Website migrations are an inevitable part of a company’s growth. Reasons for migration vary, from rebranding to leveraging cloud technology for scalability. While the concept seems straightforward, a single mistake can have detrimental effects on SEO, including 404 errors, lost rankings, missing content, and ultimately, lost revenue.
Planning Your Migration
Before embarking on your migration journey, meticulous planning is crucial. Start by conducting a thorough site crawl using tools like Screaming Frog to create a comprehensive inventory of your pages. This inventory serves as a reference point post-migration to ensure all pages have been successfully transferred.
Identifying peak traffic times on your site is also essential to avoid performing the migration during these periods. Additionally, a well-structured communication plan is vital, especially when multiple stakeholders are involved. This plan should encompass both internal and external communication, ensuring everyone is informed about the migration timeline, potential downtime, and who to contact for assistance.
Pre-Migration Preparations
The pre-migration phase involves gathering critical data. Utilize tools like Screaming Frog to compare crawls, set up staging environments, and map URLs. Gather your keyword rankings using platforms like Ahrefs or Semrush. Create annotations in Google Analytics to mark pre-migration data for future reference.
Remember, never delete your old site until the new site is fully functional and stable. It acts as a safety net in case of unforeseen issues.
11 Steps to a Successful Website Migration
- Setup Hosting, DNS, CDN, Mail: Begin by backing up your site and database. Create a staging environment to test the migration and identify potential errors. Then, set up your hosting environment, transfer files, configure DNS information, CDN, and mail parameters.
- Create Redirects: Prepare a list of redirects, both existing and new, to ensure a seamless transition for users and search engines.
- Review SEO Structure: Thoroughly examine your current site’s SEO structure, including crawlability, custom URLs, alt text, canonical tags, robots.txt, sitemaps, internal links, hreflang, structured data, URL structure, mobile setup, and pagination.
- Run Benchmarks: Establish benchmarks for page load speed, page indexing rates, crawl errors, and keyword rankings. These benchmarks will serve as reference points for evaluating the migration’s impact.
- Analyze Key Pages: Prioritize your most important revenue-generating pages and ensure they function flawlessly post-migration.
- Compare Site Crawls: Re-run your site crawler and compare the results with the pre-migration crawl. Check for broken links, redirects, and metadata discrepancies.
- Audit the Site: Conduct a comprehensive site audit, verifying redirects, internal links, server response times, and index/noindex information. Create or update your robots.txt file, set up canonical tags, and ensure key pages are performing optimally.
- Set Up Search Console and Webmaster Tools: If changing domains, add your new site to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools. Request indexing and submit your XML sitemaps.
- Run Usability Tests: Don’t overlook the importance of usability. Manually test key site areas on both mobile and desktop devices, including downloadable content, forms, the checkout process, live chat, mailing lists, and navigation.
- Monitor Analytics and Clean Up: Continuously monitor Google Search Console for errors and warnings. Review analytics and keyword rankings, especially for your top pages. Address any issues promptly.
- Post-Migration Monitoring: Maintain vigilance for the first few weeks after migration. Monitor for errors, verify analytics setup, Google Search Console configuration, sitemap submission, third-party licenses, caching system functionality, email operation, navigation, and conduct another Screaming Frog crawl.
Key Takeaways
Website migrations are complex but manageable with careful planning and execution. The steps outlined above provide a solid framework for ensuring a smooth transition. Remember, meticulous attention to detail, thorough testing, and continuous monitoring are key to a successful website migration.
Keywords:
- website migration
- SEO
- 404 errors
- site crawl
- Screaming Frog
- redirects
- SEO structure
- benchmarks
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- usability
- analytics
- post-migration monitoring
- staging environment
- keyword rankings
- metadata
- robots.txt
- sitemap
- canonical tags
- hreflang
- structured data
- mobile-friendliness
- duplicate content
- internal links
- server response times
- page load speed
- page indexing rates
- crawl errors
