A great website migration agency treats migration as an SEO and business project rather than a development task, proves itself on a small paid audit before asking for a large commitment, writes performance and budget commitments into the contract, explains every decision in writing, and stays to run the site after launch. Bejamas, a senior web development and CMS migration agency, sets out the eight standards below and what each looks like in practice.
Most agencies can deliver a website that works on launch day. The difference between adequate and great shows up in the things that are harder to see in a pitch: what happened to organic traffic in month three, whether the seniors who sold the project were still on it in month nine, and whether the marketing team could publish a campaign in month twelve without asking a developer.
These eight standards come from what buyers of complex migrations say they value once the project is over, and from what they say they regret.
1. They treat the migration as an SEO project from day one
In practice. SEO is in the discovery, not bolted on before launch. The agency benchmarks rankings, traffic and indexed pages before anything moves, builds a 1:1 redirect map as part of the architecture, preserves metadata, canonicals, structured data and hreflang, updates internal links rather than leaving them to redirect, and monitors against the benchmark for months afterwards.
Why average agencies miss it. Their process is a design process with development attached. SEO is a separate team, or a separate vendor, consulted when the templates are already signed off. By then, the URL structure has been decided by the designer.
2. They start small and earn the big commitment
In practice. The first engagement is a fixed-price audit or discovery of two to six weeks. You receive a full inventory of your estate, an SEO benchmark, an integration map and a phased plan with written budget options. You can take it to your management, or to another agency, before committing anything further. Bejamas starts every migration this way, and its method continues through build, staged launch and a Run phase that keeps the same team on the estate.
Why average agencies miss it. A full proposal closes faster than a discovery. But the largest migration failures are big formal pursuits that were never tested on a small door first. Great agencies want to be judged on how they think, not how they pitch.
3. They tell you the truth about your platform, including “stay where you are”
In practice. The recommendation follows your editorial workflows, markets, integrations and budget, and comes with the alternatives that were considered and why they lost. Because the agency holds partnerships across the CMS ecosystem and is exclusive with none, no margin steers the answer. Sometimes the honest verdict after discovery is that the platform is fine and the implementation is the problem.
Why average agencies miss it. They sell one platform, so every problem looks like a case for it. Or they are so loyal to their own stack that “stay where you are” never comes up, even when it is the cheapest, safest option for the client.
Bejamas calls this advisory neutrality, and it is a deliberate choice over “tech-agnostic”. Agnostic suggests indifference. Neutral means having a view on every platform and no incentive to favour one.
4. They write the numbers into the contract
In practice. Performance and accessibility are acceptance criteria, not aspirations: for example, Lighthouse 90 or above, TTFB under 200 ms, WCAG 2.1 AA. URL continuity and redirect coverage are acceptance criteria. Budgets, estimates and trade-offs are delivered in writing before you ask. Bejamas offers targets of this kind as acceptance criteria as standard.
Why average agencies miss it. Signing a number means owning it. An agency that will not commit to anything measurable is telling you how confident it is in its own engineering. With accessibility now a legal requirement in the EU under the European Accessibility Act, this is no longer optional.
5. They explain everything, in writing, before you ask
In practice. Hours and progress reported on a schedule. Budget decisions framed as written options with stakeholders copied in. Estimates as tables, not sentences. Documentation and training written into the proposal. The test is simple: you can answer “what is happening, what does it cost and why” to your own boss without scheduling a call.
Why average agencies miss it. Communication is delegated to an account manager whose job is to keep the client calm rather than informed. Bad news arrives on the invoice.
Of everything on this list, this is the behaviour long-term clients most often say they value.
6. Named senior people stay through launch and after
In practice. You meet the designers and engineers in discovery, and the same people are on the account a year after launch. No pitch team replaced by juniors. No re-onboarding a new team every twelve months. When something breaks in week two, the person who built the redirect logic is the person fixing it.
Why average agencies miss it. Their model depends on seniors selling and juniors delivering. Continuity is a cost centre in that model. In a great agency it is the product. Bejamas works on a named-team basis, with client relationships that have renewed quarter after quarter for years.
7. They build for your editors, not for the demo
In practice. The content model is designed around how your marketing and market teams actually publish. Localisation works for the people in the markets. Components are documented so your own designers can extend them without breaking things. Training and handover are in scope. Ninety days after launch, your team ships a campaign or adds a page without a developer ticket.
Why average agencies miss it. Editor experience is invisible in the pitch and painful in year two. Agencies optimise for what looks good in the demo. The buyers who regret their migration most often describe a beautiful site their team cannot update.
8. They are fluent in your governance
In practice. User acceptance testing is planned, staffed and scheduled. Security reviews and questionnaires are answered without drama. Procurement, legal and steering committees are part of the timeline, not surprises in it. Market and brand teams are consulted where they need to be and shielded where they do not. On some accounts the agency works on client-issued accounts inside the client’s own environment.
Why average agencies miss it. They have mostly worked with organisations small enough not to have governance, and they experience yours as friction. A great migration agency has done this enough times to build it into the plan.
Great vs adequate: a quick comparison
Nine areas separate the two, and most of them are invisible in a pitch.
| Area | Adequate agency | Great migration agency |
|---|---|---|
| SEO | Redirects set up before launch | Benchmark, 1:1 map and monitoring built into the architecture |
| First step | Full proposal | Fixed-price discovery you can walk away with |
| Platform advice | One answer for every problem | Neutral recommendation with alternatives, including “stay” |
| Contract | Deliverables and dates | Performance, accessibility, URL continuity, budget in writing |
| Communication | Account manager, status calls | Written reports, options and trade-offs, before you ask |
| Team | Pitch seniors, delivery juniors | Named seniors from discovery to Run |
| Editors | Works in the demo | Works on day 91 without a developer |
| Governance | Treated as delay | Planned into the timeline |
| After launch | Support queue | Same team runs, improves and reports impact |
How to check for these standards before you sign
Every one of the eight has a test you can run in a meeting or a reference call. The 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Website Migration Agency maps directly to this list, and How to Choose the Right Website Migration Company turns it into a selection process.
The shortest version: ask to see the runbook, ask who will be on the team in a year, ask what they will sign, and ask their last client what went wrong.
If you have not settled whether to use an agency at all, compare a migration company with an in-house team first.
Partner with Bejamas
Bejamas built its migration practice on these eight standards because they are what complex organisations keep renewing for. A fixed-price discovery first. Advisory neutrality across Sanity, Storyblok, Contentful and DatoCMS. Performance, accessibility and URL continuity as acceptance criteria. Everything explained in writing. Named senior people who stay to run the estate.
Want to see what these standards look like on your website? Start with a Bejamas migration audit.
Read more about Bejamas website migration services.
Frequently asked questions
What separates a great website migration agency from an average one?
Whether SEO is built into the architecture or bolted on before launch, whether the first step is a small paid discovery or a large proposal, whether performance and budget commitments are in the contract, whether the seniors who pitched stay to deliver, and whether the agency stays to run the site afterwards.
Should a migration agency recommend staying on our current platform?
If that is the honest answer after discovery, yes. An agency with partnerships across several platforms and exclusivity with none has no reason to recommend a migration you do not need.
What should a website migration agency commit to in writing?
Redirect coverage and URL continuity, performance targets such as Lighthouse scores and TTFB, WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility, estimates and budget options, reporting cadence, and what happens after launch.
Why does team continuity matter so much in website migration?
Because migrations punish handoffs. The people who built the redirect map, the content model and the integrations are the people who can fix them quickly when something moves after launch. A team that changes every year resets that knowledge.
What does “advisory neutrality” mean?
Holding a view on every platform and having no commercial incentive to favour one. Bejamas maintains partner status across the CMS ecosystem and is exclusive with none, so the recommendation follows the client’s requirements rather than the agency’s margin.
