Website Migration – Checklist to follow!
This blog is a checklist for developers who want to carry out the website migration from any platform to WordPress. Here we discuss about the important things that need to be considered while changing the website platform. That includes mainly the website content, pages/posts, SEO content, URL structure etc.Here we go in to the details of each item.
Website Pages
When we are working on a website migration task the most important thing to consider is the number of pages on the site. Not all pages need to be listed on the menu, but there may be pages they are not directly displayed on the site but set as redirection URL, or send to customers directly, etc. So our task is to identify all pages associated with the site. This is very important when we estimate the effort of the website migration.
Many tools are available to find the pages online. Please see some of them below:
https://hackertarget.com/extract-links/
Most of the websites include a sitemap file in their root directory. This XML file display information about pages, content, and their relationships. The sitemap file is important when the search engine crawls a website. Through a sitemap, we can tell the search engine what are the important pages in the site that need to be crawled.
As we get the details about the pages, we can plan the best way to create those pages in WordPress. We can create a page, subpage list, or group the same kind of pages together. This grouping will make the template creation easy. So we can create templates for these pages and assign them to those pages.
URL structure
In most cases, we may need to keep the same URL structure of the base website. We can do that with WordPress permalink. If we did not follow the website’s permalink structure, once the site is live, most of the previous links will not be available and that will lead to an error page. This is not a good practice so we have used 301 redirections for those links.
If we can’t create a permalink like that of the base website or we do not keep an old link we can set 301 redirections. Redirection can be set in .htaccess or many 301 redirection plugins are available. Please see some of them below:
Website Content
After getting the page list we need to develop each page. In some cases, the client may need a new design, some of them need to keep the existing design. In both cases, we have to create the website backend most easily. WordPress blocks help the process very easy. Many block plugins are available that can provide all common formats including accordion, list, testimonials, etc. This helps to reduce the development time. Please see the popular blocks plugins here:
If we are using templates instead of WordPress editor we have to create the content section that is easy for the client to manage. The content area should be flexible to add text, image, or video. Many plugins are there for creating the admin section. The most popular one is the advanced custom fields. ACF pro offers repeated field and options page.
SEO Content
Before moving the development site to live server we need to copy the SEO keyword, title, meta description, and apply it to each page. In WordPress, we can use SEO plugin for managing the same. Popular SEO plugins in WordPress are the following:
Website Images
When we copy the website page content manually, the image URLs may not be updated. We have to make sure that all images used are loaded from the site itself. We need to download it and place in the WordPress site. It is good to keep images in the upload folder rather than keeping it in the image folder of the theme. If we keep images in the image folder the overall size of the theme file gets increased. This is not a good practice. It is always good to keep the theme file lightweight.
Also the images should be optimized and cropped to the required size. Popular image optimization tools are the following. Image optimization is important to get maximum speed for the website.
Website Speed
The main reason for revamping a website is normally to improve the user interface and improve the speed. Speed is an important factor in ranking the website in search engines. First, we have to keep a record of the base website speed. Analyzing the issues of the base site will help in improving the speed of the new site. Your customer will never be happy if the revamped site’s speed is less than that of the previous site.
The hosting server also plays a major role in website speed. Very good hosting serves can offer fast loading for the sites. So once you analyses the base site and found issues with server speed, you can recommend switching the server. Speed is not only depend up on hosting server but also the website content, images, Jquery, CSS, plugins etc.
I hope this website migration checklist will help you in moving the site to WordPress. The process becomes quite easier by this way. If we move a site without considering these factors will lead to big problems. For every customer keeping their website SEO score is very important. There won’t be any missing pages, content, slow loading website. Also the user interface should be much better than previous system. In every way the customer should feel the website revamp a next level approach.
