Migrating from Drupal to WordPress
In this section of the Drupal to WordPress Migration Guide, we'll gain some background understanding about why organisations are moving from Drupal's complex enterprise platform to WordPress's user-friendly system. We'll also explore the risks of migration failure, including traffic drops and cost overruns, along with common mistakes to avoid.
1. Why are Drupal users migrating to WordPress?
Many developers and site owners jumped on the Drupal bandwagon in the early 2000s. At that time it was the only real option for a content management system (CMS). Since then it has transformed into a platform more suited to enterprises, with a steep learning curve, demanding regular performance tuning and expensive hosting.
Additionally, backward compatibility between versions has been a serious problem as major version upgrades essentially meant rebuilding the site from scratch. Rather than spend the resources needed to upgrade, site owners often choose to stay with aging, outdated sites that become prone to attacks.
WordPress: an ideal Drupal alternative
Those who decide to move from their current Drupal version often end up looking to migrate their sites to an different platform.
WordPress is an ideal alternative to Drupal for site maintainers with simpler requirements. It has a smaller footprint; user-friendly interface built-in; lower management overhead; and rich plugin ecosystem. There's also no shortage of WordPress guides to help you on your way and if you need someone to do the work, there are many developers with reasonable rates.
2. Key Challenges and Opportunities in Migration
Stakeholders rightly consider migrations with caution. However, the benefits of transitioning to a more robust and user-friendly platform like WordPress can significantly outweigh any risks.
What can go wrong during a Drupal to WordPress migration?
Many migration guides, tools and services make the process seem so simple. If you can migrate your site from Drupal to WordPress in a few easy steps, how much can really go wrong?
Here's the best way to highlight the answer: run a web search with variants of the keywords site, migration and disaster. See how many results you get back.
From my experience, there are broadly two types of site migration failures: traffic drops and runaway costs. These failures have different results but the effect is the same. Everyone leaves regretting the entire endeavor.
- Traffic drop: Traffic to the new site may plummet after migration. Usually this is due to failing to address the SEO impact of the changes. Sometimes it can be due to visitor dissatisfaction with the new design or overall user experience. The traffic drop may be permanent, destroying online revenue.
- Runaway costs: - The migration process itself ends up blowing away your budgetary estimates. Remember costs can mean both money and employee time. A seemingly cheap solution or improper planning could immerse multiple staff members in never-ending migration misery.
Industry Insights: the Benefits of Choosing WordPress
Here are some insights gleaned from a recent WP Engine webinar about the benefits of migrating from Drupal to WordPress:
- WordPress is Experiencing a Surge in Popularity: WordPress now powers a staggering 43% of all websites and 229,000 of the top 1 million sites by traffic. This widespread adoption means a wider ecosystem of themes, plugins and support resources.
- Cost Considerations: WordPress consistently emerges as the more cost-efficient option in the long run, primarily due to its lower development and maintenance costs. Its intuitive nature empowers marketing teams to manage content more independently, reducing reliance on developers for routine tasks.
- Addressing Security Concerns: While security concerns regarding WordPress were prevalent in the past, the platform has made significant strides in bolstering its security infrastructure. The robust community support, frequent updates, and availability of managed hosting providers with enhanced security measures have allayed many of these concerns.
- Better Support for Growth: Many organisations have successfully navigated the transition from Drupal to WordPress, reaping the benefits of a streamlined workflow, improved content management capabilities, and enhanced marketing agility.
3. Avoiding common site migration mistakes
Site migration failures stem from the same root causes: inadequate planning and unrealistic expectations. This is why I will spend a lot of time talking about planning and understanding what's involved.
This guide will help you avoid these top ten common migration mistakes:
- Poor planning (or not making any migration plans and contingency plans).
- Underestimating the scale and scope of the migration project.
- Bringing in key people too late into the project. (Do you need involvement from migration consultants; SEO consultants; developers; system administrators; testers; content editors; decision makers?)
- Using inexperienced migrators or developers.
- Rushing to launch. Is there a reason for picking that launch date? Is it realistic?
- Allowing excessive scope creep. Try not to tackle too much all at once.
- Failing to understand how the changes will impact your wider business. For example: How will traffic changes affect revenue projections? Will the user experience cause increased support requests? (Users include visitors, editors and maintainers.)
- Poorly communicating what's happening—and why it's happening—to everyone who needs to know.
- Not running pre and post-migration audits and benchmarks.
- Inadequate testing. For example, will that combination of new custom theme and plugins cause a performance drop on the live server?