How to Plan Your Magento Migration

E-commerce platforms have given businesses countless opportunities to sell their products and services online. Magento is one of them, which runs over 270,000 stores. Since its first release, the software has successfully grown into a robust platform thanks to its speedy updates, security patches, and fixes. Now, Magento has beefed up its technology with Magento 2 — the platform’s newest generation.

Magento 2 first rolled out in November 2015, with many online stores flocking to the platform since its release. The platform features notable enhancements to its framework, specifically in areas like security, usability, and performance.

With Magento 2 offering a better experience than Magento 1, upgrading is much more important now. Magento 1 support ended on June 30, 2020, which means that retailers won’t get new updates or security patches for the platform. If you’re considering moving from Magento 1 to Magento 2, here’s how you can prepare for migration.

Why Should You Migrate to Magento 2?

First off, Magento 2 gives small and big retailers a new and scalable system, with unparalleled flexibility and customization. The platform’s servers are also much quicker at fulfilling requests, leading to more orders processed per hour. In turn, customers can shop stress-free.

Magento 2 gives you many new features, as well. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• An improved panel for site administrators
• A better front-end design
• Extra native features
• Better B2B functionality

And along with server responsiveness, Magento 2 has improved software speed and performance. These improvements make Magento 2 stores 20% quicker than Magento 1 websites.

Security is worth considering, too. Like we’ve mentioned, Adobe won’t be releasing new security patches for Magento 1. Sticking to Magento 1 means that you’re exposing your customer data to vulnerabilities like security breaches.

Lastly, your business will be less competitive when it stays on Magento 1. Magento 2 offers newer features that can help you keep up with (and surpass) your competitors.

At this point, you might have your sights set on a Magento 2 migration. But before migrating, it’s important to understand the platform’s technical features. Creating a strategy isn’t enough to switch platforms — you’ll need to know your way around Magento 2.

This all starts by carefully assessing Magento 2’s architecture. After all, Magento 2’s platform has a different architecture than its predecessor. You and your website’s developers can make sure that everything is integrated when you know Magento 2’s framework and system. Sticking to this approach applies to building the website and migrating its data.

Assessing Your Business Needs

Beyond a meticulous look at the Magento 2 framework, assessing your business is also paramount. As yourself these questions as you get ready to migrate:

• What’s your current business profile?
• Does it cater to B2B, B2C or both?
• What are you planning to do in the next few years?
• Can you still work with your current requirements or do you need a more flexible platform?
• What opportunities can you uncover by upgrading your technology?
• How big should your platform be to achieve your goals?
• Are you looking to expand your business and grow your customer base?
• Will you create a new product or offer new services?
• Is your business using a system like customer relationship management (CRM), or enterprise resource planning (ERP)?
• What other resources are linked to your IT landscape?
• Is your IT department flexible enough to manage the migration process?
• How well-versed is your team in your current system?
• How much does your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) cost for your digital presence?
• How much is your digital ROI?

Creating Your Migration Plan

Once you’ve taken a closer look at your business needs, it’s time to plan your Magento migration. Here’s how you can prepare for the switch.

Define Your Store’s Requirements

Start by defining what your store’s requirements are. With a well-defined list, you can ensure a smoother transition to Magento 2.

Prioritize user expectations and don’t forget to incorporate them in your migration plan. More importantly, you should consider the following requirements:

• Hosting options
• Integrations
• Metrics and KPIs 
• Timeline and key dates
• Partnerships and third parties

Review Your Magento 1 Store

Getting your business ready for Magento 2 migration also involves assessing your Magento 1 website. Ask yourself these questions:

• What extensions are you currently using?
• Will your Magento 2 site require the same extensions?
• Are your essential extensions available for Magento 2?
• Do your extensions have database assets that you’ll need to migrate to your Magento 2 store?

Assess Your Store’s Technical SEO

When it comes to Magento migration, concerns over low traffic are a common problem. To avoid this, make sure you assess your site’s technical SEO. Here’s how:

Go Over Google Analytics Data

• Open Google Analytics, then set your date range to cover the last six months.
• Click the Behavior section on the right-hand panel.
• Select Site Content, then click the Landing Pages option. It’ll let you see your data as a landing page.
• Once the Landing Pages report loads, take note of the URLs that give you traffic.

Analyze Google Search Console Data

• SEO data analysis using the Google Search Console (GSC) starts with checking for high-performing keywords. Head to the Performance section on the GSC side panel, then click “Search results.” You can easily see what your high-performing keywords are on the results page.
• You’ll also need to fix your store’s 404 errors. Navigate to GSC’s Index section, then select “Coverage.” If your site is returning 404 errors, you’ll need to get them fixed before your migration.

Other Technical SEO Elements to Watch Out For

• Don’t forget your robots.txt file, too. Include “/robots.txt” after your homepage URL to access the file. Make sure you haven’t unblocked JavaScript or media files.
• Looking at your sitemap is also important. Type “/sitemap.xml” after your homepage URL, then see if your website has a complete sitemap.
• Check your website’s canonical tags. These tags are important because they make sure that you’re passing on link juice for duplicate pages. You can find a webpage’s canonical tag by viewing its page source.
• Don’t modify your meta tags while migrating. Your SERP performance could take a hit if you do.

All of these tasks are essential to your SEO migration plan and they help ensure a hassle-free switch to Magento 2.

Plan Your Capacity

Your Magento store’s capacity all boils down to more hardware or a more advanced platform. That said, make the most out of this phase in your Magento 2 migration plan by considering whether you’re in need of any critical adjustments.

Develop User Stories

A “user story” reflects a user’s specific goal. In the case of your online store, that goal would be to get customers to buy your products. If your migration requirements have already been defined, build your user stories around them. You can ask for help from your project manager and business analyst.

For multiple user stories, you can create a user story map to help you meet major platform requirements. Furthermore, user story maps help keep everyone in the know about your Magento 2 migration since they cover teams and operations. 

Make Your New Magento Site Migration-Ready

The best part comes after figuring out what your Magento 2 site needs: preparing for migration. At this point, you’ll need to build your E-commerce website and get the Magento 2 software.

• Use your Magento 1 store’s topology and design for your Magento 2 hardware.
• Install Magento 2’s current version and its Data Migration Tool on a compatible system.
• Customize the Data Migration Tool code to fit your needs during the migration.

Test, Test, Test

Magento recommends performing your migration during the testing phase. Here’s how you can test your migration process:

1. Copy your current Magento site to your staging server.
2. Perform a complete Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration.
3. Perform meticulous tests on your Magento 2 website.

Move Your Data Over to Magento 2

Is your new store ready to go? Follow the steps below to start your Magento 2 migration.

1. Check if the Data Migration Tool can connect to Magento 1 and 2 databases.
2. Don’t run activities in the Magento 1 Admin Panel. However, you can continue running your Magento 1 store’s order management function during the migration process.
3. Don’t run Magento 1.x cron jobs.
4. Transfer your settings and store through the Data Migration Tool.
5. Copy your Magento 1 media files to the Magento 2 media directory.
6. Copy multiple files to Magento 2 through the Data Migration Tool.
7. Reindex all Magento 2.x indexers.

Change Your Data & Transfer Your Updates

• If you’re modifying some essential pieces of data, proceed with caution. You could run into errors if you’re not careful.
• Use Delta mode if you’re migrating incremental data updates.
• Test your Magento 2 store for any problems while transferring updates. Refrain from migrating data with the Ctrl+C command if you run into a bug.

Get Ready for Site Launch

After migrating your online store and updating its data, your store is ready to go live. Follow these steps:

1. Activate Magento 1’s maintenance mode.
2. Stop updating your incremental data by hitting Ctrl+C.
3. Run your Magento 2 software’s cron jobs.
4. Perform reindexing on the Magento 2 stock reindexer.
5. Cache your store’s pages with your tool of choice.
6. Perform final site validations for your Magento 2 site.
7. Modify your DNS, load balancers, and other settings so that they point to your new production hardware.
8. Your Magento site is now ready to use! 

Make the Switch to Magento 2 Today

Migrating to Magento 2 can be challenging. But with a robust Magento migration plan, you can leap over these hurdles and give your online store a competitive advantage. That said, working with Magento web development experts will help you get your site ready for migration, and eventually, growth.

Hit your targets and drive your sales up. Start your Magento 2 migration with Growth Rocket today.