CMS Migration Checklist: Preparing Your Content for a New Platform

At a Glance:

• Pre-Migration Audit: Inventory all content and cleanse outdated or duplicate items.
• Mapping & Metadata: Define how each content type and field will map to the new CMS, including URLs and SEO metadata.
• Technical Setup: Prepare scripts/tools for migration, set up development/staging environments for testing.
• Stakeholder Readiness: Communicate the migration plan (including any content freeze) to all content owners and provide training on the new CMS interface.

The Ultimate Migration Preparation Checklist

Migrating to a new Content Management System (CMS) is a project that benefits from thorough preparation. Use this checklist to ensure you’re covering all critical steps before and during the migration:

1. ✅ Content Inventory Completed: Gather a list of all content items in the current CMS. This includes pages, blog posts, PDFs/media, product info – essentially everything that needs moving. Note the total count of items by type (e.g., “500 news articles, 120 product pages, 50 PDFs”). This will serve as a baseline to ensure everything is accounted for later.

2. ✅ Content Audit & Cleanup Done: Review content for relevance and quality. Mark content that can be archived or left behind (outdated news, redundant pages). Identify content that needs updating or consolidation. The goal is to avoid migrating “junk” to the new CMS. Stakeholders should sign off on what’s being pruned vs. moved to avoid surprises (“Where did page X go?” questions later). This step often involves editorial teams and possibly compliance (to ensure you keep records of what you remove if needed).

3. ✅ URL List & SEO Data Exported: Export a list of all important URLs from the current site (you can use your CMS, analytics, or a crawler to get this). Along with URLs, export SEO metadata like title tags and meta descriptions for each page, if possible. This ensures you can recreate or redirect every URL and retain SEO optimizations. Also note top-performing pages (via Google Analytics) – these are high priority to get right.

4. ✅ Content Mapping Documented: Create a detailed mapping of old content structures to new ones. For each content type and field in the old CMS, note its destination in the new CMS. Example: “Old ‘Press Release’ pages -> New ‘News Article’ component; Old ‘Summary’ field -> New ‘Excerpt’ field.” Include how things like categories, tags, authors, and dates will be handled. Don’t forget non-page content: if you have user-generated content, forums, or data files, how will those transfer? This doc should be reviewed by both technical and content folks to make sure nothing is missed.

5. ✅ New CMS Configured: Set up the new CMS environment (development/staging). Create all necessary content types, fields, taxonomies, and user roles as per the plan. Essentially, get the destination ready to receive the content. This may involve some development work and theming to ensure the design is ready too (though design and content migration often run in parallel).

6. ✅ Migration Tools Ready: Decide on your migration method (scripts, vendor tool, manual entry, or combo). If using scripts, ensure you have access to the old CMS database or API and credentials for the new CMS API. Develop initial versions of the scripts and test connecting to both systems. If using a third-party migration service/tool, set it up and run through its configuration with a small dataset to validate settings.

7. ✅ Pilot Migration Tested: Before doing everything, run a small pilot. Migrate a sampling of content (a few pages of each type, perhaps one section of the site). Then review them in the new CMS: is content appearing in the right templates? Are special characters and formatting correct? Are images and links working? This step will likely reveal some adjustments needed (e.g., “We forgot to migrate the alt text for images” or “The date format is wrong”). Tweak your process accordingly and retest until the pilot content looks solid.

8. ✅ Redirect Mapping Prepared: Based on the URL list, create a mapping of Old URL -> New URL for every page. Plan the implementation of these redirects (via your web server, DNS, or CMS plugin). If the new site structure is similar, you might use pattern-based redirects; if not, you may have a big list. Either way, have this ready so that when you switch to the new site, visitors (and Google) automatically go to the correct pages.

9. ✅ Backup & Version Control: Backup the old CMS content database and files before final migration (just in case). Also, ensure your migration scripts or procedures are version-controlled – treat them as code that might need to be re-run. Back up the new CMS as well after test migrations (so you can revert if something goes wrong in a test).

10. ✅ Content Freeze Scheduled: Pick a freeze date/time after which content in the old system should not change. Communicate this widely: editors, contributors, and any automated publishing processes. The freeze might be short (a few hours) or a few days, depending on your risk tolerance and content velocity. Clearly state the plan for any emergency changes during the freeze (often, you log them and manually update them in the new CMS post-launch).

11. ✅ Stakeholder Communication: Aside from content editors, inform other stakeholders of the migration timeline. For example, customer support should know if the site might have downtime, or the SEO team should be ready to monitor, etc. Also prepare any public-facing communication if needed (e.g., a short maintenance message on the site if there’s expected downtime).

12. ✅ Team On-Call Setup: Ensure your migration team (developers, IT, content leads) are available during the cutover window. Everyone should know their role: who will run the migration script, who will update DNS or flip the site live, who will run smoke tests, and who is point of contact for any issues.

13. ✅ New CMS Training for Editors: Provide a crash course or documentation to content editors on the new CMS, ideally before launch. Even if they’re not adding content during the migration, they’ll likely need to make tweaks or will resume work soon after. Having them comfortable (or at least knowing where to find help) will smooth the transition. You might do a short video call demo or send a quick-start guide.

14. ✅ Post-Migration QA Plan: Plan for a final round of QA immediately after launch. Who will verify that critical pages are live? That tracking codes are firing? That forms still submit? Make a checklist of these post-launch tests. Also plan to monitor analytics and logs for at least a week after migration to catch any issues (like unexpected 404s).

Using this checklist approach ensures that you leave no stone unturned. A CMS migration has many moving parts, but methodical preparation greatly increases the odds of a smooth launch.

Call to Action: Need expert assistance preparing for a CMS migration? Dotfusion can guide you through every item on this checklist and beyond. Contact us to ensure your content migration is thorough, efficient, and headache-free.