Post-Migration Checklist: Ensuring Your Framer Site is Production-Ready

Launching a Framer site? Don’t skip these critical steps. A poorly optimized site can lead to slow load times, broken links, or bad user experiences, hurting your performance and rankings. Here’s a quick checklist to ensure your Framer site is ready for production:

• Backups: Save your database, media, custom code, and configuration files in multiple locations.

• Content Review: Check for formatting issues, broken links, and proper navigation.

• SEO Setup: Add page titles, meta descriptions, redirects, and alt text for images.

• Speed Optimization: Meet Core Web Vitals targets (e.g., LCP < 2.5s, CLS < 0.1).

• Device Testing: Ensure smooth display and functionality across desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

• Accessibility: Follow WCAG 2.2 standards for screen readers, contrast, and keyboard navigation.

• Analytics Integration: Set up Google Analytics, Search Console, and Tag Manager to track performance.

Create Backups and Review Content

To ensure a smooth transition and safeguard your data, it's crucial to back up your website and thoroughly review its content. These steps help maintain your site's functionality and prevent potential issues post-migration.

Make Complete Site Backups

Start by backing up all essential components of your website. Here's what to save:

• Database exports: Includes posts, pages, and custom settings.

• Media library: Download all images, videos, and documents.

• Configuration files: Store your site's settings and customizations.

• Custom code: Save any custom CSS, JavaScript, or HTML modifications.

Once backed up, store these files in multiple secure locations:

• Cloud storage (e.g., Google Drive, Dropbox)

• Your local hard drive

• External storage devices

Setting up automated backups ensures you always have reliable recovery points. After completing your backups, move on to reviewing your site's structure and content to confirm everything migrated correctly.

Check Site Structure and Content

Carefully review your site to ensure all elements transferred properly.

Content Integrity

• Look for formatting issues on every page.

• Confirm images display correctly and include accurate alt text.

• Test video thumbnails and playback to ensure they work smoothly.

• Check that custom fonts and styles render as intended.

Navigation Structure

• Test the functionality of your main menu.

• Verify that sidebar navigation links work.

• Check footer links and ensure social media connections are intact.

• Confirm breadcrumb trails function as expected.

"Redirects are essential when migrating your website to Framer, as they improve user experience and help visitors find the content they need."

• Framer Help

URL Structure Review
Track and manage URL mappings using a structured format like this:

Set Up SEO Components

Optimizing the SEO settings for your Framer site is crucial for maintaining strong search rankings after a migration. Once these SEO elements are in place, ensure your site structure supports fast loading and responsive design.

Write Page Titles and Descriptions

Page titles and meta descriptions play a big role in both search rankings and click-through rates. Framer makes it easy to customize these at both the site-wide and individual page levels.

Here’s how to optimize them:

• Set Site-Wide Defaults
  Use the Site Settings to configure default title and description templates. These will apply to all pages unless you manually override them.

• Customize Individual Pages
  Go to Page Settings, select a specific page, and enter a custom title and description. Save your changes to apply them.

For CMS-driven content, you can use dynamic fields to automatically generate metadata based on your content structure.

Create URL Redirects

Managing redirects is essential to avoid broken links and maintain SEO value. Framer’s redirect system gives you full control over URL mapping.

To set up redirects:

• Navigate to Site Settings → Redirects

• Input the old and new URL patterns

• Rearrange rules by dragging them to prioritize as needed

• Publish your changes to activate the redirects

Framer supports several redirect options, including:

• Direct Redirect: Redirect from /old-page to /new-page.

• Wildcard Redirect: Redirect all pages under a pattern, like /blog/* to /articles/*.

• Capture Groups: Redirect structured URLs, such as /blog/_/post/_ to /article/:1/entry/:2.

Add Image Tags and Schema Markup

Optimizing images and adding structured data can improve your site’s visibility in search results. Pay special attention to alt text and semantic markup.

For images:

• Write descriptive alt text with proper punctuation.

• Make sure the alt text accurately describes the image content.

• Naturally include relevant keywords where appropriate.

Framer sites come with built-in sitemap.xml and robots.txt files, so you can focus on improving content quality and semantic tags.

To manage how Google displays snippets:

1. Select the content on your canvas.

2. Open the Accessibility settings.

3. Click the + button.

4. Choose Google Bot and set it to Skip.

Keep in mind that search engines evaluate the overall quality of your content, not just individual SEO components. These steps will prepare your site for performance testing in the next phase.

Check Speed and Device Display

After setting up your SEO components, it's important to assess how well your Framer site performs across various devices. With Google's Core Web Vitals influencing search rankings, ensuring your site runs efficiently is a must.

Test Loading Speed

To evaluate these metrics:

• Use PageSpeed Insights to analyze performance for both mobile and desktop.

• Check Google Search Console for Core Web Vitals reports.

• Run tests with tools like GTmetrix or Pingdom for additional data.

"Always test before and after making any changes. This will ensure you're not shooting in the dark. And do more than one test! Especially if you rely on a tool rather than real-world data." - Luca Da Corte, Certified Framer Expert and SEO Specialist

For better performance:

• Set image resolution to "Auto" in Framer for automatic optimization.

• Use platforms like YouTube or Vimeo for video hosting instead of direct uploads.

• Add cover images for videos in above-the-fold sections.

• Limit the use of large blur effects and shadows.

• Minimize third-party scripts and load them asynchronously.

• Opt for Google Fonts to improve loading times.

Once your speed metrics are on point, confirm that your design and functionality remain consistent across different devices.

Test on Multiple Devices

After optimizing speed, ensure your site looks and works well on all screen sizes.

Key areas to check:

• Text readability and proper spacing.

• Image scaling and quality.

• Smooth navigation menu functionality.

• Accessible form fields.

• Adequate touch target sizes on mobile.

• Proper scroll behavior.

• Interactive elements working as intended.

For thorough testing:

1. Use browser developer tools to simulate different devices.

2. Test on actual physical devices when possible.

3. Check compatibility across major browsers.

4. Confirm responsive breakpoints are functioning correctly.

5. Test load times on various network speeds.

To keep your site performing well:

• Break up long pages into smaller sections.

• Avoid overloading hero sections with carousels or slideshows.

• Limit JavaScript-heavy elements in key content areas.

• Test all interactive features on touchscreens.

• Keep the DOM size manageable to improve performance.

Since Core Web Vitals vary by device, focus heavily on mobile testing to ensure a smooth experience.

Review Design and Access

After confirming performance across devices, make sure your design and accessibility standards remain intact.

Check Brand Elements

Review your brand elements to ensure consistency:

• Logo: Confirm resolution, placement, and spacing.

• Typography: Verify font families, sizes, and weights.

• Colors: Check hex codes and contrast ratios.

• Icons: Ensure style consistency and proper sizing.

• Images: Assess quality and aspect ratios.

Test Site Navigation

Ensure navigation is seamless and error-free by testing:

• Menu and dropdown functionality on all devices.

• Internal links and menu operations for accuracy.

• Back button behavior across pages.

• Form submission processes.

• Modal and popup interactions.

• Scroll position retention when navigating.

For complex sites, creating a sitemap can simplify the structure and help identify potential issues.

Check ADA Compliance

Refer to the latest WCAG 2.2 standards, published on October 5, 2023, for detailed accessibility guidelines.

Key accessibility requirements:

"The WCAG documents explain how to make web content more accessible to people with disabilities." - Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C

Important implementations include:

• Use a proper heading structure (only one H1 per page).

• Add clear labels to form fields.

• Provide skip navigation links.

• Enable viewport zooming.

• Offer text alternatives for non-text content.

• Ensure touch targets are large enough.

• Support both portrait and landscape orientations.

• Use ARIA landmarks for better navigation.

For media content:

• Add closed captions to videos.

• Provide audio transcripts for multimedia.

• Respect reduced-motion preferences.

• Turn off autoplay by default.

• Ensure media controls are accessible.

Test your site with real assistive technologies, as automated tools alone can only identify about 30% of accessibility issues.

Connect Required Tools

Once design and accessibility checks are complete, it's time to integrate tracking and marketing tools for better insights and data management.

Add Analytics Tools

Start by setting up essential analytics tools to track user behavior and monitor performance:

• Google Analytics: Tracks user behavior on your site.

  1. Create a GA4 property.

  2. Add the measurement ID to your site's settings.

  3. Validate the tracking code to ensure it's working.

• Google Search Console: Helps you monitor SEO performance.

  1. Verify your site ownership.

  2. Submit your XML sitemap for indexing.

  3. Check search performance metrics regularly.

• Google Tag Manager: Simplifies tag management across your site.

  1. Create a container for your tags.

  2. Install the container code on your website.

  3. Add the necessary tags for tracking.

Don't forget to verify your Google Analytics code, set up custom events, enable conversion tracking, turn on enhanced measurement, and create custom dashboards for a more tailored view of your data.

Connect Marketing Tools

To streamline your operations and enhance data collection, integrate key marketing tools:

• Email marketing platforms

• CRM systems

• Form submission tracking

• Marketing automation tools

• Social media pixels

• Lead capture systems

Using Google Tag Manager to manage your marketing tags can make tracking implementations easier and ensure updates are straightforward.

Complete Final Checks

Once backups, analytics, and design integrations are in place, ensure your site is fully ready for production by completing these final checks.

Check Text and Layout

Go through all content and visual elements to ensure everything looks and works as expected:

• Content Formatting: Make sure text styles, headings, and paragraphs display properly across all pages. Pay special attention to any custom fonts or special characters.

• Visual Alignment: Review the spacing between elements, margins, and padding. Ensure images, text blocks, and UI components are consistently aligned.

• Display Verification: Test how the site renders in major browsers to confirm uniform appearance.

Test All Functions

Ensure that every feature and tool on the site is functioning correctly:

• Forms: Test field validation, the submission process, and notification emails.

• Navigation: Check all menu links, dropdowns, and mobile navigation for proper functionality.

• Interactive Features: Test search functionality, filters, pagination, and loading indicators.

• Integrations: Verify that analytics and marketing tools are working seamlessly with the site.

Set Up Auto-Backups

Automate backups to protect your essential site data:

1. Daily Incremental Backups

These backups should cover:

• Database content

• Media files

• Configuration settings

• Custom code

2. Weekly Full Backups

Include:

• All site files

• Database dumps

• Configuration files

• Custom themes

3. Verification Process

Ensure your backups are reliable by:

• Running integrity checks

• Performing monthly restore tests

• Storing backups in multiple locations

• Keeping a 30-day backup history

Conclusion

After completing the migration, use this checklist to ensure your Framer site is ready for production. Prioritize performance, functionality, and maintenance to keep everything running smoothly.

Keep an eye on Core Web Vitals using tools like Google Search Console or PageSpeed Insights. To maintain a seamless experience, follow these tips:

• Conduct monthly performance audits with tools such as GTmetrix or Pingdom.

• Check the efficiency of server-side rendering (SSR).

• Break up content-heavy pages to reduce DOM size.

• Limit the use of third-party scripts and complex animations.

These steps help create a reliable framework for managing your site over time. Regular monitoring, automated alerts, and backups can help you catch and fix issues before they impact your users.

Incorporate these practices into your routine site reviews to maintain strong performance and support consistent growth.