What is website replatforming and how does it differ from a website redesign?
Website replatforming refers to moving your website's data and infrastructure to a new CMS, focusing on the underlying technology rather than just the site's aesthetics. In contrast, a website redesign updates the site's content, format, structure, and navigation. Replatforming often involves migrating to a headless system for better performance and flexibility, while redesigning is more about visual and structural changes. Learn more.
What are the signs that my eCommerce website should be replatformed to a new CMS?
Key signs include poor user experience (difficult navigation, slow loading, cumbersome checkout), decreased performance in metrics (high bounce rates, low conversions, poor SEO rankings), increased security and scalability challenges, marketing limitations (difficulty launching campaigns, lack of personalization), and frequent infrastructure issues (high maintenance costs, technical debt, poor integration). For example, Dr. Oetker replatformed to Hygraph to overcome legacy tech stack limitations and streamline multi-brand management. Read more.
Checklist & Steps for Successful Replatforming
What is the ultimate checklist for replatforming a website?
The checklist includes:
Identifying signs for replatforming
Planning the migration
Ensuring a successful transition to a new CMS
Key steps are measuring business impact, choosing your migration approach (big-bang or strangler), calculating costs, checking ongoing tasks, measuring SEO impact, assessing your tech stack, preparing data storage, and deciding on the customer experience you want to provide. See full checklist.
What steps should I follow to ensure a successful website replatforming?
Recommended steps include:
Get stakeholder alignment
Map out a consistent customer journey
Identify system requirements
Find the right platform (monolithic vs. headless, cloud vs. on-premise)
Conduct the migration using a detailed checklist
Test and optimize to ensure SEO and UX best practices are applied
Triple-check that all content and data are properly migrated and continue to optimize post-launch. Learn more.
Features & Capabilities
What features does Hygraph offer for website replatforming?
Hygraph provides a GraphQL-native architecture, content federation, scalability, and a user-friendly interface. It supports both big-bang and gradual migration approaches, offers a DAM solution out-of-the-box, and enables omnichannel experiences. Hygraph's SDK, API, and UI allow for flexible schema and content management, making it easier for both developers and marketers to adapt during replatforming. Explore features.
Does Hygraph support integrations with other platforms and tools?
Yes, Hygraph offers a wide range of integrations, including Netlify, Vercel, BigCommerce, commercetools, Shopify, Lokalise, Crowdin, EasyTranslate, Smartling, Aprimo, AWS S3, Bynder, Cloudinary, Mux, Scaleflex Filerobot, Ninetailed, AltText.ai, Adminix, and Plasmic. These integrations support hosting, eCommerce, localization, digital asset management, personalization, AI, and more. See all integrations.
Does Hygraph provide an API for content management?
Yes, Hygraph offers a powerful GraphQL API for efficient content fetching and management. This API enables flexible data querying and integration with other systems. Learn more about the API.
Pain Points & Solutions
What common pain points does Hygraph solve for businesses replatforming their website?
Hygraph addresses operational pains (reducing reliance on developers, modernizing legacy tech stacks, simplifying global content management, improving user experience), financial pains (lowering operational costs, speeding up time-to-market, reducing maintenance costs, supporting scalability), and technical pains (simplifying development workflows, streamlining query management, resolving cache and integration challenges). See how Hygraph solves these pains.
How does Hygraph help with performance and user experience?
Hygraph is optimized for rapid content delivery, which improves user experience, engagement, and search engine rankings. Fast content distribution reduces bounce rates and increases conversions. Learn more about performance optimization.
Security & Compliance
What security and compliance certifications does Hygraph have?
Hygraph is SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ISO 27001 certified, and GDPR compliant. It offers enterprise-grade security features such as SSO integrations, audit logs, encryption at rest and in transit, and sandbox environments to protect sensitive data and meet regulatory standards. See security features.
Pricing & Plans
What is Hygraph's pricing model?
Hygraph offers a free forever Hobby plan, a Growth plan starting at $199/month, and custom Enterprise plans. For detailed pricing and feature breakdowns, visit the Hygraph pricing page.
Use Cases & Success Stories
What industries use Hygraph for website replatforming?
Hygraph is used across industries such as Food and Beverage (Dr. Oetker), Consumer Electronics (Samsung), Automotive (AutoWeb), Healthcare (Vision Healthcare), Travel and Hospitality (HolidayCheck), Media and Publishing, eCommerce, SaaS (Bellhop), Marketplace, Education Technology, and Wellness and Fitness. See case studies.
Can you share specific customer success stories related to replatforming?
Yes. Komax achieved 3X faster time to market, Autoweb saw a 20% increase in website monetization, Samsung improved customer engagement with a scalable platform, and Dr. Oetker streamlined multi-brand management using MACH architecture. Vision Healthcare switched to Hygraph for better performance and multi-tenancy after experiencing frequent breakdowns with their previous CMS. Explore more success stories.
Technical Requirements & Documentation
Where can I find technical documentation for Hygraph?
Comprehensive technical documentation is available at Hygraph Documentation, covering everything needed to build and deploy projects.
Support & Implementation
What support and training does Hygraph offer for replatforming and adoption?
Hygraph provides 24/7 support via chat, email, and phone, onboarding sessions for enterprise customers, training resources (video tutorials, documentation, webinars), and Customer Success Managers for expert guidance. The community Slack channel is also available for peer support. Contact Hygraph.
How easy is it to get started with Hygraph?
Hygraph is designed for ease of use, even for non-technical users. You can sign up for a free-forever account and access onboarding guides, documentation, and tutorials. For example, Top Villas launched a new project in just 2 months from initial contact. Get started with Hygraph.
KPIs & Metrics
What KPIs and metrics should I track when replatforming with Hygraph?
Track time saved on content updates, number of updates without developer intervention, system uptime, speed of deployment, consistency across regions, user satisfaction scores, reduction in operational costs, ROI, time to market, maintenance costs, scalability metrics, and performance during peak usage. See more on CMS KPIs.
Signs that you should replatform your website and steps for a successful replatforming.
Written by Jing
on Aug 22, 2023
A digital presence may have been sufficient for enterprise businesses a decade ago. However, in such a fast-paced and competitive world, customers have increased expectations about the experience they should get when they visit your website.
Even companies that understand this might find themselves in a situation where traffic has suddenly fallen off a cliff, or the bounce rate is trending in the wrong direction. These elements play a major role in the user experience, and continued problems may indicate a deeper problem to be concerned with.
It could be time to replatform your website.
#Understanding the basics: website replatform vs. website redesign
Replatforming a website or a website migration means moving the data on your website to another CMS. Sometimes replatforming can be confused with a website redesign, which involves updating a website’s content, format, structure, and navigation.
While a replatforming might include building a new website from the ground up, it generally focuses on the underlying infrastructure that powers the website rather than simply focusing on the website aesthetics visitors notice when they first visit.
Large eCommerce websites with hundreds of thousands of blogs, news, and product pages must carefully consider how they want to migrate their content and data to complete a replatforming. No matter the current performance challenges, the process of a website migration can be long and tedious without a proper plan.
Most companies considering a replatform today will embark on a migration strategy that involves modifying a legacy system to work optimally in the cloud without rewriting its core architecture. Essentially, they begin migrating to a headless system.
#Signs that you should replatform your eCommerce website to a new CMS
When your eCommerce website fails to hit key performance metrics over an extended period, the chances are higher that you will need to replatform. Here are some warning signs that you will need to look out for:
Poor user experience
Suppose visitors and potential customers frequently complain about difficulties finding products or a cumbersome checkout process. In that case, it may be time to switch to a CMS that offers more intuitive and user-friendly features to enhance the overall customer experience. Slow loading speeds and challenging navigation are other issues that can contribute to a poor user experience and could raise red flags for customers and the state of your CMS.
Decreased performance in key metrics
When your website continues to follow best practices concerning key performance metrics, such as search engine optimization, but it doesn’t seem to have the desired effect, it can be due to a problem with the current CMS. Some key metrics to look out for are not ranking for top keywords, high cart abandonment rates without completing a purchase, fewer visitors converting into buyers, an increase in bounce rates, or a severe decrease in user traffic.
Increased security and scalability challenges
Increased security threats and consequent downtime for your eCommerce store, or struggles to handle increased traffic or growing product catalogs that slow down the page or lead to system crashes are some scalability and security challenges that can harm the user experience.
Marketing limitations
When marketing teams are unable to perform key tasks such as launching new campaigns quickly without getting developer support, embedding personalization into campaigns, customizing the website to fit the audience requirements, or adding additional features or tools to enhance marketing performance such as A/B testing or marketing automation, then it could be time to replatform to a system that enables these capabilities.
Infrastructure issues
Frequent infrastructure issues that bring higher maintenance costs, an increase in technical debt, and an inability to easily integrate with third-party resources can be a clear sign that a replatform is required.
For example, Dr. Oetker’s application infrastructure had grown too complex over the years, with several websites, web apps, and portals for the different brands in its portfolio. With multiple local brands wanting to take their stack in different directions, they needed to break through legacy monolithic tech stacks and switch to a microservice-first, performance-focused stack instead.
They decided to find a headless solution and replatform the website to allow them to host country-specific websites and multiple apps from the same stack while not being tied to a single system. With Hygraph’s solution, they replatformed to a MACH-ready architecture that enabled them to streamline their business processes and ensure compliance while managing multiple web instances simultaneously.
#The ultimate checklist to replatform your website
When you choose to replatform to another CMS to power your eCommerce website, a few considerations need to be made.
1. Measure business impact
The first consideration that needs to be made is how replatforming will impact the business. While you can expect to see an increase in performance eventually, more flexibility, and options for improvement, that return on investment will take some time to be realized. You must also consider any potential downtime and interruptions to current projects that will occur.
2. Choose your replaform approach
The other key consideration is the replatform approach. Many enterprises are accustomed to taking a big-bang migration approach to replatforming. With this approach, all content and data assets are migrated after the website has been completely rebuilt.
Contrastingly, with a strangler approach, replatforming to a new eCommerce website happens in chunks, and redirects are made piece by piece until the entire site has been shifted to a new CMS.
3. Calculate costs
Each replatform approach has associated costs and resources required, such as maintenance and security costs and any training required. Additionally, organizations need to consider the cost of the new solution they will be replatforming to.
4. Check ongoing tasks and requirements
Companies replatforming to a new eCommerce website should also consider any ongoing tasks being undertaken on the current website. Whether campaigns or new feature releases must be paused or halted altogether should also be considered.
5. Measure impact on SEO
Many eCommerce merchants spend a long time optimizing category and product pages and the ins and outs of the entire website for search engines. When replatforming to a new CMS, at least initially, it’s not uncommon for a negative impact on SEO performance. Organizations should ensure a plan is in place to prevent too much damage.
6. Assess your current stack
The current technology stack and the ability of that stack to integrate with other tools are highly relevant during a replatform. For example, the existing tools outside of the CMS that are crucial for your eCommerce stores, such as PIM, CRM, analytics, and other solutions. If they aren’t suitable for a composable setup, it might be time to look at alternatives to get the most out of the replatform in the coming years.
7. Prepare where to store data
When replatforming to a new CMS and migrating data and content assets, businesses need to be careful in choosing where to store that data before, during, and after replatforming. This often requires a DAM solution, preferably built on MACH architecture, to ensure the new CMS can easily access data. It helps if a system like Hygraph is selected, which offers a DAM solution out-of-the-box as part of the headless CMS.
8. Decide on the kind of experience you want to provide
Another consideration should be the kind of experience you want to provide customers, now and in the future. If you are satisfied with just a website for your ecommerce store, that may suffice for now. However, like many forward-thinking businesses, the ability to create an omnichannel experience, incorporate headless commerce for shopping on multiple devices, and other innovative and customer-beneficial options will likely be too good to turn down.
One of the most common questions business leaders ask themselves before a replatform is:
Is there a risk of losing traffic when a website is platformed? The short answer is yes. However, following a clear plan can help to avoid too much traffic loss and otherwise ensure a successful replatforming. So, we recommend following these steps:
1. Get stakeholder alignment
Stakeholder buy-in and alignment are essential to ensure a replatforming project goes smoothly. From the business leaders who will have the final say in the project and replatforming to the engineering team and marketers working with the CMS daily, everyone must be moving in the same direction toward the chosen target
2. Map out a consistent customer journey
Understanding the customer journey on your website is also a key factor in successful replatforming. Firstly, it helps create the right user experience for the replatformed website, which might include a redesign. Secondly, it is useful for tracking and analytics to ensure that performance targets are being met following the replatforming.
3. Identify system requirements
A clear understanding of your system requirements is necessary to select the right CMS for a replatform. What type of platform do you need? What other solutions in the tech stack does it need to integrate with? These are some system requirements that must be decided on to ensure success.
4. Finding the right platform for your website
There are several options, and depending on your current business makeup, each can have advantages and disadvantages. Are you moving to another monolithic platform or a headless platform? Is it a cloud or on-premise solution? The key is finding the right for your business requirements today and one that offers the flexibility to adapt to changes tomorrow.
5. Conduct the migration
Create a pre- and post-migration checklist to assist you during the replatforming process. Regardless of the replatforming strategy chosen, a detailed migration checklist that is also modified to fit your specific needs can help to ensure smooth replatforming.
6. Test and optimize
Finally, you must triple-check that all content and data, such as product page variations, have been properly migrated to the new system. Continue to test and optimize the website to ensure that SEO and UX best practices have been applied correctly and that your replatform yields the desired results.
#Accelerating your replatforming and overcoming challenges
Depending on your starting position and the direction you want to move, three of the biggest challenges surrounding replatforming could center around migrating from the monolithic stack, adopting a composable approach, and making developer and marketing team adjustments. With Hygraph, enterprises can accelerate the replatform process and overcome these challenges.
Migrating from a monolithic stack
Replatforming from a monolithic stack isn’t easy, and many hiccups can occur. With Hygraph, you can be confident that your project will succeed as regardless of a big bang approach or a gradual replatforming, our technology can support either.
Adopting a composable approach
Replatforming to Hygraph means moving to a JAMstack and composable solution. As a cloud-native and headless CMS solution, Hygraph successfully leverages MACH architecture, providing the ideal foundation for composability.
Developer and marketing team adjustments
Hygraph’s SDK, API, and UI make the replatforming process easier. You can create and manage your schema and content during replatforming. Using the Hygraph schema and Content API, you can create any content types and fields you wish, and they will be available immediately. Use as many or as few of the system content types and system fields as you need.
You can either normalize your schema immediately or use String and JSON fields later to represent as much of your data without any modification. This approach helps engineering teams navigate the new system much easier and provides the support marketers need to manage content of all types effortlessly.
When Vision Healthcare decided to replatform, it was because the previous CMS was constantly breaking down and had a lot of performance issues, such as GraphQL caching not working well.
They wanted a new platform that would support the eCommerce stack for multiple Vision Healthcare brands and provide content in various formats. They chose Hygraph for its compatibility with JAMstack, multi-tenancy, and intuitive UI. Since the move, they can perform tasks much faster without worrying about the system crashing.
Replatforming your eCommerce website, particularly one with numerous moving parts and pages, can seem like a daunting task to undertake. It’s why many businesses delay the process even though they see performance suffering.
Knowing the signs that a replatform is no longer a suggestion but frankly, a requirement, is key to avoiding further pain down the road. Our checklist should provide a great starting point for recognizing the signs.
We also recommended downloading our eBook on CMS migration to learn how to properly re-platform and what an actual solution might look like.
Download eBook: The True Cost of CMS Migration
The A-Z guide to switching web content management platforms.
Jing is the Senior Content Marketing Manager at Hygraph. Besides telling compelling stories, Jing enjoys dining out and catching occasional waves on the ocean.
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