Is your site performing well on search engines? Oh, and you’re due a website revamp?
Then you might want to take SEO migration seriously.
There are many factors to consider when it comes to an SEO migration and in this post we’re going to cover the main areas to focus on, preparation and the after care of your website.
What is a site migration?
A site migration is a broad term used by SEO professionals to describe any event when a website undergoes change.
This can be from the site’s location and domain name, platform, structure, content, design, or UX.
All areas will have a huge impact on SEO performance therefore it is important to make sure you’ve ticked everything off before taking the big leap of faith.
SEO Migration Planning
SEO migration planning is the most important step when it comes to a website migration. Without a proper plan mistakes are bound to come out later on in the pipeline. So it is always best to make a solid plan for website migration preparation!
When updating a website whether that’s on a platform or a whole new UX design, every single decision needs to be thought through from both a UX and SEO.
For instance removing or completely replacing well ranked content which are smitten with keywords and links for UX may greatly damage the sites performance, which long term could result in crawling and indexing issues.
First thing is first, when it comes to an SEO migration you need to go straight to the basics, we’re talking wireframes and URL structure!
Making sure that the site structure and URL / parents / pagination are the same (if not redirected) is an important starting point. This follows, page content structure, imagery and alt tags, internal links, headings metadata much more – you can see the SEO migration checklist below.
SEO Migration Checklist
- URL structure
- Pagination
- HTML sitemap
- XML sitemap(s)
- Meta data (including dynamically generated default values)
- Structured data
- Canonicals and meta robots directives
- Copy & headings
- Imagery & Alt text
- Main & secondary navigation
- Internal linking (in any form)
- Hreflang (if there are international sites)
- Mobile setup (including the app, AMP, or PWA site)
- JavaScript, CSS, and image files
- Page loading times (for desktop & mobile)
- Redirects
- Custom 404 page
SEO Migration Testing & Launch
This is just as important as the SEO migration plan – the testing.
Ensuring that you have tested the site for correct URL structuring, internal linking, alt text, site speed and so forth is fundamental before the go-live.
The last thing you want is a broken site and missing links (literally) when migrating your new fresh design over, it can and will only go downhill from there.
Making sure you have touched base with the developer and performed an internal site audit is key – so test test test!
Summary
We hope this short post on SEO migration has helped you gain trust in yourself when it comes to launching your new website. Always remember, plan, plan, plan and then test test test!!
If you think you need an SEO migration then speak to one of our SEO experts today and feel at ease with the nifty migration process stress taken from your shoulders!
