The Setup
SavATree acquires lawn care businesses and occasionally needs to bring those websites into WordPress without losing the SEO value they’ve built. Merrick Lee, Digital Marketing Manager and Web & App Developer at SavATree, reached out through a mutual connection at WP Engine. The project was migrating one of their recent acquisitions, Preservation Tree, from Craft CMS to WordPress.
The Problem
This wasn’t a redesign. The site needed to move platforms without losing rankings, breaking over 1,000 permalinks with very specific structures, or disrupting the business that depended on it. The existing CMS couldn’t scale with SavATree’s portfolio, but anything lost in translation during the move would directly impact Preservation Tree’s visibility and lead flow.
Our Approach
We started with analytical reports to benchmark the site’s technical health on and off-site, then ran extensive pre-migration browser testing to flag low-hanging fixes and potential problem areas. From there, we reviewed the full Craft CMS setup to map the cleanest path for moving content and files into WordPress custom post types. We built the new environment in WordPress using Beaver Builder, setting up the header, footer, theme, and shared modules. Our dev team crawled the site to migrate content and metadata for a true 1:1 transfer, then built out archives, single pages, media, posts, and remaining content. Before launch, we tested forms and ran a second round of browser testing to confirm responsiveness and consistency across the board. The finished site was set up as a transferrable install so Merrick’s team could take ownership cleanly.
The Outcome
The site launched within two months, all 1,000-plus permalinks intact. Preservation Tree moved from a limited CMS to a clean WordPress environment with improved mobile responsiveness, consistent typography and color, optimized images, proper metadata through Rank Math, updated forms via Formidable Pro, improved breadcrumb and permalink structure, and a custom login experience. Merrick received a transfer code and handled the rest on his end. The site was no longer a migration liability. It was a working asset his team could manage and build on.
In Their Words
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 painless 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!
Merrick L.
