HubSpot is a growing CMS that offers you a lot of benefits over other CMSs like WordPress. One of the key reasons brands prefer using HubSpot CMS is that it offers a lot of features. You don’t have to buy additional plugins for SEO, content calendar, mobile optimization, email marketing, etc. With HubSpot, you get a complete, ready-to-use CMS that requires no additional plugins or tools.
If your brand is more into marketing, HubSpot CMS suits you because it is geared towards marketing and sales. You'll be able to use marketing, CRM, and sales tools by HubSpot seamlessly with its CMS. It simplifies marketing and saves a lot of resources (including time) by making everything available to brands at a single place.
The number one reason you should migrate your website to HubSpot is that it is an end-to-end platform that provides you everything you need to create, manage, and market your brand. You don’t have to use plugins (e.g., WordPress plugins), you don’t need additional tools (e.g., email marketing tools), you don’t need a separate CRM tool, and it has a drag-and-drop page builder that lets you create professional landing pages with a few clicks.
These, and several other, features make HubSpot CMS an ideal choice of leading brands.
If you have decided to switch to HubSpot CMS from WordPress or Squarespace, this detailed guide will show you how to successfully migrate your existing WordPress or Squarespace website or blog to HubSpot CMS.
Let’s get to the nitty-gritty.
Migrating to HubSpot CMS: Things to Consider
When you move your website from WordPress or Squarespace to HubSpot, a lot of things will change as the way HubSpot CMS works is quite different. Before you get started, make a note of the following things:
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The plugins you are using on WordPress don’t migrate over to HubSpot, so any data that you have with those plugins will not move to your new CMS. HubSpot offers you alternatives with better built-in features such as marketing, SEO, CRM, email, and more.
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Your on-page SEO data from the SEO plugin (e.g., Yoast or RankMath) won’t migrate to HubSpot either. But that won’t be an issue as HubSpot has its own built-in on-page SEO tool.
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HubSpot only has tags. If you are using both categories and tags for organization, these two will merge as HubSpot tags.
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HubSpot has a powerful CTA tool that makes your CTAs stand out from the crowd. Custom codes created in WordPress for CTAs don’t migrate; rather, you'll have to optimize CTAs in HubSpot.
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The subdomains are only available with HubSpot Enterprise, so if you want to add subdomains, you'll need to switch to the Enterprise plan. However, it won’t be necessary unless you have a gigantic website with several subdomains.
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HubSpot has an analytics tool that helps you better understand your target audience and its behavior. If you want, you can use Google Analytics, tag manager, and remarketing tags along with HubSpot’s analytics tool.
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HubSpot Enterprise offers additional features such as CDN, reverse proxy, dedicated hosting, and more.
When migrating from any other CMS to HubSpot CMS, these changes need to be understood as it impacts your website’s functionality. The migration works for WordPress’s default features only. Anything additional (that you have added or customized via plugins or custom codes) won’t be migrated.
Migration Process
Migrating your existing blog or website from WordPress or Squarespace to HubSpot CMS requires you to import blog posts and pages via the XML file. There are three initial things that you need to do before proceeding with the migration process:
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Set up your HubSpot CMS template. You'll find multiple templates in your HubSpot account. Pick one that you like and customize it.
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Export data from your existing CMS in an XML file. The file must contain the title, post, URL, author, data, tags, categories, meta description, featured image, and comments.
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Import blog posts to HubSpot CMS. Follow this guide for instructions.
Importing content from your old CMS to HubSpot isn’t enough. You need to review the imported blog posts before pushing it live.
Here is an overview of the important things that you must review:
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Post content, featured image, and formatting. Make sure posts and content look as expected.
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Add HubSpot CTAs by replacing links.
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Optimize posts with HubSpot’s built-in SEO tool.
It can turn out to be a lot of work, especially if you are migrating a large website. Consider getting help from a professional website optimization company that specializes in HubSpot marketing. You'll get customized migration services and you'll receive a fully optimized and functional website from the agency.
Finalize Migration
This is a technical stage where you have to connect your domain to HubSpot. You can publish pages, posts, and your website after connecting your domain. You need full access to the DNS provider as you'll have to change the CNAME.
Here is an overview of the settings related to domain and hosting:
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Connect your domain by selecting primary, secondary, redirect, or email sending. If you are migrating, select primary as it’s your primary domain.
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Verify URLs of your domain and set up the brand domain.
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Log in to your DNS provider to setup hosting by updating the CNAME record.
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If you happen to change URLs with HubSpot (e.g., mywebsite.com/blog/post1 to mywebsite.com/post1), you will need to add redirects in your old CMS.
This setup is technical, and you might need help from a HubSpot agency that knows the ins and outs of the process.
Post Migration
DNS updates need up to 48 hours, so you'll have to wait before your website is fully migrated to HubSpot CMS. Once the DNS record updates, you need to check the crawl and indexed status of your website in Google Search Console.
If there are any pages/posts that aren’t indexed, submit them manually for indexation. You need to make sure that all the pages and posts are indexed.
You also need to ensure that all the previous URLs redirect to the new website. If there are any missing URLs, redirect them to appropriate updated pages.
Can You Migrate Your Website In House?
Simple answer: Yes.
Your brand can manage migration in house, but it will turn out to be a hectic and resource-intensive process if you don’t have any experience with this type of migration. Importantly, any technical issue can ruin your brand image and reputation as your website will be inaccessible or might return an error to visitors.
In case of a technical or marketing glitch, you might have to consult an agency to find and fix the issue and it might take weeks for the HubSpot agency to find the issue. The probability of converting a simple yet technical migration process into a brand issue is significantly high.
The important question, therefore, is: Should your brand do it in house?
No.
Hire a professional HubSpot agency that has the experience, workforce, and knowledge about your existing CMS and HubSpot. The process will be hassle-free and quick. First Page is an official HubSpot partner, and we can work with you to set up and integrate the HubSpot platform for your website or blog.
Moving to HubSpot CMS is the right thing to do as it will eventually pay off. You'll be able to see the difference very soon when your marketing and sales teams will be assisted by HubSpot’s amazing tools.
It will prove to be a game-changer.
