Most of a website migration goes wrong in the same three places: old links that stop working, pages nobody remembered to move, and a booking button that points at the old system. This checklist covers all three, whichever platform you move to. Where VenueChief does a step for you, we say how.
Before you move anything
- List every page that gets visits. Your analytics or Google Search Console will show them. Those addresses are the ones that need a redirect.
- Find every place your booking link lives. Your Google Business Profile, social profiles, email signatures, printed QR codes.
- Know who controls your domain. You will need to add DNS records, so find the login for the company you bought the name from.
- Write down what your site does, not just what it says. Forms, gift card sales, a menu, a waiver link. Each one needs a new home.
- Pick a quiet week. Not the week before school holidays.
Moving it
- Bring the pages across as drafts. In VenueChief: paste your current address under Import a Website. You get a plan first that writes nothing; untick what you don’t want, then run it. Up to 120 pages, with your words, pictures, headings, page titles and meta descriptions. Sessions, memberships, leagues, your food menu and products arrive as switched-off drafts, so nothing goes on sale by accident.
- Check every page before it goes live. Read it on a phone. Our own import gets close, and on some sites it is still not as good as the original, so look.
- Redirect every old address. A permanent (301) redirect tells Google the page moved. In VenueChief: the import creates one for every address that changed, and Page Manager › Redirects lets you add, test and pause them, and shows the addresses visitors asked for and didn’t find.
- Rebuild what sold or collected things. Forms become working forms. Anything that took money is rebuilt on purpose, never copied.
Seen enough to want to see it running?
Thirty minutes on your own numbers, in a demo branded for your venue.
Switching over
- Point your domain. In VenueChief: choose what the address is for, add the two DNS records we show you, and we issue the certificate and email you when it is live. Or start on a free yourvenue.venuechief.com address and switch later.
- Update the booking links from step 2.
- Watch Search Console for two weeks. Fix any address that shows up as not found.
What will not come across
We would rather you hear this before you start:
- Sites drawn entirely by JavaScript bring very little across; plan to rebuild those pages.
- Video files, SVG and AVIF images and icon files.
- Your old site’s scripts. They are removed, and the report names each one.
- Shop checkouts. Products arrive as pages and optional drafts, not as a working store.
- Blog and tag listing pages are unticked by default.
- Image descriptions (alt text) are often missing on the old site and stay missing; add them.
Changed your mind?
Every import can be undone. The pages it created, its redirects and its drafts go away, and your front page and theme go back to how they were, unless a person has edited them since.