How to migrate your website to Jane Websites

Moving your existing website over to Jane Websites is an essential step in preserving your SEO Domain Authority. This guide walks you through how to copy your content, recreate your page structure and navigation, and set up redirects so that Google and your patients can find you without any interruption.

 

How to Copy Over Your Content

The first step to migrating your website to Jane Websites is to copy over the existing content from your website. The goal here is to recreate your old website as closely as possible on Jane Websites. When Google scans your new site and finds familiar content on the same domain, it recognizes it as the same website, which protects your search rankings. Dive deeper with our How to add and edit text in a block guide.

Note: Do not copy over any content that has been written for you by your previous website provider, as it is likely copyrighted and can lead to trouble down the road.

1. Open your old website in one browser tab and your Jane Websites staging website in another tab.
2. Navigate to the page you want to bring content over to on Jane Websites.
3. Click the pencil icon on the block where you want to edit or add content.
4. Optional: Click the plus button to the left of the page if you want to add more blocks to the page. Then, follow step 3 (above) to add or edit the content of the new block.
5. Copy the heading, subheading and body copy from your old website and paste it into the corresponding field on Jane Websites, keeping the wording as close to identical as possible. You may remove any information that is outdated. 
6. Repeat this process block by block, working your way down each page.

How to Create a New Page

The next step is to create pages, so if your old website has a page that doesn't yet exist in Jane Websites, you'll need to create it before you can add content to it. Dive deeper with our How to create a new page guide. 

1. Click the “+” Quick Add button in the top-right corner and click Page. Alternatively, go to Admin > Content, then click the Add Page button.
2. Add a Title for your page. The title should be the same or similar to the page you're recreating from your old website (e.g., “Fees”)
3. Click the Save Page button once you’re ready. 

How to Update Your Navigation Menu

After your pages are created, you'll want to make sure your navigation menu matches your old website's navigational structure as closely as possible. Dive deeper with our How to edit your menu: main/navigation menu guide.
 

1. Click Admin in the top right corner of your site, then click Menus from the dropdown menu.
2. Click the Add Link button.
3. Under Label, type the name you want to appear in the menu.
4. Under Link To, select the page you just created.
5. Click Save Link to save your progress.
6. To reorder your menu items, click and drag the six-dot grid icon to the left of each item until your menu order matches your old website.

How to Set Up Redirects

Finally, redirects are one of the most important steps in a migration. They ensure that if a patient clicks a link to a page on your old website, either from a Google result, a bookmark, or another site, they land on the right page on your new website instead of a 404 error page. Dive deeper with our How to set up redirects during a site migration guide.
 

1. Click Admin in the top right corner, then click Settings from the dropdown menu.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Redirects.
3. Click the Add Redirect button.
4. In the first field, enter the URL slug from your old website. You don't need to include the full domain, just the slug starting with a forward slash.
   For example: /about-our-team or /about-us
5. In the second field, enter the slug of the most similar page on your new Jane Websites site. For example: /about, which is your About page slug.
6. Click Save Redirect to save your progress.
7. Repeat this for every page on your old website that has a different URL than its equivalent on your new site.
8. Optional: If you don't have a corresponding page on Jane Websites, you can also redirect visitors to the Home page. You would do this by adding in the second field a single slash (/). 

All done! Your content is copied over, your navigation matches your old site, and your redirects are in place to keep patients and search engines on track. Your new Jane Websites site is ready to take over from your old one without losing the visibility you've already built.