The project at a glance
Why the team needed two publishing platforms
The CSR team wanted more flexibility when publishing campaigns and time-sensitive updates. Moving selected pages to WordPress offered that flexibility, while the majority of the website could continue to use AEM's established content structure and governance.
That decision created an operational challenge. Visitors still needed to experience one website, even though two content management systems would serve its pages. Editors and developers also needed clear rules for releases, quality checks, analytics, and security across the platform boundary.
Building the operating model alongside the technology
We set up separate development, staging, and production environments for WordPress. Each environment had a defined role in moving templates and pages toward release, giving the team a place to validate changes before they reached the public site.
Publishing responsibilities, service expectations, and escalation routes were documented alongside the technical setup. Coordination with the client's AEM team and marketing technology partners covered URL structure, sitemap changes, analytics instrumentation, and video compliance. A dedicated Azure DevOps coordination channel made cross-team dependencies and handoffs visible.
Keeping navigation, measurement, and URLs consistent
A hybrid website succeeds when its platform boundaries do not interrupt the visitor's journey. Shared header and footer components were managed through the client's custom platform so that global navigation and branding stayed consistent across WordPress and AEM.
Analytics tagging followed the client's business intelligence specifications across components and pages, with engineering support for the necessary allow-list changes. URL rewrites, permanent redirects, and canonical rules supported continuity as selected content moved. Sitemap updates formed part of the publishing work rather than a separate task after release.
What the delivery included
- Three WordPress environments: configured development, staging, and production instances aligned with the client's web requirements.
- A documented publishing workflow: ownership, service-level expectations, QA responsibilities, and escalation paths for content changes.
- Consistent analytics: business intelligence tags across pages and components, coordinated with the client's engineering teams.
- Managed routing: URL rewrites, 301 redirects, canonical rules, and sitemap updates for the hybrid estate.
- Shared site navigation: header and footer components maintained through the client's custom platform.
- Controlled releases: template and page migrations, defect tracking, QA validation, and checks after deployment.
The result for content teams and visitors
The CSR team gained a more responsive way to publish selected content while the core estate retained AEM's governance. The transition kept live content available, and the common navigation helped the two systems function as a connected website.
The operational work mattered as much as the platform setup. Clear release processes and a shared coordination channel reduced ambiguity at handoff points, helping distributed teams publish with greater confidence. The project shows how a targeted CMS addition can support content agility without requiring an estate-wide migration.
Technology used in the engagement
WordPress and Adobe Experience Manager provided the publishing platforms. Azure DevOps supported delivery coordination, with URL routing, analytics tagging, and the client's shared navigation platform connecting the operational experience.
Questions We Get Asked
No. Selected CSR pages moved to WordPress while most content remained on AEM. The project established processes for running the two together.
Shared navigation, coordinated URL handling, and common analytics requirements connected the pages served by the two platforms.
Separate environments, QA validation, managed migrations, defect tracking, and post-release checks supported the change. Live content remained available during the transition.
