Your CMS is getting in your way.
Every change costs a ticket, updates break things and your editors avoid the system. We replace the foundation without losing your content, your rankings or your integrations.
First we look at what is there. Replacing is not always the answer.
When it becomes time.
One of these points is annoying. Three or more means your system is starting to dictate your work.
Every change goes through someone else
Editing a text or adding a page is impossible without outside help. You depend on others for work you should be able to do yourself.
You no longer dare to run updates
Plugins that clash, a theme nobody knows any more. Updating feels like gambling, so it gets postponed and the security risk grows.
The editors avoid the system
If editing a page is cumbersome, the site does not get kept up. That costs you findability and credibility.
Integration does not work
You want to show data from your CRM, stock or planning, but the system was never built for it. Everything becomes a detour.
What moves, moves completely.
A migration rarely fails on the technology. It goes wrong on the things you forget to bring along.
Your content
Everything, structured
Pages, articles, media and metadata, reorganised into a model that matches how you work now instead of how it once grew.
Your visibility
URLs and rankings
A redirect map for every old URL, meta information carried over, and a check in Search Console after go-live to see whether indexing and rankings follow.
Your integrations
Everything attached to it
Forms, CRM, newsletter, payments, analytics. We map out in advance everything that is attached, including what nobody remembered.
From taking stock to go-live.
How long it takes depends on what is there. After taking stock you know exactly what is needed and you get a schedule.
Taking stock
What is there now, what is attached to it, what has to come along and what can go. Often half the old pages turn out to be unnecessary.
Choosing the foundation
Refreshing WordPress, moving to Directus or a custom framework. That choice follows from your problem, not from our preference.
Building and migrating
Setting up the content model, migrating content, reconnecting integrations and testing everything on an environment you can inspect yourself.
Go-live and aftercare
Redirects live, monitoring on and a close watch in the first weeks on errors, speed and indexing. After that, further development.
Your new system ages too.
The difference is maintenance. We host, update and keep developing, so you are not facing this same choice again in four years.
- Updates and security as a fixed routine, not as a project.
- Backups that get tested instead of only made.
- Further development in small steps, based on what your users do.
Where this leads.
Directus development
Our most chosen foundation for organisations that want to use their content across several channels. We are an official Directus Partner.
Websites & platforms
The pillar this sits under: bespoke work without templates, a stack per problem.
SEO
A migration is the moment your rankings are most at risk. This is how we keep them standing.
For larger organisations
Is an IT department, a security review or a tender involved? Then it goes through this route.
Frequently asked questions.
How long does a migration like this take?
That varies too much to put a number on. A straightforward site with a few hundred pages is a different story from a platform with integrations and several languages. After taking stock you get a schedule you can count on.
Do we have to leave WordPress?
Not necessarily. WordPress is fine if you mainly manage pages and articles. It starts to pinch as soon as you want to use content across several channels or integrate heavily. Then we look at Directus or a custom framework.
Will we lose our rankings in Google?
Not if it is done properly. The risk sits in URLs that change without a redirect. We build the redirect map in advance, test every old URL after go-live and follow the indexing in Search Console.
Can we keep our visual identity?
Yes. A migration is about the foundation. Whether you carry the design across, refresh it or start over is a separate choice you make yourself.
What happens to content we no longer use?
We do not move it across blindly. Old pages that no longer do anything get archived or merged, with a redirect to their successor so no 404s appear.
Want us to take a look at what you have?
In a half-hour conversation we can usually already tell whether replacing is necessary or refreshing will do. That saves you a quote for something you do not need.