A Detailed Guide on Magento 2 Migration: Top Tips, Best Practices
Magento is considered as one of the leading eCommerce platforms in delivering the best possible eCommerce solutions to businesses today. A lot of business owners, merchants, and entrepreneurs are looking to adopt a Magento platform for their business and grow their business to the next level.
Considering the current data, Magento has 196,676 live websites now. And there are a lot of websites from these websites that are still using the older version of Magento and have not migrated to Magento 2! Migrating to the Magento 2 platform is the most commonly searched keyword today in the eCommerce world. It's been so long that Magento has announced that it will end official support for Magento 1 in 2020. So with no option left, all the businesses have to Migrate to the Magento 2.x version.
So if you are still stuck with the Magento 1 version, then you should know about the risks of using the Magento 1 version and also know the benefits of Magento 2. Using Magento 1 may risk you with security issues and theft of customers and payment details. And migration to Magento 2 is more beneficial because of a scalable, modern, and reliable eCommerce platform for your business with a lot of advanced features, functionalities, customizations, and flexibility. Also, it is a platform with fast response time, better performance, fast page loading, easy checkout option, and whatnot.
So if you are still one of those business owners who are not sure or confused about Magento 2 Migration then you must go through this detailed guide which will explain everything in detail from reasons, importance, tips, benefits, and many more about Magento 2 Migration.
Can we Still Live with our Website with Magento 1?
Looking at the Magento 2 Migration cost, the time required for the migration process, and other Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration issues, you may take the step back and also call off the Magento 2 Migration project. But let us share with you that migrating to Magento 2 is not that tough or difficult. With 7+ years of experience in the Magento and eCommerce industry, our expert team knows how to migrate a Magento website.
Yes, if you are still using Magento 1 then your store will still perform and also generate sales but Magento 2 offers advanced features and functionalities and has more advantages compared to Magento 1. With an effective admin panel interface, faster checkout, better performance, faster page loading speed, and many more other benefits, Magento 2 is superior to Magento 1.
Let’s dig into more details by going through this Magento 2 Migration Guide.
How Long Does it Take to Migrate to Magento 2?
The time required for Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration varies based on your website and its features. If it’s a simple and easy website then it may take one week to 2 months to migrate. While the website has complex features, many 3rd party integrations, many custom modules, larger databases, etc then the migration process will take almost 4 to 6 months.
Reasons for Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration
Better User Experience
Offering a great shopping experience to customers is the primary focus of all merchants. So make your Magento 2 store look stunning and user-friendly with unique customization to improve user experience. Also, the responsive design enhances the customer's experience and also makes it easier for customers to browse on all the respective devices.
Improved Performance
Website performance plays an important role in improving the conversion rate of the store. If a website takes a longer time to load, it will result in a higher shopping cart abandonment rate. Magento 2 easily processes and manages 40% more orders compared to Magento 1.
Faster Checkout
One of the most important factors of an online Ecommerce business is the faster, easy and simple checkout process because it helps to determine the sales of your online business. Smooth and faster checkout not only improves the user experience but also reduces the shopping cart abandonment rate.
Enhanced Security
Website security is one of the main reasons for Magento 2 Migration because Magento 2 offers flexible security solutions like Magento 2 Google Invisible reCAPTCHA and two-step authentication. Website security directly impacts the success and the growth of the website. As Magento has stopped the official support for Magento 1, customers’ data can be hacked or threatened because the security patches have been stopped by Magento.
Better Admin Interface
Magento 2 provides a device responsive and user-friendly admin panel interface which is easy to use for admins. They can manage and customize the store from anywhere whenever required. With this easy-to-use admin interface, both the efforts and the time are reduced for managing the store. Magento 2 offers a personalized panel to admin so that they can easily manage the customers, orders, products, stocks, etc. All this helps to improve website performance and also increase productivity.
Advanced Reporting
Detailed reporting plays a very crucial role to be successful in any business. It’s mandatory for every business owner to monitor and track all the important metrics to make an effective business strategy. Using an advanced reporting feature, the admin can easily track all the reports and analyze the profit or loss that occurred in business. With every new data entered in the system, the reports get updated every time and offer accurate data and detailed insights that will be helpful in business.
SEO Improvements
When it comes to SEO, Magento 1 does not have a good image, especially regarding meta tags and duplicate content. After realizing their mistake, the Magento dev team made such improvements in the new version i.e. Magento 2. After the improvements in Magento 2, it is more Google-friendly and consistent.
Take a look at How to avoid loss of SEO traffic while migration
How Complex is the Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration?
There is no doubt that an upgrade to Magento 2 needs technical knowledge and a perfect Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration plan because the Magento system includes complex processes and components. Regardless, the Magento 2 Migration process is much simpler than creating a website from scratch, since you already have a framework for your store.
And if you are concerned about your data at the time of Migration then don’t worry because your Magento 1 store will be fully functional, selling products, taking orders, and giving your correct reports. It will just be put on maintenance mode for some time to upgrade. And to make your Magento 2 store bug-free after migration, the final testing process takes place to identify the bugs and resolve them.
Pre Magento 2 Migration Checklist
Below is the list of things that need to be taken care of or planned before Migrating to Magento 2.
- The first and foremost task is to take a complete backup including all the folders, files, and database of the Magento 1.
- Secondly, make a clone of the Magento 1 store because it’s risky to use a Magento 1 live store for the migration process.
- Scrutinize the whole Magento 1 store and try to remove all the unwanted things for the Magento 2 migration. Only keep the required and necessary things.
- After this step, check the current extensions, theme(s), and whether the custom code is compatible with Magento 2 or not.
- Migrate the data from the Magento 1 store with a cloned database.
- Install a fresh copy of Magento 2 on the same hosting server where the Magento 1 store is live. This will help you with the hassle-free Magento Migration Process.
- And also make sure that SEO-related practices and the store traffic are streamlined before moving on to the Magento 2 Migration Process.
Magento 1 to Magento 2 Migration Process
Every eCommerce development company has its own Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration plan that depends on its experience of managing such migration projects and the workflow. At MageAnts, we have developed our own Magento 2 Migration Guide with all the required Migration steps in a bit deeper way. Let’s dig into the steps of the migration process.
⦁ Theme Migration:
Magento 2 offers a lot of awesome and attractive themes for your Magento 2 store. So grab this advantage and buy and install the Magento 2 theme for your store. They are user-friendly and mobile responsive.
⦁ Extension Migration:
If we talk about extensions then Magento 1 extension will not work with Magento 2 and even if you try to integrate Magento 1 extensions then it is possible that you might face severe compatibility issues. Extension plays an important role in extending the store features and functionalities, so install all the required extensions from Marketplace for your Magento 2 store.
⦁ Customizations:
Custom Code used in Magento 1 store is compatible with Magento 2 many times. The Code Migration tool offered by Magento helps during the process of Migration. As the structure of both versions is different, developers need to do some hard work while integrating the custom code.
⦁ Data Migration:
Using the Magento Data Migration Tool, it’s easier to migrate the settings and store data using CLI commands. This tool will help you migrate the entire data of the database from the Magento 1 store to the Magento 2 store.
After all these steps, testing and pre-launch activities will be performed. Once everything is processed perfectly, you are good to go with your Magento 2 store.
Conclusion:
When it comes to business, it’s obvious to doubt whether to change or upgrade things suddenly to the new and unexplored platform. Apart from the complexity, time, and efforts required for Magento 2 Migration, we can not deny the fact that there are a lot of benefits of the Magento 2 version. In this article, we have tried to provide a complete Magento 2 Migration Guide along with all the required information from reasons of migration to steps included in the migration.
And if we talk about expertise then hire dedicated Magento 2 developers is a wise decision. At MageAnts, we will help you with the Magento 1 to Magento 2 migration plan and efficiently migrate your website without any pain. Our team of experts will understand your business requirements and provide you with the best possible solutions.
That’s all about Magento 2 Migration and a complete guide on the migration process.
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