This series of blog posts will cover the main areas of activity for your marketing, product, and UX teams before, during, and after site migration to a new digital experience platform.
Migrating your site to a different platform can be a daunting prospect, especially if the site is sizable in both page count and number of assets, such as documents and images. However, this can also be a perfect opportunity to freshen up your content, perform an asset library audit, and reorganize the site overall.
Once you’ve hired a consultant, like Perficient, to help you implement your new CMS and migrate your content over, you will work with them to identify several action items your team will need to tackle to ensure successful site migration.
Whether you are migrating from/to some of the major enterprise digital experiences platforms like Sitecore, Optimizely, Adobe, or from the likes of Sharepoint or WordPress, there are some common steps to take to make sure content migration runs smoothly and is executed in a manner that adds value to your overall web experience.
Part I – “Keep, Kill, Merge”
One of the first questions you will need to answer is, “What do we need to carry over?” The instinctive answer would be everything. The rational answer is that we will migrate the site over as is and then worry about optimization later. There are multiple reasons why this is usually not the best option.
- This is a perfect opportunity to do a high-level overview of the entire sitemap and dive a bit deeper into the content. It will help determine if you still need a long-forgotten page about an event that ended years ago or a product that is no longer being offered in a certain market. Perhaps it hasn’t been purged simply because there is always higher-priority work to be done.
- It is far more rational to do this type of analysis ahead of the migration rather than after. If nothing else, it is simply for efficiency purposes. By trimming down the number of pages, you ensure that the migration process is shorter and more purposeful. You also save time and resources.
Even though this activity might take time, it is essential to use this opportunity in the best possible manner. A consultant like Perficient can help drive the process. They will pull up an initial list of active pages, set up simple audit steps, and ensure that decisions are recorded clearly and organized.
Step I – Site Scan
The first step is to ensure all current site pages are accounted for. As simple as this may seem, it doesn’t always end up being so, especially on large multi-language sites. You might have pages that are not crawlable, are temporarily unpublished, are still in progress, etc.
Depending on your current system capabilities, putting together a comprehensive list can be relatively easy. Getting a CMS export is the safest way to confirm that you have accounted for everything in the system.
Crawling tools, such as Screaming Frog, are frequently used to generate reports that can be exported for further refinement. Cross-referencing these sources will ensure you get the full picture, including anything that might be housed externally.
Step II – Deep Dive
Once you’ve ensured that all pages made it to a comprehensive list you can easily filter, edit, and share, the fun part begins.
The next step involves reviewing and analyzing the sitemap and each page. The goal is to determine those that will stay vs candidates for removal. Various different factors can impact this decision from business goals, priorities, page views, conversion rate, SEO considerations, and marketing campaigns to compliance and regulations. Ultimately, it is important to assess each page’s value to the business and make decisions accordingly.
This audit will likely require input from multiple stakeholders, including subject matter experts, product owners, UX specialists, and others. It is essential to involve all interested parties at an early stage. Securing buy-in from key stakeholders at this point is critical for the following phases of the process. This especially applies to review and sign-off prior to going live.
Depending on your time and resources, the keep-kill-merge can either be done in full or limited to keep-kill. The merge option might require additional analysis, as well as follow-up design and content work. Leaving that effort for after the site migration is completed might just be the rational choice.
Step III – Decisions and Path Forward
Once the audit process has been completed, it is important to record findings and decisions simply and easily consumable for teams that will implement those updates. Proper documentation is essential when dealing with large sets of pages and associated content. This will inform the implementation team’s roadmap and timelines.
At this point, it is crucial to establish regular communication between a contact person (such as a product owner or content lead) and the team in charge of content migration from the consultant side. This partnership will ensure that all subsequent activities are carried out respecting the vision and business needs identified at the onset.
Completing the outlined activities properly will help smooth the transition into the next process phase, thus setting your team up for a successful site migration.
