SilverHawkAuthor — Platform Migration for Scalable Content, SEO & Monetization
about the client
SilverHawkAuthor is a content-driven platform created by Harold A. Skaarup, a Canadian author and researcher specializing in Canadian military history and aviation. The site is dedicated to archival-based research and in-depth historical analysis, serving readers who are passionate about military aviation, primary sources, and well-documented historical narratives.
Through articles, long-form blog posts, and published books, SilverHawkAuthor functions both as an educational resource and as a publishing hub for specialized historical content. As the platform continued to grow, it evolved into a large-scale content operation with thousands of published entries and a clear long-term vision focused on expanding readership, improving discoverability, and developing sustainable monetization.
Project Overview
Our Role
At Rapid Fire, we always choose what’s best for our clients. While we are known as a Webflow-focused agency, in this case WordPress proved to be the more suitable platform for managing a high-volume blog and future monetization opportunities. Our role was to lead a strategic platform migration that preserved performance, protected SEO, and positioned SilverHawkAuthor for continued growth.
The Challenge
The existing site was well-designed and functional, but the content volume had reached a point where expanding, and monetizing a large blog would become increasingly complex.
The main challenges included:
- Migrating over 2,500 content items without data loss
- Preserving (and ideally improving) SEO performance
- Ensuring a smooth transition with minimal downtime
- Maintaining site structure, readability, and performance throughout the migration
Our Solution & Implementation
Rapid Fire planned and executed a fully automated migration to WordPress, tailored specifically for large-scale content operations.
Key actions included:
- Automated migration of 2,500+ posts and pages
- SEO-safe redirects and URL structure preservation
- Performance optimization and cleanup during the transition
- Careful validation of metadata, headings, and internal linking
Results & Impact
The migration was completed successfully, with measurable improvements:
- SEO score preserved — and in some cases improved
- Early signs of increased organic traffic post-migration
- Improved content management efficiency for a large blog
- A scalable foundation ready for future monetization strategies
The site now operates on a platform designed to grow alongside its content and audience.
conclusion
This project reflects our belief that technology should serve strategy; and that our role is to build the right solution.
By choosing WordPress for SilverHawkAuthor, we ensured the platform aligned with the client’s long-term vision, while demonstrating our ability to adapt, automate, and deliver results beyond a single ecosystem.
Managing and regularly updating historical information using informative webpages has been a challenging but rewarding experience. I did not have the expertise to make it work in a practical and useful way. As a birthday present, my children arranged to hire Karina to come up with a workable solution - she designed and built an incredible history saving machine that has grown with time to the point that over 1.9 million visitors have dropped in to have a look at the web pages. They appear to be interested in the military data and photos that I have collected and collated over the years, leading me to add and update the website daily. There are more than 2,300 separate pages at present, mostly showcasing my photos of military subject matter combined with stories of my experiences as an Army officer deployed abroad in Germany, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colorado and Afghanistan.
The success of this venture led me to recommend Karina and her team to the Balkans35 military veterans team who are developing a commemoration event covering the Canadian Forces peacemaking operations in the Balkans. She is kindly donating her time and expertise for this group pro-bono. Her heart is in the right place, and her skills on building websites like these are extraordinary. I would recommend her services to anyone who wants to have a site built for themselves. Should you choose to make use of her skills, you will be well served.
Harold A. Skaarup
