Are you transitioning from Adobe Business Catalyst to WordPress? Here is your check-list!

Are you an Adobe Business Catalyst user? If yes, you must have heard the bad news!

Yes, Adobe Business Catalyst that was launched back in 2008, has decided to wrap up its operations by March 2021. So if you have been relying on this platform, you need to find an alternative now. The good news is that you have a way better option than Adobe Business Catalyst available: WordPress!

Blessing in disguise, no?

However, we do realise that transitions are never smooth. They are almost always disturbing, and at times even upsetting. Transitions come along with a lot of uncertainty.

Do you wish to make your transition from Adobe Business Catalyst to WordPress smooth?

Business catalyst to WordPress migration

Here is your check-list to do so –

Page Migration

  • Before starting the transition process, you need to ensure a few essential things. Firstly, make sure that content is valid HTML or plain text. If not, you need to remove the unnecessary codes.
  • Now, the important step is to find a theme or a developer who can transition the look and feel of your existing Business catalyst website to WordPress. If you don’t have experience with the WordPress platform, the best way is to hire a local WordPress expert.
  • Then try to differentiate the environment of WordPress from the environment of Adobe Business Catalyst. Once done, put all the hyperlinks on the relative paths of WordPress.
  • Download all your media from Adobe Business Catalyst and import them to the WordPress media library. Also, do not forget to update the relative paths.
  • Decide on a featured image for each page. Carefully download and import these images!
  • Carefully establish parent/child hierarchies.
  • You also need to see which URLs have changed and generated redirects for them.
  • Keep the same SEO titles and descriptions.
  • You also need to keep the same SEO schema within the HTML elements.

Post Migration

  • Make sure that the content is clean. If not, clean the data, scan it for extraneous codes, and then if found, remove any and every such code.
  • Make the right categories names and hierarchies.
  • For subscribed authors, create their accounts in WordPress and link them to the relevant posts.
  • To make sure that posts are archived systematically, sync post dates and time with that of Adobe Business Catalyst.
  • Choose correct publish status for all the posts such as draft, private, published, etc.
  • Try to differentiate the environment of WordPress from the environment of Adobe Business Catalyst. Once done, put all the hyperlinks on the relative paths of WordPress.
  • Download all your media from Adobe Business Catalyst and import them to the WordPress media library. Also, do not forget to update the relevant paths.
  • Decide on a featured image for each page. Carefully download and import these images!
  • You also need to see which URLs have changed and generated redirects for them.
  • Keep the same SEO titles and descriptions.
  • You also need to keep the same SEO schema within the HTML elements.

Why wordpress is better than Adobe Business Catalyst?

Product Migration

  • Make sure that the product description is valid HTML. After that, clean the data, scan it for extraneous codes, and then if found, remove any and every such code.
  • Mention all product categories such as dimensions, weight, price, stock, etc.
  • Update up-sell and cross-sell products.
  • Keep a record of all product variations and adjust prices where necessary.
  • Develop and allot categories.
  • Download all your media from Adobe Business Catalyst and import them to the WordPress media library. Also, do not forget to update the relevant paths.
  • Decide on a featured image for each page. Carefully download and import these images! Carefully establish parent/child hierarchies.
  • You also need to see which URLs have changed and generated redirects for them.
  • Keep the same SEO titles and descriptions.
  • You also need to keep the same SEO schema within the HTML elements.

Customers and Secure Zones Migration

  • When a business decides to migrate from Adobe Business Catalyst to WordPress, it cannot successfully do so without making its customers migrate too. Hence, you should help your customers migrate to WordPress users.
  • If your customers are linked to secure zones, create equitable WordPress roles for them.
  • Make use of a plugin like Restrict Content Pro to make the security of secure zone content more stringent and permit only specific WordPress users to access it.
  • Generate registration and login details for all types of secure zone users, new as well as old.

Web Apps Migration

It is comparatively easier to migrate to other aspects. However, when it comes to web apps, migrating them isn’t easy at all. Migrating these require custom functionality which is not readily available otherwise. This is because Adobe Business Catalyst comes along with an in-built web app, whereas WordPress does not have one and can only acquire this functionality through custom post types.

You can create custom web apps by following these steps:

  • Create FAQ in WordPress, which is a custom post type (CPT).
  • Develop taxonomies that were previously available on Adobe Business Catalyst.
  • Once these things have been done, migration of other things can be done smoothly.

Conclusion

Businesses often dread transitions, either it is financial or technological. Mostly because changes bring along a lot of uncertainty and disruption.

We cannot say much about another sort of transition. Still, if while transitioning from Adobe Business Catalyst to WordPress, you follow the check-list given above, you can easily make this transition smooth and trouble-less.

However, we do realize that even following this check-list is no easy task. One needs to put in a lot of time and effort to adhere to this check-list. Hence, businesses who want to focus on their core-business practices might not be able to follow this check-list

That is not an issue at all!

We, at Nirmal, can make your transition from Adobe Business Catalyst to WordPress smooth. You can hand-over this process to us, and we will take good care of it.

CONTACT US TODAY and get rid of your transition anxiety and worries!