google factors in the better Core Web Vitals. Compare organic traffic to your pre-migration baseline. Any persistent drops warrant investigation — check Search Console for manual actions, indexing issues, or structured data errors.

1-2 weeks

For Google to fully recrawl and reindex

2-4 weeks

For rankings to stabilise after migration

4-8 weeks

To see Core Web Vitals improvements reflected in rankings

Using WPBundle for your migration

WPBundle significantly reduces the scope of a headless migration. The checkout, cart, catalogue, SEO, and account pages are already built — your migration becomes a customisation project rather than a ground-up development effort. The companion WordPress plugin handles the API extensions, and the deployment workflow is pre-configured for Vercel.

For the full context on what a headless migration involves, explore our guides on the headless WordPress playbook, realistic cost estimates, and how to handle SEO during the transition. If you're migrating from a specific page builder, we've covered Elementor, Divi, WPBakery, and Avada migrations specifically.