Rock Content, a global leader in content marketing, conducted three migrations on its own website and expanded the company\u2019s global online presence up to 7 million monthly visitors. <\/p>\n
All of the migrations were driven by the need to consolidate our brand\u2019s recognition at different moments in our trajectory.<\/p>\n
During the first migration, in early 2019, we moved both of our blogs in Spanish and Portuguese (which had their own unique domains) to the root domain \u201crockcontent.com.\u201d <\/p>\n
At the time, we used exact match domains with the Portuguese and Spanish versions of something similar to \u201ccontentmarketing.com.\u201d We wanted to educate the Latin American markets on the topic.<\/p>\n
The goal of this first migration was to highlight our own brand, since the previous websites didn\u2019t have our name in the URL.<\/p>\n
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- Spanish blog: \u201cmarketingdecontenidos.com\u201d \u21d2 \u201cpingback.com\/es\/resources\/\u201d<\/li>\n
- Portuguese blog: \u201cmarketingdeconteudo.com\u201d \u21d2 \u201cpingback.com\/br\/resources\/\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The second migration was concluded in 2020, when we moved the entire site to our own, recently-launched WordPress hosting platform, Stage. This was a strategic decision that gave us full control of the website\u2019s management while improving our performance metrics.<\/p>\n
Finally, we carried out a third migration to make our brand positioning more cohesive in all markets that Rock Content operates in, especially in the U.S., Brazil, and Mexico. <\/p>\n
After a comprehensive localization process of the site content and visual identity elements, our redesigned global website came to life at the beginning of 2021.<\/p>\n
Those experiences brought lessons that we hope to share with you on how to plan, execute, and monitor a new website.<\/p>\n
You, too, can avoid a traumatic move by following these website migration insights:<\/p>\n
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- Planning<\/strong>: Paving the way for a smooth transition.<\/li>\n
- Execution<\/strong>: Setting up redirects and testing to go live.<\/li>\n
- Post-launch<\/strong>: Acting quickly to correct errors.<\/li>\n
- Analysis<\/strong>: Monitoring performance metrics to tell if your migration was successful.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
1. Planning Phase: Paving The Way For A Smooth Transition<\/h2>\n
Every migration project can be complex, but building a detailed strategy is key to avoiding complications.<\/p>\n
Consider some of these factors during the planning phase.<\/p>\n
Changing CMS Platforms? Align the CMS to Your Brand Assets.<\/h3>\n
When considering your future CMS, it’s essential that the platform is consistent and flexible with your brand’s unique assets.<\/p>\n
Make sure your future CMS makes it:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Easy To Implement New Content: Some CMS software has rigid structures that limit the addition of features that can expand your brand\u2019s content creation process. Try tools that offer multiple themes and layout templates that aren\u2019t time-consuming to implement.<\/li>\n
- Easy To Structure: The chosen platform should also offer intuitive resources or building blocks for structuring the content of a page. This will enable search engines and users to read it easily.<\/li>\n
- Easy To Learn: Your team needs to be familiar with the new CMS platform you are implementing to avoid errors and a drop in productivity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Changing URL\/Domain Structure? Know The Differences Between Subdomains & Subdirectories.<\/h3>\n
Your website\u2019s architecture has a strong influence on the crawling process of search engines<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Accurately selecting a subdomain vs. subdirectory structure allows search engines to understand the correlations between pages and how important they are within the domain.<\/p>\n
By providing a solid URL\/domain architecture, you ensure that Google\u2019s crawlers will have no trouble finding the pages you want to be indexed and ranked on SERPs.<\/p>\n
The search engine will also understand the logical hierarchy of your site\u2019s sections, which helps Google determine which page is the best fit for each query.<\/p>\n
To determine the best structure for your new website, it\u2019s crucial to know the best use cases of subdomains and subdirectories.<\/p>\n
A subdirectory is a folder inside a root domain, and it\u2019s used to manage categories and individual pages of the main website, like a blog or an e-commerce store.<\/p>\n
It can also work to store international versions of a website, such as \u201c\/es\u201d for Spanish.<\/p>\n
E.g: example.com\/blog\/<\/p>\n
Subdomains, on the other hand, work like unique websites associated with a larger domain, but sit outside of it. They appear before the root domain name in the URL and might be used to store specific site sections, like a support platform or an event hub.<\/p>\n
E.g: support.example.com<\/p>\n
When To Use Subdirectories<\/h3>\n
This structure is quite efficient to showcase parts of your business you want everyone to know about.<\/p>\n
E.g.: example.com\/shop\/<\/p>\n
Other use cases:<\/p>\n
- \n
- You want to strengthen the main brand\u2019s online authority by putting all your pages under its name on the URL.<\/li>\n
- You have a simple site structure with a small number of sections and want to provide a straightforward navigation path for users.<\/li>\n
- Your IT department or web admin team isn\u2019t large enough to manage and monitor the performance of multiple websites on multiple subdomains. Subdirectories are easier to manage because they are stored inside a single root domain’s file structure.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When To Use Subdomains<\/h3>\n
Subdomains work well for specific web environments that live on different platforms than your main website, like an app.<\/p>\n
E.g: helpdesk.example.com<\/p>\n
Some more use cases:<\/p>\n
- \n
- You have various product lines or service streams that have totally different purposes and each one has its own positioning. E.g: maps.google.com or analytics.google.com.<\/li>\n
- You want to expand your site internationally in totally different languages \u2014 a subdomain will have its own set of keywords to rank for on the new market, but you\u2019ll maintain brand consistency in the URL.<\/li>\n
- Your online business operation requires a more robust structure, with a clearer separation between sections and unique performance analytics for each part of the website.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
2. Execution Phase: Set Up Your Redirects, Test Your Plan In & Out, Go Live<\/h2>\n
Now, it\u2019s time to take the strategy you created and see how it flies.<\/p>\n
You can do this safely by creating a sandbox environment.<\/p>\n
A sandbox environment will give developers the green light to test every aspect of the migration without compromising your current online operation.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, one common snag that catches teams off guard is underestimating the amount of grunt work involved in prepping their URL inventory. Especially for older sites, you might discover all kinds of legacy URLs and forgotten landing pages hiding in corners you haven\u2019t checked in years. If you\u2019re like most site owners, you probably won\u2019t catch every single outlying page on your first crawl\u2014there\u2019s usually something that pops up mid-migration, and you have to decide on the fly whether it gets redirected, archived, or just left to die quietly. There\u2019s some comfort in knowing nearly everyone stumbles here.<\/p>\n
This goes double for multilingual or regionally segmented sites, where it\u2019s almost guaranteed that someone, somewhere, set up a microsite or custom landing page for a campaign ages ago, then promptly forgot about it. This is where a solid cross-team process comes in handy\u2014because your devs might know about pages that don\u2019t show up in your marketing team\u2019s spreadsheet, and vice versa. Holding a quick workshop or \u201cmigration triage\u201d meeting once your URL list appears complete is often worth the time. That way, you catch little disasters before they cause search engines to bump your priority pages off the map.<\/p>\n
Set Up Your Redirects<\/h3>\n
One of the most important factors to check during migration is the list of links to be redirected.<\/p>\n
Implementing 301 redirects is the x-factor of successful migrations. Redirects determine the right destination for the old site\u2019s URLs on the new site.<\/p>\n
Response codes, like 301 redirect codes, appear when a user (or web crawler) lands on a page and is automatically sent to another page.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, you would need to manually create redirects. Now, however, you can automate that action by using a specialized plugin like Redirection<\/a> on WordPress or a similar solution on another CMS.<\/p>\n
- Execution<\/strong>: Setting up redirects and testing to go live.<\/li>\n
- Planning<\/strong>: Paving the way for a smooth transition.<\/li>\n
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