Moving Existing Website to CMS
-
I had zero experience with design, seo, etc..prior to joining seomoz last year, but have been tweaking my site to get better ranking and leads.
I'm at the point now where I have to move my existing 8 year old static html website (lifeinsuranceadvisors.com) to a CMS system but am concerned about the impact this will have on my rankings, and money I currently make from my site selling the leads i generate.
I generate leads for life insurance industry, have 150+/- existing pages, and it takes me forever to add new pages, make changes, not to mention the look is worn.
What is the best way to make this move?
Secondly, what SEO friendly CMS systems do you recommend?
Thanks
Mike Horbal
Thank you all for the quick response and great info...I'm going to put my wishlist together before i make a move..thanks again.
-
Hi Michael,
Take a look at StudioPress.com (Wordpress Theses) - They have some excellent tutorials and help and have created the Genesis Framework and a whole load of professional designs that are easy to configure to your needs.
They have also created a set of free plug ins that make altering the detail of the designs easy. Like "Simple Edits" which allows you to change the footer section / copyright notice.
I've been using these for about a year and find them super easy to use.
Hope that helps
Steve
-
We recommend customers toward open source CMS's like Wordpress or Druple. This means that any designer/developer can work on the site for you, it's supported by a community of developers all working towards bettering the system and you can easily update content and images yourself.
It is worth sitting down and talking about your goals and desires before selecting a CMS as some are stronger in certain areas, so you want to be sure that the one you choose is scalable for your needs.
One thing I would certainly spend money on is keeping your imagery and stylising of the site updated and 'fresh'. by doing this, you are keeping up with the competition and making sure you fortify against competitors.
-
I agree with Funkitude. As a web designer / developer and internet marketing professional, the process of taking all your old website content and ensuring that it you have a clean migration is a key aspect to any website launch.
WordPress is a great CMS as mentioned and features many community plugins. For SEO in particular, I recommend http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/ which provides many great features for enabling your website for easy SEO.
If you need any assistance, please feel free to reach out and I can will try to help in any way that I can!
-
Here are the steps I would take:
- Wordpress is a great CMS for those who are new to CMSs. It's free, it's easy, there's great a great support community.
- Find out which pages on your site are getting traffic (check your analytics)
- Determine which pages on your site have inbound links (SEOmoz has a great module for this)
- Copy the content on these pages to your new site (inside wordpress, or whatever CMS you end up using)
- 301 redirect the old URLs to their new home inside Wordpress
- Create a sitemap for your new site
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What type of website is best for seo.
I need a new website for my health insurance business. What type is best for SEO? Many thanks
Web Design | | laurentjb0 -
Website Redesign & Ensuring Minimal Traffic/Rankings Lost
Hi there, We have undergone a website redesign (mycompany.com) and our site is ready to go live however the new website is built on a different platform so all of our blog pages will not be copied over - to avoid a large web developer expense. So our intention is to then leave all the blog pages as (on the old web design) but move it to the domain blog.mycompany.com with 301 redirects inserted on mycompany.com for each blog post pointing to the corresponding blog.mycompany.com. Is there anything else we should do to ensure minimal traffic/rankings are lost? Thank you so much for your help.
Web Design | | amitbroide0 -
Mergers & Acquisitions - Website Transition Good practice
Hi everyone, I was wondering if anyone has come across good practice for maintaining websites after a merger or acquisition where there needs to be an association between two websites of the two companies involved. For an acquisition, I'm considering moving the acquired company to a sub domain of the parent company e.g. aquiredcompany.parentcompany.com. On both websites there wmay be a prominant popup so visitors can switch between the websites if they have visited the incorrect one. One worry I have is the acquired company has some good rankings, which I want to keep. I will of course manage the process through 301 redirects. But I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this approach or can suggest any better solutions. Thanks in advance, Stuart
Web Design | | Stuart260 -
Questioning people that left the website?
If we have a pop up on our site and new customers have subscribed to get 5% off (which i believe shows intent) and they do not purchase would you contact them and find out why they have not purchased to get a better understanding of issues with the website, If so I believe it needs to be more than the standard email of further discount (for example receive an extra 10% discount) or standard do you need help email (we need to either talk direct with them or offer something for there help such as 50% off) Any help would be appreciate in finding our pain points on the site www.fastprint.co.uk.
Web Design | | BobAnderson1 -
SEO strategy for UK / US websites
Hi, We currently have a UK-focused site on www.palmatin.com ; We're now targeting the North American market as well, but the contents of the site need to be different from UK. One option was to create another domain for the NA market but I assume it would be easier to rank with palmatin.com though. What would you suggest to do, if a company is targeting two different countries in the same language? thanks, jaan
Web Design | | JaanMSonberg0 -
HTML verses CMS
Hi My site is ranking quiet well for the past 10 years although it is becoming a bit dated. I am thinking of revamping it using Modx. Will this affect the ranking . Does a HTML site rank higher then CMS or does it no longer matter. I believe one of the reasons my site ranks so well is because it is a very basic HTML design. Should I just put a new HTML template on it Thanks
Web Design | | Niteowl0 -
Live website is an addon domain - Need site old development url inaccessable from live domain
Hi everyone, I have a website which is built in Joomla 2.5. The development site is located at www,abc.com/subdomain/. We have set the site live using an addon domain which is www.xyz.com. The problem is, www.abc.com/subdomain/ is still accessible and being crawled by Google. How is the best way to make the development url inaccessible? Any help would be appreciated!
Web Design | | DougHosmer0 -
How does the "first link" rule work with the "reasonable surfer patent" when it comes to the main navigation for a website?
In trying to figure out navigation for a new website, I am struggling with the first link rule vs. the reasonable surfer patent where the first link rule implies that Google "counts" the first link to a page including navigation, and the reasonable surfer patent that implies that navigation links carry less weight than body copy links. What is the best solution for creating main navigation so that it doesn't take away from the body copy links?
Web Design | | cindyt-170380