Preservation Tree Migration
With both Smack Happy and SavATree websites running on WP Engine servers, we were able to easily launch the Preservation Tree website (including over 1,000 permalinks with very specific structures) within 2 months. Since the site was set up as a transferrable install, we provided Merrick with a transfer code and he took care of the rest.
After launch we thought long and hard about how we could find more rock star clients like Merrick, only to realize it cannot be done. He’s one of a kind! Our hope is that our work on this migration will not only have helped him and the team at SavATree improve their workflow, but will also trickle down to support the people and business of Preservation Tree in turn.
The Goal
As a growing and thriving business, SavATree acquires other lawn care businesses and occasionally needs help transferring the websites of these businesses over to WordPress without losing current SEO value. Merrick Lee, Digital Marketing Manager, and Web & App Developer at SavATree reached out to us through our mutual friends over at WP Engine. For our project, we supported Merrick in the migration of one of their recent acquisitions, Preservation Tree.
The Solution
For this migration project, we took a slightly different approach than the usual custom website project process. It was really important to our client, and their client, to keep SEO rankings intact if not improve them. While we didn’t implement any specific strategy, we wanted to make sure we set them up with a solid foundation.
To begin, we ran analytical reports to capture the overall technical state of the website on and off-site. In addition to establishing our initial benchmarks, we performed extensive pre-migration browser testing to get a good idea of any low-hanging fruit fixes as well as potential problem areas we could improve.
After our deep dive into the data, we reviewed the overall setup of the website (running on Craft CMS) to determine the method by which we could move content and files as seamlessly as possible to set up the CPTs (custom post types). After adding the new staging set up in WordPress using the Beaver Builder Page Builder, we continued to build out the header, footer, theme, and overall common modules.
Luckily, our devs are sharp and had some veteran tricks up their sleeves for crawling the site to move the content and metadata from site to site for a true 1:1 migration. Ahead of migrating, we added archives, single pages, media, posts, and any other content needed to make the site complete.
Before launch, we tested forms and performed a second set of extensive browser tests to ensure we improved responsiveness and overall consistency.
The Result
With both Smack Happy and SavATree websites running on WP Engine servers, we were able to easily launch the Preservation Tree website (including over 1,000 permalinks with very specific structures) within 2 months. Since the site was set up as a transferrable install, we provided Merrick with a transfer code and he took care of the rest.
After launch we thought long and hard about how we could find more rock star clients like Merrick, only to realize it cannot be done. He’s one of a kind! Our hope is that our work on this migration will not only have helped him and the team at SavATree improve their workflow, but will also trickle down to support the people and business of Preservation Tree in turn.
Overall Improvements:
- clean CMS setup on WordPress with improved functionality
- mobile responsiveness
- consistency in font, font size, and color
- added linked telephone numbers
- image optimization
- added SEO capabilities and metadata via Rank Math
- updated post comments section from Disqus to WP Comments
- updated external forms to Formidable Pro
- custom login form and screen
- improved permalink & breadcrumb structure
From The Client
This is one of the best teams we’ve hired in recent years. They are all all-stars and it showed. The whole process from beginning to end was pain-less and effective. I still can’t believe how well of a job they did in such a short time frame. Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Hear Merrick talk about what it’s like to work with Smack Happy.
