Switching technology isn’t so scary, after all

Most of us have endured a painful content migration (CMS migration) at some point in our careers, sparking our skepticism of new technology. The battle scars from such incidents carry over when we become digital news entrepreneurs looking for comprehensive tech solutions, such as what Indiegraf provides — a one-stop shop where independent news organizations can get everything they need to run their businesses.

Digital news entrepreneurs are right to have their guard up, but committing to technology shouldn’t be so scary, at least not anymore. Here are five common misconceptions we have heard from publishers interested in working with Indiegraf. Hopefully, this rundown dispels concerns about switching technology — just ask dozens of news publishers who rely on Indiegraf to serve their technology needs.

No website downtime with Indiegraf's content migration

Despite concerns that switching technology will cause your website to go dark, new Indiegraf publishers don’t experience any downtime because we split the content migration process into two parts:

1. We migrate existing content to populate the new website, which the publisher can review in a staging environment before going live; and
2. Once the website is approved by the publisher and a launch date is set, we migrate all content created between the first migration and launch day; during this short transition time, which usually only takes a few hours, publishers pause publishing to make sure no content is lost.

Indie Website prioritizes SEO

Indie Websites are optimized for search engine optimization (SEO), meaning your website won’t lose standing on search results when making the switch to Indiegraf!

Publishers can use our technology tools to fill out additional SEO-friendly details. Here are other ways we help boost your website on search feeds:

1. Updating Google when new posts are published using a built-in sitemap, which also helps promote your website content categories.
2. Blocking/allowing specific bots from indexing content.
3. Article templates are structured to improve the chance of reaching search results, news feeds and voice assistants. 
4. Setting title, description and thumbnail for social media posts to ensure more eye-catching headlines and visuals fit for each social channel.
5. Increasing the publication’s expertise, authority and trustworthiness using Author pages that contain bio, image and published articles from each writer.

Podcasts, maps and other embeds

While we don’t support audio or video feeds, publishers can upload multimedia content to a third party and place the embed code onto an Indie Website. Here are a few examples of three publications with audio content:

1. Energeticcity.ca
2. Pivot
3. Peterborough Currents

Publishers can also embed maps and other data visuals using popular tools such as Flourish, Datawrapper and Open Street Map.

Build topic-specific content pages

1. Resource guides and deep dives

With Indie Website it’s easy to build Election Guides and other topic-specific content pages for evergreen coverage or ongoing series. These landing pages allow prominent visuals and intro text to help contextualize your content. Here are some examples:

1. The Palm Springs Post: Homelessness
2. Pivot: Politique (policy coverage)
3. NowKalamazoo: Beyond Bullets (gun violence special project)

2. Immersive story templates

In addition, Indiegraf offers an immersive story template, such as this story from The Independent, to publish news features with standout visuals. Even our standard post template can stand out with stylish touches using the post editor, like this long-form story from The Discourse.

Indie Website allows for unlimited writer accounts and user-submitted content

Does your publication work with freelancers? Have them post story drafts directly. Indie Website allows unlimited users so that publishers can create user accounts with different levels of access:

1. Contributors: Limited backend access. Contributors can only edit their own posts and can’t publish.
2. Authors: Can access all posts but can only publish their own posts.
3. Editors: Full content control.

Online audiences can also contribute their own content in a variety of ways, whether it’s pitching a story idea or submitting a request for an investigation. Indie Website also supports user-submitted events with moderation required.