At first, it might seem like a tiny change—just three letters—but in reality, it carries a strong message to the market and comes with a lot of technical challenges. As a content-first company with over 1,8000 pages on our website and 70% of our acquisition based on SEO, the stakes couldn’t be higher. But, as Mark Zuckerberg said:
“The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”
So, we took the risk to go bigger, better, and farther and Digidop.fr is now Digidop.com. Discover the “why” and “how” behind Digidop repositioning to a global brand in our unveiling blog post.
1. Introduction: The First 3 Years of Digidop
Digidop wasn’t born in a little garage in San Francisco but in a cozy coffee shop in Paris, France, in early 2021. From the start, we chose to focus on being a service agency, niching down on building marketing-focused websites using Webflow.
With a full inbound marketing strategy fueled by content on our blog, website, and social media, we’ve grown steadily. Our team of designers, web designers, and developers has had the privilege of working with over 150 inspiring clients over the past three years.
Fueled by collaborations with French companies, producing a wealth of French-speaking content, and co-organizing community events, we’ve built a strong reputation, especially in France. But as we expanded globally, two things became clear:
- Wherever we go, we are introduced as “The French Webflow Agency.”
- Our website and content simply don’t rank anywhere outside of France—thanks to our .fr domain.
While leading the French market has been incredible for building the agency, we realized it was time to evolve. The way we position the company and distribute our content needs to change.
2. Why We Made the Switch
Several key reasons motivated our collective decision.
2.1. Expanding Beyond France
We could have done it from the beginning, but have no regrets : Digidop.fr was the perfect domain for establishing a strong presence in the French-speaking market.
Many companies set their goals too high from the start and never get off the ground, but our approach allowed us to build a solid local SEO strategy, rank quickly, and become synonymous with the only French Webflow agency in the market at the time.
But for over a year now, Digidop has gained increasing international recognition through award-winning websites and nominations at industry events. Highlights include:
- Finalists in 4 Webflow Awards categories over 2 years
- Winners of Webflow Professional Partner of the Year (2023)
- Winners of Global Leader of the Year (2024)
This recognition has given us both credibility and visibility far beyond France’s borders and
as a fully remote agency, we have the technical capacity to operate anywhere in the world. It’s now time for our brand to reflect that and the switch to Digidop.com marks a step in realizing our global ambitions.
2.2. Building a Stronger Brand Identity
Switching to Digidop.com is more than a technical change—it’s a statement. It positions Digidop as a credible, scalable, and globally recognized brand. Global domains often symbolize trust, reliability, and status, which naturally enhance market perception.
→ Through Design and Positioning
This transition provided an opportunity to refresh Digidop’s branding after 1.5 years. From updated logos to enhanced visuals, this change reflects our global ambitions and strengthens our brand identity.
→ A brand new Website built with Webflow Only
The migration also serves as a live case study for our clients. By tackling:
- Migrating 1,800+ pages
- Switching domain names
- Implementing localized content
- Leveraging Webflow Localization tools
we’ve done a real-world case study demonstration of our expertise in the industry for clients desiring similar transitions.
2.3. SEO Considerations
While our performance using Weglot to translate the website was good, we have greater ambitions and expect even better results. We suspect that having a national domain root (.fr) negatively impacted our international rankings. In the global market, competition is fierce, with many highly competitive and well-optimized SEO websites. To achieve better SEO outcomes and align with our goal of targeting international markets, we decided to switch to a .com domain with SEO benefits in mind.
Switching to a .com domain offers several advantages:
- Improved International Reach: A global domain is better suited for ranking internationally.
- SEO Optimization: Aligning with global SEO best practices to compete in a broader market.
- Keyword Management: Utilizing Webflow Localization for seamless keyword work through the Webflow WYSIWYG interface.
However, this migration has not been without challenges:
- Domain Authority Loss: We risk losing some of the authority built under the .fr domain.
- Technical Data Migration: Moving thousands of pages and assets while maintaining SEO performance is a complex process.
We’ve taken every step possible to ensure a smooth transition and are optimistic that Google will interpret the changes correctly!
3. The Technical Challenges we faced in the moove
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
– John A. Shedd
Migrating a highly optimized SEO website with 1,800 pages, translated using Weglot, from French as the primary language to English was a technical and complex challenge. Along the way, we learned valuable lessons, leveraged automation and AI to streamline the process, and documented every step to ensure nothing was overlooked.
3.1. Data Migration
Migrating content, assets, and URLs from Digidop.fr to Digidop.com while preserving our hard-earned SEO rankings was a highly complex process. This involved not only transitioning a vast library of 1,800 pages but also ensuring the seamless translation of content, optimized for an English-first audience.
To tackle this challenge, we used the help of tools like ChatGPT and Make to automate workflows and accelerate the translation process.
Translation wasn’t the only challenge during this migration. We also had to meticulously map all the old URLs with .fr as the root domain to their new .com/fr counterparts—and vice versa.
To manage this effectively, we relied heavily on tools like Google Sheets or Airtable to bridge all data flows and maintain a source of truth free from errors.
3.2. 301 Redirects and Preserving SEO
💡 A 301 redirect is a permanent redirection that tells search engines and users that a webpage has moved to a new URL, preserving SEO rankings and ensuring seamless navigation.
To preserve SEO integrity and avoid traffic loss, we configured 1,700 redirects. This includes pages with just a URL change, as well as redirects to carefully selected new pages for deleted content. Before integrating these redirections into Webflow, we ensured every field was accurately tracked and verified.
3.3. Collaboration Between Teams
The journey started with FigJam, where we refined Digidop’s positioning and branding. This was followed by Figma for crafting the design and then Webflow for integration and data migration.
Leveraging multiple tools simultaneously was essential for maintaining efficiency and meeting the project’s tight deadline. In the final stages within Webflow, we maximized collaboration by utilizing different roles and seats effectively:
- One developer focused on the front-end to ensure a perfect and responsive build.
- Two editors worked in parallel to populate content and accelerate progress.
This collaborative approach allowed us to tackle tasks simultaneously ensuring a faster and successful migration process.
3.4. Testing and Debugging
This step is still ongoing, as we’ve just gone live! Btw, don’t hesitate to reach out if you come across any issues. And, we will be updating this section later with our complete system and the steps we’ve gone through.
4. What this means for our Clients and Community
Even with a new website, new services, and a fresh brand identity, Digidop remains fueled by the same energy. Nothing fundamentally changes—you’ll just get the best of Digidop, and even more.
4.1. For our clients
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The improved UX of our website will make it easier to explore our services, access new content, and utilize a useful search bar for better navigation in our resource HUB. Additionally, by expanding our reach to a global audience, we aim to gain valuable experience that will benefit all our current and future clients.
We have also refined our target audience and tailored our copy and landing pages to help prospects better understand our value and expertise.
4.2. For our community
Nothing changes—Digidop will continue to produce content in both French and English, and even more! We are now committed to releasing additional free resources such as eBooks, guides, and webinars. All of this content will be easier to access thanks to the integration of a search bar and an improved UX in a new Resources Hub.
Every content page has undergone UX enhancements, making it simpler and more intuitive to navigate. Additionally, by leveraging Webflow’s native interface for content management and translation, we’ve streamlined the process, eliminating the need for third-party tools. This allows us to create and share value more efficiently.
Long story short: The foundation remains the same—you’ll just have more, better, and higher-quality content, now targeting (also) non-French speakers!
5. What’s Next for Digidop
With Part 1 now live, we’re taking the first steps toward our ambitious 2025 goals.
This marks the start of an exciting journey, with many updates and improvements ahead. But don’t get wrong– our focus remains the same:
- Delivering high-quality services
- Developing offers aligned with evolving web market trends.
- Providing the best value to our clients and community.
And to stay updated, you can follow our Weekly Newsletter or our social media accounts (like LinkedIn), where we’ll share more about what’s happening in Q1 this year.
6. Conclusion
Switching from Digidop.fr to Digidop.com is more than just a domain change—it’s our biggest risk to date, reflecting our ambition to grow and embrace new opportunities on a global scale. This moment marks a pivotal in the Digidop journey, pushing us to reinvent ourselves in an exciting way.
As you can imagine, today, we are incredibly proud to share this announcement with you, a project the entire team worked on with passion for nearly six months: Hello World.
🔗 Digidop.com
