A Guide to Properly Migrating a CMS: The Rainbow Edition

@techseowomen marketingsyrup.com
• I started in SEO about 10 years ago (when directory submission was still a thing)
• I’ve worked on agency side and in-house
• I went freelance last August
• Founder of MarketingSyrup
CMS Migration Guide:
The RAINBOW Edition
eCommerce & Technical SEO
Consultant

Kristina Azarenko @azarchick | @techseowomen marketingsyrup.com
Website migrations
are not easy

@azarchick | @techseowomenKristina Azarenko marketingsyrup.com
Technology used
(e.g. CMS,
frameworks)
Many details to check
before, during and
after the migration
Cross-team
communication
and coordination
1. 2. 3.

Types of migrations include:
• Moving from HTTP to HTTPS
• Moving from a subdomain to subfolder or vice versa
• Moving from one domain to another
• Moving from one content management system to a different system

Moving from one content management
system to a different CMS
Today I’ll talk about:

Possible Reasons
to Switch a CMS

• More ﬂexibility to account for the business growth
• To be less dependable on the 3rd party CMS
management services
Possible Reasons
to Switch a CMS

The Idea
of a CMS Migration

The Main Issues You Might Face
During a CMS Migration

Inability to Keep the Old URLs
Structure
• Example: in Magento, there’s no /products/ path in the
product URL by default. So if your current product URLs
don’t include it, you will need to use some customization or
extension to achieve that.

Different Templates or Rules for
Generating Meta Tags and H1 Tags
• Example: HubSpot doesn’t allow having different H1
and title tags on a page (though they seem to be in the
process of changing it).

Different Approach to the Service
Files (robots.txt, XML sitemap)
• Example: Shopify does not allow editing the
robots.txt and XML sitemap. So if you are migrating
to it, you should account for that.

Structured Data
• Example: If you are migrating from WordPress where
you use plugins to add structured data, ﬁnd similar
plugins that will work for your target CMS.

Flexibility
• Canonicals
• Meta-robots
• Any customizations

Analytics & Other Tracking Codes
• Pro tip: Tracking codes are often overlooked.
Before the migration starts, you should make a
list of all the tracking codes and customizations
to transfer them to the new CMS.

Bridging the Gap:
RAINBOW Steps to Make
a CMS Migration
as Seamless as Possible

The R Step:
Run a Crawl

R. Run a Crawl: Why
• Understand the scope
• Find any technical issues which should not be
transferred to the new CMS
• Save all the raw data for future references

R. Run a Crawl: What
• Crawl data
• Google Search Console pages
• Google Analytics pages
• Your XML sitemap(s)

The outcome of the R step:
• You have a comprehensive list of all website
URLs.
• You have a list of the technical SEO issues you
want to ﬁx during the migration to another
CMS.
• A backup of the current website.

The A Step:
Analyze CMS Features

A. Analyze CMS Features: Why
• To ﬁnd the gaps: translate the
features of your current
CMS into the features of
the new CMS.
• To take control over the important
features

A. Analyze CMS Features: What
• URL Structure
• Meta Information
• Website Architecture
• Canonical Tags
• Meta-robots Directives
• Robots.txt
• XML Sitemap
• Structured data
• Hreﬂang
• Any important custom features

The outcome of the A step:
• A list of the most important SEO features
and ideally an indication of whether each
feature is available in the new CMS. The
more you know at this point, the better.

The I Step:
Indicate the URLs to
Redirect

I. Indicate the URLs to Redirect: Why
• We want to preserve all the
signals the old URLs have
acquired
• To account for all the changes in
the URLs and map them together

I. Indicate the URLs to Redirect: What

The outcome of the I step:
• A map of all the URLs with an
indication of the action.
• A redirect map for developers.

The N Step:
Note Down User Stories
and Acceptance Criteria

N. Note Down User Stories and Acceptance
Criteria: Why
• Communicate your requirements and
recommendations properly
• Overcommunicate your requirements
and recommendations

Criteria: What
As a {type of user} I want {outcome} so
that {the reason}

Criteria: What
For example:
As an SEO, I want product URLs to be the same even
if users go to the product page from different categories
so that we don't have duplicate product pages.

The outcome of the N step:
• You have user stories and acceptance
criteria for each user story ready to be
uploaded to the task management
system (e.g. JIRA)

The B Step:
Become an Investigator

B. Become an Investigator: What
• To test UAT or staging environment
against your deﬁned user stories and
acceptance criteria
• To catch all the SEO issues before the
website goes live on the new CMS

The outcome of the B step:
• There will most likely be a few
rounds of testing as after each issue
is ﬁxed, you will need to re-test it.
Once it is completed, the test
website should be ready to go live.

The O Step:
Once It is Done

O. Once It is Done: Why
• To quickly spot ANY issues
• To timely resolve them before
they cause any visibility and
trafﬁc decrease

O. Once It is Done: What
• The redirects
https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/audit-redirects/

• Robots.txt
• Meta robots
• Tracking codes
• Make an annotation in Google Analytics

https://www.gsqi.com/
marketing-blog/immediate-seo-
checks-cms-migration/

The outcome of the O step:
• You are sure that all the
information was transferred
correctly, and the website on the
new CMS is ‘SEO healthy’

The W Step:
When It is Over, It Is Not Over

W. When It is Over, It Is Not Over: Why
• To spot any trafﬁc decrease
• It just takes time to re-
evaluate all the signals

W. When It is Over, It Is Not Over: Why

The outcome of the W step:
• Peace of mind.
• Post-migration ﬁxes are done if
any issues are discovered.

Kristina Azarenko @azarchick | @techseowomen #WTSFest
SCALABILITY

https://www.semrush.com/blog/cms-migration-guide/

@techseowomen marketingsyrup.com
Thank you!
azarchick
Kristina Azarenko
• eCommerce & Technical SEO Consultant
• Founder of MarketingSyrup
• Creator of the SEO Challenge course
• eCommerce SEO Newsletter - https://bit.ly/SEO-Shop-Up

A Guide to Properly Migrating a CMS: The Rainbow Edition

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