Here’s your ultimate CMS migration checklist

Moving from one CMS to another isn’t a smooth ride. It may take weeks or months depending on your current system and the database you carry. Especially in case of news website where the database is extensive, it can be quite cumbersome. In fact sometimes, you may think - Is it worth moving to a new CMS?

Now, not a lot of news publishers switch their CMS. But as the websites grow, it becomes important to have software solutions that keep them up to date with the latest trends in digital content creation and distribution. Having features that support bulk updation, AI recommendation and workflow may not be necessary as your company starts but in order to grow, it is crucial you have the right technology to back you up.

That’s not it. There are lot of benefits of having the right CMS. So, before we move to the CMS migration checklist, let’s find out why it is important to migrate in the first place. 

1. Improve your website performance

As you transition to another solution, you can evaluate your website from experts. Find demos that are tailored specifically for your website. A new platform will perform better as it’ll prevent overloading. Your site speed will improve significantly. Your site will attract better traffic if everything is set right, thereby having a positive effect on the conversion and retention rates.

A better CMS also helps your site attract better traffic if everything is set right. This, in turn,  has a positive effect on the conversion and retention rates.

2. Gives You A Newness

Just like every other industry, news industry too needs better features and tools. Investing in a new content management system will help you get that. This will in turn impact your content creation, giving you a fresh perspective. Use the new platform for your content strategy and how you present it to the readers. Make the content user-friendly and engaging.

3. Helps in Managing Your Content

Since there are lot of people working in the content team, it becomes difficult to manage it. Moving to a CMS will help your content team meet your content needs better and raise your demands and expectations while enhancing the reader experience. A better managed content further provides a premium experience for your readers. 

4. Offers Better Security

For digital publishing, cybersecurity is key. Shifting to a new CMS also allows you to choose a secure platform. Find a solution that protects your website from DDoS attacks and more.

5. Provides Timely Updates

With a traditional CMS you will have to wait for updates – and this can impact your website traffic immensly. By onboarding a headless CMS product, you get an industry approved user experience and workflow. This also means that the provider will take care of timely updation of features according to the industry trends.

If you land on the right platform, by migrating your site to a new CMS, you minimize traffic loss.

Here are some pointers to help you make your migration easy.

1. Review your Content strategy

For a publisher, new CMS is not just about a basic shift. It will mean new feeds, new syndication, and new content strategy. Thus, you need to outline your content journey, how you’ve grown and most importantly, what direction you’re going to take. 

A proper content strategy will also help you know which content should be migrated first and which content shouldn’t be migrated. It will also help you figure the feature, the quality, and process.

Having the right content goals can also help you have conversations with CMS providers that will help them understand your demands and ensure they’re delivered. 

2. Think about Workflow

If your current CMS doesn’t support workflows that impact everything from content editing to UI/UX, you need one that does. Having traditional solutions usually means you’re working with outdated features. Without the right workflow, you’re slowing down your team and delaying output.

If you’re moving onto the Bold CMS, you get to explore a workflow that’s categorized to promote efficiency. Moreover, Bold has been a top choice for some of the top news websites – from The Bloomberg Quint to Swaraj. Thus, we know how big content teams work and we help them manage content without any friction.

3. Set a Budget

No CMS migration checklist is complete without budget. While we encourage you to have a realistic budget, it’s also important to understand cost savings. So don’t always think about the price but also the efficiency. So think - are you taking up a cheap CMS? If so, will it support you?

Investing in the right CMS can save additional cost. Especially in case of news websites, you would want to have a CMS that has system that makes content management smooth and allows you to integrate third party solutions with ease. Think of all this when you decide a budget. 

4. Assess Features’ list

Similar to the first point, it’s important you know what features you’re looking for. Your new CMS should be a definite upgrade from your previous one. You need to research and look for features that are non-negotiables such as monetization and mobile-friendly layouts. This also helps you narrow down your options.

Old tech solutions make it difficult to keep up with the trends. And since the world of tech keeps changing, it’s important you have a CMS that future proofs your news website.

5. Look For Support Team

Do you have an internal team to help you with development? If you do, you’re looking for a developer-friendly CMS. If not, you’d need a CMS that’s built for editorial teams. In addition, your content team would require training to work on the new CMS because if you don’t educate them on using the new platform, then your potentially expensive migration will not provide the required ROI. Thus, check if the provider offers training and guidance services as well.  

With Bold, we ensure it’s easy for publishers to work around since you need zero coding. On the top of it, our support team is always there for you – right from the demo to the final migration. 

If you choose the Quintype platform, you’ve already been given a tour of what your website looks like and what it can look like. We show you the growth, the benefits, the overall experience and stats to help you be at ease.

At quintype, we understand that migrating to a new platform can look complicated and feel overwhelming. This is why our team is dedicated to ensuring that you have a pleasant experience while upgrading your platform.

We take care of the migration process from start to finish in the least amount of time possible.

1. If you have an inhouse developer then you should be able to provide us with your data in a predefined specification - in this case we’ll follow a plain migration and have you set up and ready in no time.

2. If you're on a standard Wordpress installation, we have plugins to pull in your data. You can provide us with a complete data dump and our team will proceed with the process quickly.

3. If neither of the above mentioned scenarios apply to you then you require a custom migration. In this case, our team will guide you to third party solutions to ease your migrating process.

We like to analyze your website and platform in advance. This is how our migration team helps you get a clear idea about the timeline and the steps involved in the transition. We ensure that all data is crossed over and have meticulous reviewing stages as well - there is no loss of data. If there is any issue with older videos or images - we find solutions with you - we like to keep it thorough.

We also ensure that there is no loss of SEO juice as you transition onto our platform.

Once we get a nod, we proceed to give you the premium experience you’ve signed up for!

Curious to know how you can migrate onto the Quintype platform? Schedule your free demo today!