Goodbye WordPress, Hello Headless: Lano Migrates 1,000+ Pages in Just 5 Days

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of remote working around here. Like many organizations today, we’re all about hiring the best people, no matter where they are in the world. But let’s face it, global employment isn’t without its challenges (we’re looking at you, payroll). Navigating potentially hundreds of national and local regulations and dozens of currencies simultaneously can be a real headache for any payroll team—but luckily, Lano (opens in a new window) is around to do the heavy lifting for you. Lano is a global payroll platform that allows users to automate and simplify payroll operations, ensure compliance across the board, and build a reliable, scalable global workforce—music to any multinational organization’s ears. They are providing the payroll solution that many modern teams need today, but they’d been stuck in the past with their old WordPress CMS setup. Repetitive upkeep, faulty plug-ins, and overcomplicated content workflows led them to finally say enough is enough, and their journey to a headless CMS began: here’s how it went.

The tipping point: why WordPress had to go

Lano’s previous WordPress setup had led to daily difficulties across multiple teams. They needed a CMS that could easily power their main website and all of its content— from product pages and blogs to podcasts and country guides—and one that both their developers and marketers would actually enjoy using. 

So, what exactly were the problems with WordPress? Well…

• No visual WYSIWYG editing tool.
• No user role permissions.
• Poor localization features.
• Heavy technical upkeep meant building new pages was painfully slow, with developers constantly reinventing the wheel instead of using shared components (no, thanks).
• Inconsistent design and code, which eventually led Lano to form a dedicated WordPress team just to keep things running.

And so Lano's CMS search began. 

The CMS features that sealed the deal

Lano’s search for a new CMS didn’t take long to narrow down. From the start, their Director of Product pitched Storyblok, having used it before in a previous company, he knew it offered the flexibility and simplicity their team needed. It was fast, intuitive, and provided the lightweight best-of-breed CMS they were looking for. 

Once the wider team took a closer look for themselves, the decision was made, and it was time to switch. Storyblok had checked all the right boxes: 

• Visual Editor: a WYSIWYG editing experience that lets content creators build and update pages quickly and confidently—no developers needed. 
• User-friendly interface: both technical and non-technical users can get to work easily with no steep learning curve or fear of breaking things getting in the way.
• Built-in localization: multilingual content is simple thanks to robust localization features and field-type translations. 
• User management: robust, flexible user and role management means freelancers and external collaborators can be given tailored access to Lano’s website. 
• Tech stack freedom: developers can work in the language they love, like React, without compromise and build the tech stack they want, not just the one that their CMS is compatible with. 

The process: migrating 1,000+ pages in 5 days 

The thought of migrating an entire website (and all its content) from one CMS to another is enough to send shivers down the spine of any marketer or developer. The auditing, copying, pasting, and endless reformatting—it’s a lot. But Lano was able to pull off the entire migration process from WordPress to Storyblok in just 4 months. 

They started off by rebuilding their homepage and core pages before moving on to their blogs, podcast pages, resources, guides, and all the rest. Now we know what you’re thinking: 4 months of migrating content every single day?! That doesn’t exactly sound like a fun use of time. The good news is Lano was able to automate a large part of the process, enabling them to migrate over 1,000 pages and country guides to Storyblok in 5 days—now that’s more like it. Not only that, they were also able to establish a globally-accessible component library at the beginning of the project. With reusable, modular components in place, content creators could easily build, update, and repurpose pages without starting from scratch. 

The results: was the change worth it?

With all of the pages migrated over and the component library ready to go, it was then time to onboard the team, which took all of 1 hour. Thanks to Storyblok’s intuitive interface, everyone was up and running in no time—no steep learning curve and no hand-holding required.

And the cherry on top? Translations are now easier and faster than ever. With Storyblok’s field-type translations, Lano can manage multilingual content using a single content tree. Content managers can quickly translate pages across English, French, German, and Spanish, while Storyblok ensures audiences automatically see content in their preferred language. 

Looking to the future, Lano plans to enhance its workflows and boost website performance even more by adopting Storyblok’s GraphQL API. It’s also exploring new ways to integrate Storyblok’s capabilities into its web app, unlocking even more flexibility and efficiency across its digital experience. We can’t wait to see what they do next!