Website redesign and migration to WordPress
Do you have a redesign project with the WordPress CMS? Be API can provide you with a complete migration strategy for your project.
Migration, a central, multidisciplinary theme for your project
Depending on the volume of content to be taken over, and your enrichment and requalification needs, content migration dictates numerous decisions right from the design phase (information architecture, wireframes, etc.). That's why, at Be API, it's an issue we address right from the first workshops.
As the project progresses, developments associated with content migration are part of the first development sprints, to give the project team time to thoroughly test this key element, and possibly allow for enrichment on the part of the customer.
Finally, site and content migration implies a strategy of SEO redirects (and modifying obsolete internal links) to maintain your website's good natural referencing.
Our experience
Be API has carried out numerous redesigns of projects using the WordPress CMS, and most of the time, our customers expect us to rework the content.
We have migrated sites created with the following CMS to WordPress:
- Drupal
- Typo3
- Spip
- Joomla
- Jahia
- Ektron
This list is not exhaustive. We regularly discover new CMS (both open source and proprietary) as projects come along, and most of the time we apply the same working methodology. Our starting point is a technical exchange with the CMS publisher, in the absence of documentation to study.
Our teams are also used to working with databases such as MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Access, Oracle and Filemaker, as well as flat files such as Excel, CSV, JSON and XML.
Migrating from a WordPress site to WordPress
Contrary to popular belief, the redesign of WordPress websites can also include a content migration project.
WordPress is a particularly flexible CMS, and there are as many ways of working with this content management system as there are professionals who use it.
At Be API, we've chosen theGutenberg editor for all our projects. This content editor, which appeared in WordPress 5.0, has revolutionized contribution possibilities.
In fact, when we want to redesign a WordPress project created before WordPress 5.0, there's a very good chance that the content editor used will be different (WPbakery, Advanced Custom Fields-ACF, Beaver Builder, Elementor or Divi).
As a result, you'll need to migrate your content in order to find equivalents between the old content organization and the new one proposed by Gutenberg and WordPress.
Our methodology
Survey of existing facilities
Data mapping
Development & Testing
Single or incremental migration
A successful migration requires teamwork between the customer and the agency. Our customers have the business knowledge of their existing site, while the agency has the technical knowledge, and it's the combination of these 2 areas of expertise that will ensure a quality migration.
In order to carry out the study and testing phase successfully, we ask our customers to draw up a qualitative list of significant content to be tested/received.
This methodology has been tried and tested on numerous projects, whatever the volume or complexity of the content.
Content enrichment during site migration to WordPress
Site redesigns often lead to significant changes in content organization (properties, taxonomies & classification). These evolutions generally originate in the co-design workshops carried out during the project.
To facilitate the associated enrichment work, we generally propose an intermediate step during migration, aimed at generating an Excel file. In most cases, this spreadsheet file facilitates content enrichment in a format suitable for mass publishing.
Once the file has been completed, it integrates the content migration process, making it possible, for example, to re-categorize all the content on a WordPress site.
From time to time, our customers wish to benefit from this mass editing and enrichment capability, via export and import of CSV or Excel files. We generally recommend the "WP All Export" and "WP All Import" extensions for these routines, and integrate templates for exporting and importing content via these extensions into our projects.
Drupal to WordPress migration
Is your current site running on the open source CMS Drupal (version 6, 7, 8 or 9) and you'd like to migrate to WordPress? It's already a good decision 🙂
There are several ways to migrate your Drupal data to the WordPress CMS.
First of all, you can use the premium "FG Drupal to WordPress" extension edited by French expert Frédéric Gilles. It's a well-made tool, but it's a long way from our methodology, so we generally recommend it for low-cost migrations in the context of specific projects.
At the agency, we've opted for an alternative approach that strictly adheres to our methodology. When necessary, we develop a Drupal module to expose migration data via a JSON stream. In this way, we can perform complete or incremental migrations at any time from your old Drupal site currently in production.
Spip to WordPress migration
Spip used to be a very good CMS, but it has now been surpassed by a number of market players, including WordPress.
Like Drupal (see previous chapter), there's the "FG Spip to WordPress" plugin edited by French expert Frédéric Gilles, and like Drupal, we recommend an alternative approach based on data exposure via specific feeds.