For a typical CMS migration (like moving a BigCommerce store to WooCommerce/WordPress), SEO work isn’t instant. In practice, expect to spend hours or even days on SEO tasks, not minutes. As a rough guideline, small-to-medium sites often need 5–30 hours of SEO work (audits, redirects, validation, etc.). Larger e-commerce migrations can easily stretch into the 30–150+ hour range. In short, plan on a multi-week effort – this isn’t a one-day fix.
A key reason is scope. An SEO expert recommends involving SEO far ahead of launch – roughly 12 months in advance for a big e-commerce move. A WooCommerce migration means dozens or hundreds of product and category pages to manage. To protect your Google rankings, you need time to audit content, map old URLs to new ones, and set up 301 redirects. Because migrations come in many flavors (design change, domain move, platform switch, etc.), more complex projects simply take longer.
Core SEO Tasks and Time Estimates
Here are the main SEO tasks in a migration and ballpark hours for each (from industry guides):
- Site audit & discovery (8–20 hrs). Inventory current pages, backlinks and rankings. Check crawl errors in Google Search Console, note high-value pages. This gives you a baseline.
- URL mapping & redirects (10–25 hrs). Create a comprehensive redirect map linking every old URL to its new WooCommerce URL. Larger stores (with hundreds of products) tend toward the high end.
- Implementation (15–40 hrs). Work with developers to deploy 301 redirects, update internal links, and migrate metadata. For example, add an SEO plugin in WooCommerce and transfer title tags and meta descriptions. This often takes 15–40 hours.
- Testing & QA (10–20 hrs). After launch, crawl the new site to find any broken links or missing redirects. Ensure Google is indexing the new site correctly. Fix issues like duplicate URLs or missing canonical tags. Monitoring and validation usually add another 10–20 hours.
In other words, a full SEO migration project can add up to 30–150+ hours of work. (Some quick tasks like setting up a basic redirect might only take a few hours, but complete migrations seldom do.)
Factors That Affect Total Time
- Site size & complexity. A 100-page site might be done in days, whereas a 5,000-page store could take several weeks. One guide notes “a site with 500 pages can often be mapped, redirected, and tested within days. A multilingual portal with 50,000+ indexed URLs? That’s weeks of phased redirection and validation.”.
- CMS differences. Moving data from BigCommerce to WooCommerce may require extra work if the export/import tools differ. Older or custom platforms can require more manual fixes (adding to your hours).
- Custom features and SEO needs. If your site has special features (custom filters, many product variants, multiple languages, or complex URL structures), that means more SEO checks and testing. More moving parts = more hours.
- Team coordination. How quickly your developers can implement changes or help run SEO scripts also affects total time. Busy teams or coordination delays can add hours.
Planning for Success
In summary, don’t underestimate SEO hours when re-platforming. It’s better to overestimate than to rush – missing redirect or meta data tasks can cost you much more in lost rankings. A good rule of thumb is build 1–4 weeks of dedicated SEO time into your migration project. This ensures you cover everything: audit, mapping, implementation, and monitoring. That way, your BigCommerce-to-WooCommerce move will keep your traffic stable instead of dropping overnight.
Bottom line: Estimate at least a few dozen hours for SEO migration on a small site, and upwards of 100 hours for a large e-commerce replatform. Careful planning and realistic timelines will make the transition smooth and protect your rankings.
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