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Posted by Vikram Rathod
May 30, 2020
With the progression and technological advances of businesses, a lot has been witnessed with the user-behavior shift, website owners, and marketers that rise with an eventual experience and challenges that come with website migration that is SEO friendly. What looks like a straightforward task, when burdened with an error, may look like leakage in the pipe- it’s small, at times avoidable but can lead to a chaotic mess.
In SEO, website migration is essential but is stressful to carry out and oftentimes they are executed badly. Website migration is a necessity when making some changes to the domain name or tasking out larger site design projects, a precise and thorough migration can lay out the path of bigger benefits for organic search, designing implementations, and improved user experience.
Developing a new website is a long, tedious process and the next scary step is, ‘data migration’, clients often get overwhelmed at this stage. This article will examine the exact meaning of a site migration, its impact when done incorrectly, considerations a website should have while carrying out, and the importance of this step in SEO.
A website migration redirects your old/existing web page data to new pages and aims to reduce any negative impact on the rankings that have occurred due to the new changes made to the website. Coining in SEO terms, any functional changes made to the structural URL of a site, the move is stirred as a migration.
Switching to another content management system (or CMS) is the most preferred step of the migration, it is essentially a web application that is layered on top of the core database that stores all types of information that one wants on a website. The most common platforms for this action are WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.
The importance of moving to a particular CMS is, that without it, a custom-built, complex-coded website is difficult to manage. One requires a specialty and niche knowledge to make even the smallest of changes. Moving a website from one CMS to another has a clear set of advantages and benefits.
For instance, a small business owner chose to develop a customized website from a freelance developer, as it was cheaper, but with some advancement in the company, it is best advised to opt for a common CMS like WordPress at the time of redesigning the website.
When website migration is carried out in the wrong way, it could lead to a massive loss in your rankings and traffic, and all that is added to the pile of lost business when the website goes live. When you migrate the data of your website and there is some dust and trail left, even though the old pages no longer exist from the website but Google stores everything. If a user clicks on the search results, and they see an empty shop with no operational ladder- they will switch to another website that works.
One is aware of the complexities of website migration and one does need to have a tiger’s eye to take it on. As a website owner, one faces numerous occasions where website migration is the only option left:
Working on the design should be undertaken when the conversions are weaker or you feel that the customer’s journey on the website isn’t as smooth as it should be. This is where one should start working to resolve any design or website issues.
When you have a website on an outdated platform, it can be proven disruptive to both you and your audience leading to a loss of sales. Opting for the right CMS is inevitable but always keep in mind that every website has a different approach. Always think if moving to a different technology is the only option left and enhances the current setup.
In this technological advancement, mobile indexing and the ratio of mobile to desktop traffic are taken into consideration when optimizing for mobile platforms. Analyze your audience preference, and cost before you create a different stage of mobile-specific experience
Executing the HTTPS protocol on your website is crucial from a security standpoint, the absence of it can negatively affect the user experience due to pop-ups for an unsecured page on most browsers. Switching to HTTPS on the first hand should be taken into consideration; especially the ones that store information.
Thinking of rebranding and getting your hands on a better URL is obvious, but this one shouldn’t be made on a lighter note as changing the domain name is a big decision.
If one thinks that the server’s performance is compliant with your Web hosting conditions, jumping to another host is the only option left. Take thorough time and energy in researching the right host.
Protocol change: Migrating a website from HTTP to HTTPS for security reasons is a prime example of protocol change
Subdomain or subfolder change: When a company opts to move from one ccTLD into subdomains and subfolders
Change of domain: This is a step in the case of rebranding when one switches from one domain to another.
Top-level domain change: This is in case of business expansion overseas or limited to certain countries.
Site change: This is for the improvement of the layout that affects the internal references and URL structure of the page.
Replatforming: This is a change of CMS, moving the website to a particular website, for instance, switching from WordPress to Shopify.
Mobile setup changes: It is about shifting to a mobile setup, indexing the applications, or even creating a PWA website, and are often called partial website migrations.
Content migration: It is the process of rewriting, consolidating, or processing the content that impacts the visibility of organic search.
Redesigns: It encompasses anything and everything from minor design to complete website revisions, covering major changes in coding and copying.
There are times when files are often lost during the transition phase and having a backup helps in creating the process smoothly. Choosing the backup file is simple and often doesn’t take long.
301 redirects give page value to the new URL, it prevents broken links in the content that have occurred due to migration.
Meta elements are title tags and meta descriptions, they have core SEO value. When one fails to transfer these, it can lead to a loss of rankings and traffic.
When building a website one has to host the website on a server and in case of no-index, no-follow of the unfinished content or layout will not be crawled or indexed by search engines. One needs to remove these tags when the new site goes live. Even though it is a common step, it is hidden in the code and is often discovered after the drop in Analytics.
The goal of the website is to drive traffic and leads and in case your contact forms are not functioning properly, this is where the leads will not overturn. Conversion codes and thank you pages should be tested to track properly for accuracy.
Ensure that the new site isn’t live until it has been reviewed. One should check several things to set mark the accuracy, which include:
The issues of formatting often occur with new designs, one should check every page to review the formatting error.
For a successful website marketing campaign, tracking code is the key, in case it is removed, one wouldn’t be able to work on traffic and end up losing valuable data. There are times when it can go unnoticed for weeks and months and removal can lead to losing a lot of valuable information.
Are you thinking of migrating your website to a newer platform or developing a new website? Look for website migration processes that are comprehensive and provide all aspects of website migration that are created with aspects of analytics, SEO, and conversion rate.
