How to Handle Webflow Site Migration Without Losing Important Content

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/photos/website-web-design-development-code-8305450/

If you have your website for quite some time, then you need to know that at some point, you will practically be obligated to migrate it. How come? Well, that's simply because that's something that almost every website deals with.

Yes, it may sound frightening right now, but that's definitely not as challenging as it may appear to be at first glance. The only thing that should worry about is ensuring nothing is lost or disrupted during this process.

Those who migrated to Webflow have implemented the strategies that are about to be compiled today and, fortunately, they haven’t experienced any problems. So let’s see how you can pull it off smoothly!

Go Through The Things That You Already Have

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Before you move to Webflow, you should first analyze what you already have on your site, which includes the following:

• What’s part of your content? – Be sure to list every page, media, and post that is included in it. If you are currently on WordPress, and you’re planning to move to Webflow, then you should export all your content as a CSV file.
• SEO tool review – Make use of different SEO tools to monitor your existing backlinks, rankings, and overall performance. Jot down any major SEO elements, such as meta descriptions, meta keywords, and meta titles.
• Don’t forget the design and functionality – Which custom code, plugins, and features are very beneficial for your website? Make sure to figure that out, because they are going to help you keep your website functional during migration.

Rely On The Webflow Connoisseurs

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As stated above, those who have never done this before, are typically scared of this entire process, firmly believing that they will lose anything that’s important on their website and that it will stop functioning.

If that worries you too, then maybe it would be smarter to leave it all up to Webflow experts. Namely, they can help you migrate your website to Webflow and they will make sure this whole transition is executed seamlessly with minimal downtime. In these instances, they usually audit your current site to map out the design, all of its content, and functionality.

If you're looking for a stress-free way to execute this, then your safest bet is someone who already has a plethora of experience as far as this is concerned which is precisely these experts.

Make A List Of All Your Existing Pages/URLs

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In these situations, even the smallest mistakes concerning your URLs may result in losing all the traffic that’s linked to them. And since you do not want to miss out on any traffic, it’s pivotal to be very cautious during this process. In order to do so, you need to take the steps below:

• Employ a sitemap extraction tool to properly pull a URL from the sitemap. You should place your website URL into the tool and then add/sitemap.xml. By doing so you will get a list of every single URL.
• Make use of Google Search Console so you can determine which page is indexed.
• Utilize backlink analytics tools to jot down all the target URLs. 
• Write down the pages/URLs you plan on modifying or delete

Time To Create A Webflow Account

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Now, that all the essential steps regarding your website are covered, it’s time to take the next step which is to create an account on this platform. First and foremost, you should get familiar with Webflow’s CMS, SEO features, and all kinds of design tools.

Although Webflow is generally very flexible in terms of design, it’s still very important to figure out different aspects of it, like:

1. Built-in SEO capabilities
2. Custom coding options

Before you take any further steps, you should “play” with these tools for a while because by doing so, you will reduce the likelihood of any mistakes during the actual migrations. 

Design & Content Migration

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Now, this is probably one of the most difficult parts of this process. You'll need to rebuild your design on this platform by leveraging Webflow’s visual editor to either recreate your website's design or build an entirely new one. 

When it comes to your content, if your site is relatively small, then copy/paste will get the job done. On the flip side, if your website has lots of content (particularly blogs), then you should make use of Webflow’s CSV import feature.

Image Souce: https://pixabay.com/photos/image-portal-website-laptop-658240/

Website migration, in general, does require proper planning and organizing if you want to make sure nothing is lost along the way. If you want to prevent that from occurring, then these are the strategies that you should consider.