Tutorials

When transitioning from another web host onto Ekklesia 360, a carefully planned list of your original content and it's desired place on your new site will help you save time and energy once your launch date comes around.

To help you with that list, here are our most frequently addressed topics when it comes to moving content from an existing site to Ekklesia 360.

Redirecting domains

If your site's domain name will be changing along with the new launch, don't give up the registration of the old name just yet. Plan to keep it registered for another year after the redesign launches, and let our team know about it. We'll make sure that anyone attempting to visit the old domain will be redirected to the new domain.

Quick Tip: Keep your old url for the next year and let us redirect it for you.

Redirecting key pages

Let's say you have a few very popular pages on your site you know your visitors are bookmarking. Maybe it's a landing page for the latest Bible study, a small group's activities calendar, or a frequently updated news bulletin. Though your site's navigation tree will likely be changing significantly, it's still possible to make sure those old links are still valid. Make a list of significant pages and their original URLs, and our team will redirect them to their new version if there is an equivalent page. To be exact, a "301" redirect can be used to tell search engines that the old URL has changed permanently and probably won't ever be used again. With this technique, your search rankings will be preserved for those pages.

Quick Tip: Make a list of popular page URLs on your current site and have them redirected to their new pages on the new site.

Importing page text

If you'd like to import large amounts of page or blog text from another site, our team will be glad to review your data and provide an estimate for an import. You can send us a copy of the data in CSV, XML, or TXT format. Or, if you have a folder of individual documents, our team can help create pages from those.

Quick Tip: Ask us about content migration options.

Transitioning podcasts

If your podcast's audio or video files are stored on your website, we can help transfer those to ensure you can pick up your podcast where you left off without losing any subscribers.

Quick Tip: Let us help transfer podcast media to avoid lost subscribers.

Moving media files

If you're planning to re-use HTML from some of your original pages, images, PDF documents, and other files may appear broken if those aren't moved over as well. Though our cloud media storage solution has a unique URL format for media files, we can make sure your media files are linked up again.

Quick Tip: Re-link or redirect media URLs when using old HTML content for new pages.

Checking your work

Especially with large sites, it's helpful to take advantage of a few online tools to catch problems with pages that may have broken links or other problems. Tools like Fetch as Google, Bing Webmaster Tools, and the W3C Link Checker can help you find and clean up any remaining problems after launch.

As you can see, moving your website isn't as scary at it might initially appear. If you're interested in learning more or ready to get started on your new website project, contact us today to get started.