CMS Integrations & Migrations

A CMS migration moves a website from one content management system to another, and a CMS integration connects a site to the other systems a business runs on, such as a CRM, a booking tool, an ERP, or a marketing platform. Both are common reasons UAE businesses come to us. The site was built on a platform that no longer fits, or the website has become an island that staff update by copying information from somewhere else.

Typical migrations include moving from Wix, Squarespace, or a website builder to WordPress or Filament once a business outgrows the builder's limits; moving from WordPress to a headless setup for performance; moving off a legacy custom CMS that only one former developer understood; and consolidating several separate sites, such as regional or brand sites, onto one platform. Each carries the same risk. Search rankings are attached to URLs and content, and a migration changes both.

We start with an inventory. Before choosing how to move anything, we crawl the current site and export its full list of URLs, then combine that with data from Google Search Console and analytics to see which pages receive search traffic, which have links from other sites, and which rank for valuable terms. Pages with no traffic, no links, and no business purpose are candidates to leave behind. Everything else needs a planned destination.

Next we map content to the new platform's structure. That means defining content types in the new CMS, deciding how old fields map to new ones, and planning how images, documents, authors, categories, and tags will move. Where the content volume allows, we script the migration so it is repeatable and consistent, rather than copying pages by hand and introducing errors. Arabic content, right-to-left layouts, and multilingual URL structures are planned explicitly because they are easy to break.

The redirect plan is written as a spreadsheet you can review: every old URL, its new URL, and the redirect type. We cover old URL patterns as well as individual pages, including query strings, trailing slashes, and uppercase variations that often get missed. Redirects are tested on the staging site before launch.

We also carry across what search engines rely on beyond the URL: page titles, meta descriptions, heading structure, canonical tags, structured data, image alt text, and internal links. A migration is a good moment to improve these, but improvements are made deliberately, not by accident.

For integrations, we begin by mapping the data. Which system is the source of truth for each piece of information, how often it changes, and what should happen when the two systems disagree. We then connect them through the systems' APIs, set up error logging so failures are visible rather than silent, and document how the integration works. Common examples include sending website leads to a CRM with the campaign source attached, pulling property or product listings from an internal system, and syncing bookings with a calendar or scheduling tool.

What you receive is the migrated site on its new platform, the full redirect map, a pre-launch and post-launch crawl comparison, integration documentation, and a check of Search Console over the weeks after launch to catch errors early. We also brief your team on editing in the new CMS.

The pitfalls are where rankings are lost. Launching without redirects, or redirecting everything to the homepage. Forgetting images and PDFs that had their own search traffic. Leaving the staging site blocked from search engines after it becomes the live site. Changing domain, platform, and design all at once, so that nobody can tell which change caused a drop. And migrating content without checking that internal links now point to the new URLs.

Timelines depend on the size of the site and the complexity of the content. A small site can move in a few weeks. Larger sites with thousands of pages, multiple languages, or integrations are planned in phases. After launch, we expect some fluctuation in search visibility for a short period as Google processes the redirects, and we monitor closely until it settles.

Site migrations can be scoped on their own or as part of a website project, with the scope and redirect approach agreed in writing before any work starts.