Switching to Wordpress

Hi everyone!

Hoping I can get your input again!

I hate my website host! The email sucks, the blog is horrendous and they're just not easy to use. They were cheap and I loved their website creating app. Now however, I'm realizing that the SEO is going to be terrible with them and I have content I want to put up in a blog but I've heard that Wordpress is better. Now that I HAVE another Wordpress blog with backlinks to my site I'm seeing how much better it is.

So, here are my questions:

1. Should I move now to Wordpress before I rank?
2. How bad will it impact my SEO status?
3. Is there a world in which I can just have a blog elsewhere that links back to my site or is that pointless?

I'm feeling lost but working my ass off writing new content and I wanna make sure I'm doing the right things ahead of hiring someone for SEO.

Thanks!