A large-scale Drupal migration for a global technology company
Panasonic Connect was at a crossroads. Their website was running on the soon-to-be discontinued Drupal 7, and their entire website infrastructure needed to be upgraded.
Staying with their Drupal 7 content management system (CMS) would not be an option. Not only did it limit their ability to showcase their range of market-leading products, but the system itself would soon be facing increased risk security breaches and impaired site functionality.
An audit of their existing website was telling – content workflows were inefficient, content management was fragmented, and the user experience didn’t reflect the premium service Panasonic is known for. As a multi-regional site, Panasonic were also facing multiple issues with site scalability and caching.
The fastest route to achieving their objectives was clear: migration to a new system that would offer a best-in-class experience to their audience.
Working with the Panasonic team, we understood that to deliver a best-in-class experience, a best-in-class CMS would be required.
The decision was made to migrate from Drupal 7 to an Enterprise scale Digital Experience Platform available with Drupal 10.
This would be no small undertaking. Not only would Panasonic be migrating their website, but also taking the opportunity to overhaul their content and UX while also aligning the capabilities of their website to ensure future scalability.
As thought-leaders in the Drupal space, and long-term partners of Panasonic, the Proctor + Stevenson team were brought in to manage the migration and work with the Panasonic team on extending the website’s capabilities.
Understanding the magnitude of this transformation, the task at hand was to implement a system that could not only support the creation of multiple web pages, but deliver high standards of SEO, enhanced performance and restore vital security support.
We knew that a Drupal upgrade, with its brand new suite of features, would deliver a better experience and functionality for both users and the team at Panasonic.
Managing high volumes of content without losing SEO
How could we move a large amount of content to a format that would allow the marketing team as much flexibility as possible? That was one the first questions asked of us by the Panasonic team.
On the surface, it might seem simple: upload this copy here, drag this image there and, bravo, your website is updated. But it’s not that straightforward. We were dealing with thousands of articles and blog posts that already had strong SEO rankings. The real challenge was to develop a migration path that would retain the SEO strength that had been developed over years of strategic planning and developments.
Navigating visible and hidden content
When moving from one website format to another, we had to ensure that both visible and hidden content was handled carefully. Visible content is what appears on the surface of a page, while hidden content is all that sits behind it, for example image alt tags, UTM tags and meta tags. We had to plan out and implement a process that took every element into account.
Capturing every detail
Due to the large quantity of existing content being moved from Panasonic’s Drupal 7 site, we needed to map out each asset in detail before capturing all the information and transferring it to the new Drupal 10 system.
The URL strategy crucial to SEO
With a brand new website in the works and everything running smoothly, you might assume the Panasonic website was about set to go live, right? Not quite!
Successful website migrations hinge on the perfect execution of a URL strategy. With numerous URLS to manage, it is critical to inform search engines that URL 1 has changed to its corresponding URL 2. This requires careful planning to ensure that all URLs are accounted for and functioning correctly throughout the process.
For the Panasonic site, getting this right was crucial to preserving SEO rankings during the transition.
Implementing atomic web design
Using the Atomic Design approach, we broke the website down into manageable and reusable components. These components were then built in Drupal Paragraphs. This allowed us to create flexible templates for the high volume of content in the Panasonic system.
Doing so empowered the Panasonic marketing team – enabling them to take control of creating new pages that retained consistency in both UX and digital design.
Knowledge sharing and performance optimisation
Proctors team members assisted the Panasonic internal team by sharing relevant knowledge on optimising performance in Drupal.
We worked closely with their marketing department, offering expertise on how they could build and customise top-level pages independently, without needing in-house developers.
Their job was to focus on creating these pages. Ours was to handle the import of existing content and improve its performance speed by avoiding migration deadlocks.
And freedom was theirs. With an expert migration from Drupal 7, Panasonic then had a secure and centralised platform to manage all their content independently.
Increase in website visits, setting a new pace for the Panasonic team.
A self-serve system that puts Panasonic marketing capabilities directly in their own hands, streamlining their efforts with minimal hassle.
A fully optimised website that is now ready to handle any future updates or expansions with ease.
