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Migrating a website to another CMS without losing SEO: Checklist

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Migrating a website to a new CMS without losing SEO is like successfully moving into a new apartment without any problems — it’s difficult, but we can make it possible!

Today Wishdesk web support team shares valuable information on how to properly migrate to the new CMS without losing search positions and traffic.

What is a CMS Migration?

Sometimes the functionality of the one CMS with which you started is not enough and you need to transfer your business to another larger and better CMS — for example, you might need to migrate a site from Wix to Wordpress. This is exactly what website migration is.

It's like moving from a small apartment in a metropolis to a spacious house near the sea.

By properly migrating your site to the new CMS, you minimize traffic loss. Since Wishdesk specialists have carefully completed many migrations, we can say with confidence that we can migrate your website without losing its SEO.

Our last migrating cases examples:

Top 3 Website CMS Migration risks 

Below we will give examples of the most common problems that can arise when unprofessionally migrating your website to another content management system.

Top 3 Website CMS Migration risks

Risk № 1. Loss of SEO 

Losing SEO positions and low traffic is a huge problem. To avoid risking this, you should take your time and select a development company to whom you will entrust the process. Putting in the work now will help you avoid regrets later.

Risk № 2. Internal Links Problem

Failure in internal linking is inevitable in the process of migrating a site to another platform. Accordingly, if you lose much of your internal linking, then it will affect your positions, user experience, SEO positions, and much more. Be sure to re-link your blogs. This will keep you from losing search positions.

Risk № 3. Losing Content

The migration of your site could be accompanied by the loss of some parts of your site content. For example, it could be the loss of comments, blogs, user data, etc. However, with correct migration, this wll not happen, you just have to use the correct method of transferring data.

What are The Benefits of Migrating to a new CMS? 

Benefits of Migrating to a new CMS

  • Expansion of functionality

By migrating to a new CMS, you get more functionality. These new features will allow you to improve the performance of your site.

  • Web Performance Boosting

The new platform will perform better without overloading. As a result, your site will receive more traffic and provide a better user experience, but only if everything is set up correctly.

  • A breath of fresh air for your website

Moving a site to a new engine often stimulates the business to grow and become the best.

  • The convenience of managing your new website

The ease of management of your website is often reflected in overall your business success. The new CMS is like a new car's engine — it runs smoothly.

  • High level of security

Migration to a new CMS gives you the opportunity to choose the most secure CMS. Cybersecurity is perhaps the most important point.

How to do a website migration without losing search rankings 

Now that you know all the pros and cons of migrating to a new CMS, it's time to tell you the main steps and tips on how to do it correctly and without losses.

CMS migration checklist:

1. Find a reliable and professional support team.

Only professionals can migrate your site to a New CMS seamlessly.

2. Do a pre-migration audit of your old site.

Look at the site data and make sure that you really need a migration.

3. Find the resources you need to migrate.

Prepare any additional resources that can simplify the migration to another CMS.

4. Make sure the whole team knows what to do and can do it.

Make sure everyone involved understands what they are supposed to do.

5. Define a Project estimates.

Outline approximate time frames to accomplish this task.

6. Settle all security issues.

Carefully consider the issue of site security during migration, coordinate this issue with all parties.

7. Prepare all the necessary tools for migration.

Buying or setting up tools and services will reduce the time for migrating your site to other CMS.

8. Work on your old site.

Collect all URLs, metadata, titles, links, and redirects that were on the old site.

9. Prepare data for transfer.

Select the data architecture you want to move to the new CMS.

10. Set up a new CMS.

Think about what you can change and add to the configurations of the new CMS in order for it to work better for you.

11. Automate the migration process.

Take care of the tools to automate the transfer of all your data so that you don't lose anything.

12. Simulate migrations.

Test the transfer of data to another system — perform a trial migration to see if any problems arise.

13. Correct any errors after a trial migration.

Optimize your data and get rid of unnecessary things to complete the migration faster.

14. Backup all the necessary data.

Make a backup of all important data to be prepared for possible migration problems.

15. Migrating content to a new site.

Transfer all valuable content to the new CMS by manually copy-pasting, using a custom script, or using automated tools.

16. Check out the Search Console.

Track your site statistics using Search Console. Make sure all pages are crawlable by search engines.

17. Measure website speed. 

Check the speed of your new site so you can see how your SEO is working.

18. Get rid of your old page and system.

Now that all the goodness you transfer over is running on the new CMS do not forget to delete your old friend.

Migrate Your Website to a New CMS Without Losing SEO at Wishdesk web support company

Migrating website to a New CMS Without Losing SEO is a truly high level of skill and professionalism.

Do not be intimidated by migrating your site to another CMS, because it will bring you three times more benefits than worry. The main thing is to do it with the help of a reliable web support company.

Remember, changes are a good thing, whether it’s migrating a site to a new CMS or moving to a new spacious house on the seashore.