Are you ready to migrate your website over to Webflow? If you are ready to move to Webflow's no-code platform, this article will take you through the process step-by-step.
We've broken the migration process down into ten steps. Follow each one thoroughly, and you (or your client) will have a successful migration.
Plus, we have a free checklist that you can download.
The main goal of a migration is to keep your client happy. This can be done by avoiding the most common pitfall which is a drastic loss in organic traffic. Loss of traffic means loss of revenue.
This article is a step-by-step walkthrough on migrating to Webflow. A successful migration goes beyond rolling out some new code and adding some redirects. A successful website migration requires organization and precision. Make sure that you complete all the parts of each step before you move on to the next. This will minimize the possibility of a steep traffic decline.
It's imperative to be transparent with your clients about the risk and reward of moving to Webflow. From the beginning, be transparent that a temporary loss of traffic is to be expected. The reason web activity drops is that Google needs time to reindex the changes you make. It may take a few days or weeks, but once Google reindexes, your site should return higher on the search results than ever before.
Follow this article precisely, and you will have a successful migration.
Start by documenting what the current website does and how well it performs. We need to be clear about the expectations of a migration. It is common for web traffic to decrease for a month or so after migration, but you should start to see an uptick in activity within the first sixty days.
At first, your client may show concern about the slower traffic so be sure to reassure them that this is to be expected.
Benchmarking gives you the information needed to compare the metrics from before the migration and show when traffic begins to trend upwards again.
Next, it's time to gather the content you plan to upload on the new site. If coming from a WordPress website, you can use the plugin WP CSV to export content as a CSV file. Then you can easily upload it to the Webflow CMS.
You will also need to set up a folder on your Google Drive to hold the files. Remember to share file privileges with your client.
If you you havent already, download the free checklist and then start organizing your content. Find (or create) a sitemap to the domain that lists all the different pages and links. You'll work down this list to ensure you don't miss any redirects or forget to transfer any files on the new website.
*Note: You can run the list of audits and checks below using almost any SEO tool. (We prefer SEMrush)
At this point we set up position tracking to monitor the website's current rankings. Now is the time to put an SEO tool to work to see the site's ranking position according to keywords.
Finally, note the amount of current traffic and patterns that have occurred in the last few months. Your migration may coincide with a non-related issue that slows down web activity. These notes will support your work if someone tries to blame the slowdown on the migration.
Double-check that you pull all the URLs and links from the sitemap. You will want to use a backlink analytics tool to keep track of the pages on your site to ensure they are all working. Backlinks are vital to pulling in new traffic, so don't skimp on this step. If you need to remove the page that another site backlinks to, then set up a redirect to keep the backlink alive.
With Google Search Console, you can see which pages have already been indexed by Google and which ones are getting a large amount of traffic.
Ask yourself the :
If your client wants to use the migration as an opportunity to weed out several pages from the website, make sure they understand that doing so will slow down traffic. When Google's robot scans your page the following day and finds that 50 percent of the indexed pages are gone, it will temporarily penalize your ranking.
It's rarely practical, but the ideal way to remove old pages from a website is to delete a few each week. This won't scare the Google algorithm, and traffic will remain steady.
Now is the time to set up all the necessary 301 redirects within the Webflow site settings under the "Hosting" tab.
Errors happen. Just find them and fix them.
Compare the metrics from your newly migrated site to the old site. It is wise to document the comparison for at least several weeks. You may never need it, but if a customer asks, then you can show that the new site is performing as promised.
Once you have completed the entire migration process, it's time to celebrate!
