Liferay to WordPress Migration - Anderson Center for Autism

Introduction

WordPress continues to dominate the way businesses build websites. Globally, over 41% of all websites live on WordPress, which supports ease of content management, functionality, and flexibility. When our long-time client, Anderson Center for Autism, wanted to change platforms to better manage content in-house and not rely on an outside developer, naturally, we recommended WordPress.

Back up

Anderson Center for Autism is a not-for-profit organization that fosters independence and self-advocacy for children and adults with autism. We are delighted to include Anderson, located in the Hudson Valley, NY (home to Shero HQ), in our client portfolio and have been supporting their various projects for years. When they initially partnered with Shero, they needed assistance refreshing their corporate website, which lived on the Liferay platform. They also wanted added functionality like selling merchandise and event tickets online. Usually, people do not associate eCommerce with non-profits, but online stores and donation payment options are often needed in the non-profit world, so working with an agency with eCommerce experience is ideal. The refreshed website and enhanced functionality showed quick and positive results: donations increased by 35% and conversion rate by 20%. That was the good news.

Fast Forward

The bad news, unfortunately, the old Liferay platform required an outside developer to maintain the content, making it hard for the Anderson team to update content frequently and in real-time. When this became too cumbersome and too expensive to manage, Anderson wanted to review options, and we determined that migration to WordPress would achieve the following objectives:

Easy manage content
Eliminate developer dependency
Optimize current processes on how content is managed

The Process

We knew going into the project that the website was relatively simple with not very complex features and that normally a WordPress migration is very straightforward. However, since Liferay is a more obscure platform, migration tools were hard to find, making the process more complex. Additionally, transitioning from Liferay required more manual work to ensure the site’s visual quality. Not a roadblock, more like a detour that our skilled dev team maneuvered!

Migrations also allow for a fresh look at functionality across the site. Previously, the site lumped a lot of information in one place, making it difficult to distinguish various post types like podcasts, events, news, etc. On the build, we developed a custom post type for each, making it simple to find/add/update. And, we added custom WordPress fields to make content changes even easier.

Mission Accomplished

There is no greater feeling than when a repeat client trusts us time and again to support their business needs. Anderson launched on June 22nd. WordPress was the right choice for empowering the internal marketing team to manage content and eliminate developer dependency. And, the migration resulted in enhanced functionality and better site performance. A big return on a small investment. WordPress offers freedom to manage your website, your way. Check out their website here Anderson Center for Autism.