A CMS That Speaks Every Language
Swissinfo is an international online media outlet from Switzerland, delivering news and information to a diverse, global audience. Through its website and mobile app, Swissinfo’s journalists leverage rich multimedia storytelling and audience interactions to engage readers in at least ten languages.
As Swissinfo continued to evolve, its legacy CMS became a limiting factor by restricting flexibility and slowing down innovation. To unlock greater speed and adaptability, WordPress was chosen as an open-source alternative. Migrating swissinfo.ch to WordPress went far beyond moving 300,000 articles and 1 million images to the WordPress VIP platform. It also involved rebuilding numerous integrations across Swissinfo’s media infrastructure. This all happened while ensuring zero downtime.
API-Driven Architecture for Content Management
For the swissinfo.ch relaunch, Syde built a WordPress network using MultilingualPress to support 11 individual sites in ten languages. In close collaboration with Swissinfo’s engineering team, WordPress APIs were extended to integrate with microservices for media embedding, IPTC tagging, AI-powered translations, and a recommendation engine for article recirculation.
Custom solutions were developed to meet Swissinfo’s complex media requirements, including a digital asset management system (DAM) for centralized control over images and metadata. Throughout development, Syde’s QA specialists ensured reliability and usability through automated and manual testing, saving Swissinfo valuable preparation time. Clear instructional materials and hands-on training empowered journalists to confidently navigate the WordPress block editor and streamline their storytelling after the switchover.
Key Stats
300.000+ articles migrated
10 languages
11+ custom API integrations
“It’s very easy for our journalists to automatically create article translations right in the blog editor…I really like that. For example, when someone posts a comment on the English site, we translate it into all languages. In-CMS translation options make our workflow easier.”
VERONICA DEVORE, HEAD OF AUDIENCE AT SWI SWISSINFO.CH
