Founder of Goodspeed
Migrating your website to Framer unlocks a modern, high-performance design experience—but the fear of losing traffic, data, or SEO rankings can make the transition feel overwhelming.
A poorly planned migration can disrupt search visibility, break links, and result in up to 80% organic traffic loss. However, with a structured approach, you can move your content seamlessly while preserving SEO, maintaining user experience, and safeguarding critical data.
This guide walks you through the best practices for Framer content migration, covering everything from pre-migration planning to post-launch optimisation.
By following these expert-backed strategies, you can ensure a smooth transition, protect your search rankings, and maintain website performance—without the headaches of broken pages or missing content.
Planning for a Smooth Transition: Your Pre-Migration Roadmap
The key to a seamless migration lies in meticulous preparation. Before making any changes, you need to map out your content, back up essential data, and assess your current SEO standing.
Content Audit: Know What You’re Moving
A comprehensive content audit is your first line of defence against missing pages, broken links, or lost media files. Overlooking this step can lead to gaps in user experience and a decline in search rankings.
Action Steps:
Generate a full sitemap using tools like Screaming Frog or Google Search Console to account for every page and media asset.
Categorise content into high-priority pages (SEO-performing articles, landing pages, product pages) and low-priority assets that may not need migration.
Identify outdated or duplicate content that could be consolidated or removed.
A content-heavy site like an online publication may have hundreds of archived blog posts. Instead of migrating everything, prioritising high-traffic, high-ranking pages ensures the new site remains lean and efficient.
Backup Strategies: Guarding Your Data
A reliable backup system prevents irreversible data loss and ensures you can revert to a previous version if anything goes wrong during migration.
Best Practices:
Perform a full database export, including pages, images, PDFs, and structured data.
Store multiple copies in secure cloud storage and offline backups.
Set up incremental backups before each major migration phase.
When Formula Bot migrated its website, a detailed backup strategy from Goodspeed allowed it to maintain 100% data integrity while improving load speed by 75% after moving to Framer.
SEO Checkup: Baseline Rankings & Keywords
A pre-migration SEO audit is essential to track performance changes and ensure your Framer site retains its search visibility. A detailed Framer migration strategy includes mapping old URLs, preserving metadata, and monitoring traffic shifts.
Steps to Preserve SEO Integrity:
Document high-ranking pages, organic traffic sources, and inbound links before migration.
Identify target keywords driving the most traffic and ensure they remain prioritised in the new site structure.
Benchmark Google Search Console metrics to measure post-migration performance accurately.
Did You Know? A poorly executed migration can cause search rankings to drop by up to 30% in the first month. However, businesses that map their SEO elements properly experience minimal disruption and faster recovery.
Building a Secure Foundation: Staging, Testing, and Timelines
Migrating straight to a live site is a recipe for disaster. A staging environment allows you to test layouts, verify content accuracy, and catch potential issues before going live.
Setting Up a Staging Environment
Using a staging environment ensures a risk-free Framer site migration, allowing you to test links, formatting, and performance before going live.
Benefits:
Allows teams to preview content, design consistency, and performance metrics.
Enables SEO specialists to verify metadata, redirects, and structured data before deployment.
Provides a space for feedback from marketing teams, content managers, and stakeholders.
Before launching your Framer site, ensure your staging environment reflects your brand’s look and functionality.
If you’re working with a Framer template, knowing how to customise it for your specific needs is essential to avoid design inconsistencies later. Read our guide to learn more about Customising Your Framer Template.
Creating a Realistic Migration Timeline
Rushing a migration leads to broken pages, incomplete data transfers, and SEO setbacks. A structured timeline minimises downtime and ensures a smooth rollout.
Key Considerations:
Choose a low-traffic period (e.g., weekends) to reduce the impact on users.
Allocate buffer time for last-minute adjustments and troubleshooting.
Plan for a phased migration if dealing with a large website with thousands of pages.
The Nations, a leading music network, achieved a 100% increase in artist submissions post-migration with Goospeed’s strategic timing of their transition and optimisation of their new Framer site.
Spot-Checking with Beta Users
Before launch, real-world testing ensures your site is fully functional, user-friendly, and SEO-optimised.
Action Steps:
Invite a small group of users (internal team, loyal customers) to explore the new Framer site.
Ask them to report any missing links, formatting issues, or navigation problems.
Use this feedback to make last-minute refinements before going live.
Pro Tip: If you’re switching from a legacy platform to Framer, check internal links carefully—incorrect links to old site pages can cause 404 errors and disrupt user experience.
Safeguarding SEO & Traffic: From Redirects to Metadata
Even with a well-planned migration, a single misstep—such as missing redirects or unoptimised metadata—can harm your site’s search rankings and organic traffic. A structured SEO strategy ensures that your Framer migration preserves visibility, prevents ranking drops, and maintains a smooth user experience.
Mapping Old URLs to New
Broken links and incorrect URL structures can lead to traffic loss, crawl errors, and a drop in rankings. A 301 redirect strategy helps search engines and users find the correct pages post-migration.
Best Practices for Redirect Mapping:
Identify all existing URLs and map them to their new locations using a redirect spreadsheet.
Set up 301 redirects for all changed or removed URLs to pass SEO value to new pages.
Don’t forget media files—missing image or PDF redirects can break embedded content on third-party sites.
For example, if your contact page URL changes from /contact-us to /get-in-touch, setting a 301 redirect ensures users and search engines land on the correct page instead of encountering a 404 error.
Preserving On-Page SEO Elements
Transferring content isn’t just about copying text—it’s about preserving critical metadata that supports search rankings.
Checklist for SEO Integrity:
Title tags & meta descriptions: Ensure they match or improve upon the old site.
Alt text for images: Helps with accessibility and image search rankings.
Canonical tags: Prevents duplicate content issues when consolidating pages.
Schema markup: If your old site used structured data (e.g., for rich snippets), reimplement it in Framer.
Goodspeed helped Aurem Financial Services launch its website with fully optimised metadata, securing the #1 position on Google and doubling lead generation post-launch.
Common SEO Pitfalls & Quick Fixes
Pitfall | Impact | Quick Fix |
|---|---|---|
Broken Links | Hurts user experience & | Use a link checker tool & 301 |
Missing Meta Tags | Decreased click-through | Reassign correct titles & meta |
Duplicate Content | Confuses search engines, | Merge/redirect duplicate pages; |
Unoptimised Images | Slower load speed, ranking | Compress & add proper alt text |
Keeping Content Integrity: Ensuring Nothing Falls Through the Cracks
Beyond technical SEO, content structure and internal linking play a major role in user experience and site navigation. Failing to maintain content integrity can lead to orphaned pages, missing assets, and poor readability.
Formatting & Media Verification
Content that looks great on your old site may not transfer seamlessly to Framer. Formatting inconsistencies and missing media files can make your new site feel unprofessional.
Action Steps for Content Accuracy:
Perform a post-migration "visual sweep" to check headers, fonts, spacing, and multimedia.
Use Framer’s live preview mode to ensure layouts and formatting align with brand guidelines.
Check if all assets are accessible, like embedded videos, PDFs, and downloadable assets.
After migration, it’s crucial to check if your images, fonts, and page elements are loading efficiently. A slow site not only frustrates visitors but also affects SEO rankings.
If you’re using a Framer template, follow these performance optimisation techniques to ensure your pages load quickly and deliver a seamless experience.
Maintaining an Internal Linking Structure
Internal links create a logical site structure and help search engines understand content relationships. If links break or become outdated post-migration, they can hurt rankings and navigation.
Tips for Internal Linking Preservation:
Use relative links instead of absolute URLs to prevent site structure mismatches.
Create a linking map before migration to ensure high-priority pages are correctly interlinked.
Update old blog posts with new URLs to maintain content connectivity.
Post-Migration Content Review
Even after rigorous testing, final content checks are necessary before launch. A well-structured content QA process ensures every element is intact.
Team-Based QA Checklist:
Designers: Verify fonts, colour schemes, and image placement.
SEO Specialists: Recheck metadata, links, and canonical tags.
Marketers: Confirm CTA placements and conversion elements.
Post-Launch Playbook: Monitoring, Optimising, and Maintaining
Your Framer migration doesn’t end once your site goes live. After you migrate to Framer, continuous monitoring is key to maintaining your SEO rankings and site health.
Checking Analytics & Search Console
Once your new Framer site is live, Google Search Console and analytics tools become your best friends. These tools help detect indexing issues, traffic drops, and broken pages that might have been overlooked during migration.
Key Metrics to Monitor:
404 errors: Identify and fix pages that weren’t properly redirected.
Traffic trends: Track visitor fluctuations to ensure SEO recovery.
Bounce rates: A sudden increase may indicate UX issues or slow loading times.
Indexing status: Ensure search engines are properly crawling your new Framer site.
Incremental Updates & Edits
Your website migration is not a one-and-done task. The first few weeks are critical for refining layout, navigation, and conversion elements based on user feedback.
Key Post-Migration Refinements:
Adjust CTA placements for better conversions.
Fix formatting inconsistencies from imported content.
Optimise newly created landing pages based on performance data.
Pro Tip: Framer’s intuitive CMS allows for quick, code-free updates, making it easy to implement changes on the go. For more insights on content management, check out How Framer’s Built-In CMS Simplifies Content Management Post-Migration.
Celebrating Milestones & Next Steps
A successful website migration deserves recognition. Engaging your audience with an announcement, blog post, or case study builds credibility and strengthens your brand presence.
Ideas for Post-Migration Engagement:
Publish a “We’ve Moved to Framer” blog post outlining new features and improvements.
Share before-and-after visuals on social media.
Reach out to customers with a relaunch email highlighting the enhanced user experience.
Quick Q&A for Peace of Mind
A website migration can feel overwhelming, but with the right approach, it’s a smooth and manageable process. Here are answers to some of the most common concerns.
Will my SEO rankings drop immediately after migrating to Framer?
A slight fluctuation is normal, but proper redirects, metadata preservation, and structured data implementation minimise the impact.
Can I revert if something breaks post-launch?
Yes, if you follow backup best practices, you can restore your previous version or fix broken elements without major downtime.
How do I handle big sites with thousands of pages?
Use migration automation tools like Screaming Frog and Google Search Console crawlers to maintain structure.
Is it easy to maintain content in Framer long-term?
Absolutely! Framer’s CMS allows for quick content edits and updates without developer intervention, ensuring long-term flexibility.
Conclusion
When you switch to Framer, following best practices will ensure a seamless transition with no traffic loss.
By following the best practices for Framer content migration, you can:
Protect your SEO rankings and organic traffic
Preserve all content, media, and site architecture
Ensure a seamless user experience with no broken links
With the right tools, team collaboration, and expert-backed migration strategy, your new Framer site will not only match the performance of your old one—it will exceed it.
Ensure a safe migration—book a free consultation to discuss best practices.
Written By
Harish Malhi
Founder of Goodspeed
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