Project overview
Our client sells bedding, cushions and homeware online. Their WooCommerce store had become slow and hard to maintain, and they wanted the simplicity of Shopify.
Organic search brought nearly half their revenue, so the brief was clear: move platforms without losing rankings or sales.
A migration with a lot at stake
Three risks stood out:
Every URL would change
Shopify's fixed URL structure meant products, categories and posts all needed new addresses.
Years of content and reviews
Product reviews and buying guides had to move without losing their value.
Peak season was close
Any drop in traffic would hit the busiest trading months.
What success looked like
- Keep all key rankingsthrough the migration.
- Launch before peak seasonwith no downtime.
- Improve speed and conversionon the new platform.
Our approach, step by step
- 1
Benchmark and crawl Weeks 1–2
Crawled every URL, exported traffic and revenue by page and recorded rankings for 200 keywords.
- 2
URL mapping Weeks 2–5
Mapped 1,850 old URLs one-to-one to their new Shopify equivalents, with no redirect chains.
- 3
Build and content transfer Weeks 4–10
Moved products, reviews and guides, carried over titles and descriptions and added structured data.
- 4
Launch and monitor Weeks 11–12+
Launched on a quiet weekday, tested redirects and monitored 404s and rankings daily.
Rankings before and after launch
Google positions for key searches, the week before launch vs three months after.
| Keyword | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| linen bedding sets | 3 | 2 | ▲ 1 |
| linen duvet cover | 4 | 4 | ● 0 |
| cushion covers uk | 6 | 5 | ▲ 1 |
| washed linen sheets | 2 | 1 | ▲ 1 |
| bedding sale | 8 | 7 | ▲ 1 |
The results
Traffic held steady through launch and grew once the faster store settled in.
“We were nervous about moving platforms. Rankings didn't drop at all, and the new store is much faster.”