Posted by Selecting a new website content management system (CMS) is often a significant challenge, considering the scale of data, forms, and content that, often, needs to be migrated from old to new CMS systems.
Once you have evaluated whether you want an open source (free) or proprietary system (licensed); determined your ongoing hosting costs, identified functionality requirements, such as languages supported; ensured that your new CMS fulfills compliance needs; selected a hosting option that ensures peak content delivery and page load speeds; and checked that your chosen CMS can scale based on your future plans… it’s imperative to put a plan in place for a smooth CMS migration and implementation.
There are many factors behind the decision to migrate to a new CMS. In my experience working with large enterprise tech teams, most brands implement a new CMS for one of four reasons:
- A lease or agreement is up for renewal.
- The current CMS isn’t meeting key business needs.
- The cost of the current CMS is too high.
- The technology underpinning the current CMS is outdated.
All too often, however, enterprises fail to consider the search engine optimization (SEO) ramifications of a CMS migration. Firms focus on the cost or required implementation resources—and less on the effects a new CMS will have on their search rankings.
What’s particularly important for maintaining (or increasing) rank is optimizing for both site speed and page redirects. There are some ways that you can address those requirements—while mitigating risk and flawlessly migrating your website content.