Case Study
From Inefficiency to Scalability: Migrating Hemmings Stories to WordPress
As the world’s largest collector car marketplace, Hemmings sought Reaktiv’s help to revamp their Stories site, a robust online magazine covering a range of car enthusiast topics. They were looking to regain control over their content management, and needed a platform that could handle their high-volume workflow, producing several dozens of articles per week. Feeling they had reached the limitations of their existing RebelMouse platform, they were in need of a large-scale migration that could streamline their editorial workflow, enhance content management capabilities, and unlock the full potential of their digital platform.
Project Overview and Objectives
Our collaboration with Hemmings aimed to modernize their Stories site, perform a large-scale migration, and enhance their features.
Reclaiming control
The Hemmings team sought a platform that would empower them to take control of their content. Through our conversations, we determined that WordPress was the ideal solution for Hemmings, aligning with their goals of reducing development cycles, customizing editorial workflows, and simplifying onboarding. We could extend this further by leveraging the power of our partners at WordPress VIP hosting to establish a diverse development environment with three distinct stages: development, testing, and pre-production to experiment and iterate.
Feature parity and beyond
We focused on achieving feature parity with the existing RebelMouse offerings while leveraging the strength of WordPress. This included creating new templates and blocks, and recommending improvements to existing features for better functionality. For example, we suggested replacing the “keep reading” button with direct links to related posts, which would improve page view tracking and ad views.
Analytics
Enhanced analytics was another wishlist feature, and was delivered through WordPress VIP’s analytics suite, Parse.ly. Between their robust analytics tools, intuitive dashboard, and advanced tracking metrics, Parse.ly would be able to more accurately and strategically measure the performance and impact of Hemmings’ content, allowing them to focus on higher-value content.
Brand Promotion, Authority, and Trust
Another pivotal objective of this project was to bolster the Hemmings brand and establish their position as industry experts. By producing high-quality, authoritative content and leveraging the robust capabilities of WordPress, Hemmings will be able to build and amplify trust within their audience. This transformative step will further consolidate their authority in the field, underlining their expertise and enhancing their credibility.
Broadening Reach
Expanding Hemmings’ reach was another key goal for the project. We focused on diversifying content types, ensuring accessibility, and adopting inclusive design principles, with a strong focus on mobile. This will attract and engage a more diverse audience, allowing Hemmings to extend their influence and their impact, further enhancing their brand and credibility.
Partnership
Finally, this project was also an opportunity for the Hemmings team to find a new collaborative partner in Reaktiv, allowing us to work closely with their team to implement creative solutions and bring their ideas to life.
Handling an effective project often requires a mix of art & science and we felt the Reaktiv team offered us the best combination of hard skills, experience, and flexibility for our WordPress migration.
Challenges and Solutions
In addition to the goals identified during our discovery phase, we also recognized several challenges that would needed addressing while working on the Hemmings project.
Complex Migration from RebelMouse to WordPress
The Hemmings Stories site is a high-volume online magazine, which publishes new content at a rapid pace. While hosting with RebelMouse, they faced inefficiencies, such as long development cycles, onboarding difficulties, and limited customization.
As we prepared to migrate over 20,000 articles, it was clear that maintaining content integrity, URL structures, and SEO would be a significant challenge.
Our solution was to develop a custom migration testing tool, which would ensure accurate content transfer to WordPress, preserve SEO value, and minimize 404 errors. Additionally, advanced mapping strategies allowed for efficient content organization and seamless URL redirection.
Improving Site Performance and Scalability
The old platform’s performance issues, especially during high-traffic periods, led to slow load times and poor user experiences.
Utilizing WordPress VIP’s hosting and three dedicated environments (development, testing, pre-production) improved performance, minimized downtime, and enabled scalability. A sandbox environment allowed safe experimentation with new features.
Aligning with Evolving Industry Standards and Client Feedback
Modernizing the website framework was a key priority to ensure it met industry standards for accessibility, SEO, mobile responsiveness, and overall user experience.
We chose to employ an iterative development process, enabling us to showcase progress demos in client meetings, collect valuable feedback, and align with project goals. We then combined this approach with a mobile-first design, and a benchmark of WCAG 2.1 accessibility compliance, to deliver a site that was optimized for success.
Integrating Seamless Advertising and Auction Content
Advertising is a significant component of monetizing the Stories site. However, integrating ads and auction content on the previous platform was a cumbersome and inconsistent process.
Leveraging the power of Full Site Editing (FSE), we developed custom template solutions to enable ad slots and used WordPress taxonomies for seamless auction content integration. This streamlined ad management and increased user engagement with related content.
By overcoming these challenges, Hemmings achieved greater content control, improved performance, and enhanced user experience, positioning them for future growth.
The Reaktiv team integrated with our own resources seamlessly and quickly became an extension of our own workflow. They tailored their communication tools and project management process to align with what we needed on our side.
Project Features and Implementation
To achieve our project goals, we implemented a range of innovative solutions, including a seamless migration, custom design features, and enhanced editorial workflows.
Site Migration
The project involved a migration of an established site with over 20,000 articles. We migrated the site from a proprietary CMS to WordPress, developing a custom migration testing tool to ensure an accurate content import. Additionally, we mapped proprietary data fields to custom fields in WordPress and mapped their rigid information matrix to the more flexible and efficient WordPress taxonomies for content organization and classification. Finally, we conducted extensive testing to ensure content and URLs were correctly migrated or properly redirected, eliminating the risk of 404 errors.
Related auction integration
To encourage reader engagement on the site, we developed a custom integration to seamlessly connect readers with related auctions, which is another key component to the Hemmings website. This feature can either be added manually within an article or automatically included within a page template. Leveraging the power of custom taxonomies, it pulls related auctions based on the vehicle make and/or model associated with the article, ensuring a relevant selection is showcased.
Full Site Editing
The editorial team desired the ability to customize and feature key content, which was a perfect fit for Full Site Editing (FSE). Features like multiple templates, reusable patterns, and custom blocks allowed for the rapid creation of well-designed content, ultimately showcasing the rich depth of articles on the site.
Customized editorial workflow
The Hemmings team produces a high volume of articles daily with a diverse group of contributors, writers, and editors. To manage this dynamic workflow efficiently, they required a comprehensive editorial calendar, providing a clear view of upcoming articles, ongoing projects, scheduled publications, and published content – all at a glance. Additionally, they needed a way to ensure their high editorial standards were consistently met across all phases of the content creation process. In order to manage this complex editorial workflow, we drew upon our experience of strategizing with large editorial teams in order to customize an editorial workflow which not only met these requirements, but also streamlined content creation while maintaining their quality standards.
Designing for success
Hemmings had recently completed a redesign prior to contacting Reaktiv, but their Stories site had lagged behind the full refresh. We took the design system and goals from the Hemmings team and presented an updated style guide that was faithful to the redesign while giving the content a fresh appearance, providing flexibility in the way they presented articles to their audience.
Ad integration
Ad revenue is a key metric for the Stories site. In order to prioritize a more seamless integration of ads, we developed a custom solution to insert the ad wrapper and included the ability to build ad slots directly through the FSE templates, streamlining the process.
Results and Benefits
Upon a successful launch, the Hemmings team experienced tangible benefits, including streamlined workflows, enhanced analytics, and a broader reach.
Enhanced Usability and Efficiency
Hemmings has experienced a significant boost in content management efficiency since transitioning to WordPress. The intuitive interface and streamlined workflows have reduced the time and effort required for content updates. Our comprehensive library of design patterns, tailored to their editorial team, ensures a consistent and professional look across all content, without demanding extensive design expertise on their end
Improved Analytics and Insights
The integration of advanced analytics tools has empowered Hemmings to gain deeper insights into user behavior and content performance, which will be instrumental in refining content strategies and optimizing audience engagement over time.
Broader Audience Reach
The redesign, improved accessibility, and enhanced mobile experience have been optimized to attract a more diverse audience. By increasing engagement across diverse demographics, the new site is poised to experience an increase in website traffic, aligning with our goal of expanding their influence in the industry.
For us, Reaktiv is less a vendor and more an integrated partner offering the right blend of creativity and technical ability at a very competitive level of investment – we recommend them without hesitation.
Reflection and Lessons Learned
Throughout the Hemmings project, we embarked on a journey of exploration and innovation that enriched our team’s capabilities and insights. One of the standout achievements was our successful migration of Hemmings from RebelMouse to WordPress. This transition, while challenging due to the scale of content—over 20,000 articles—and our prior unfamiliarity with RebelMouse, highlighted the importance of careful planning and rigorous testing. We meticulously preserved URL structures, verified content integrity, and conducted extensive testing to ensure a seamless migration.
This project additionally served as a fantastic opportunity for us to continue exploring the growing capabilities of Full Site Editing (FSE) within WordPress. We created a suite of custom patterns and templates that seamlessly integrate anywhere across the site while preserving a cohesive design. Throughout this process, we learned valuable methods and insights that will strengthen our ability to offer bespoke custom designs paired with an intuitive interface for our clients to bring our shared vision to life.
We also prioritized a client-centric approach, listening carefully to their feedback and tailoring our solutions to their specific needs. This commitment to understanding our clients’ goals has been instrumental in delivering successful projects.
The lessons learned from this project will inform our future endeavors, allowing us to offer even more efficient migrations, innovative FSE solutions, and a highly personalized approach to web development.
Conclusion and Future Outlook
The migration of the Hemmings Stories site to WordPress was a success, achieving all key objectives: improved content control, enhanced usability, and increased reach. The new platform provides Hemmings with greater flexibility and scalability, allowing them to enhance user experiences, refine content strategies, and drive growth.
Looking ahead, Hemmings plans to leverage this new infrastructure to expand their digital presence and adapt to evolving market trends. Reaktiv remains committed to supporting their ongoing efforts, collaborating on future enhancements, including advanced personalization, multimedia content, and interactive elements.
This project has positioned Hemmings as a digital leader in their field, with a strong foundation for continued growth and innovation.
Looking for a seamless migration and innovative design features? Reaktiv provides comprehensive solutions for large websites. Let’s partner to elevate your digital presence.