SEO Migration Services
Implement site migration without the mistakes that most websites make and benefit from no visibility drops!
Why should the website be migrated in cooperation with an SEO specialist?
Doing a website migration is a considerable undertaking for any company. On the one hand, it offers an unprecedented opportunity to improve the visibility of the site, and on the other – it’s a huge risk. When done incorrectly, it can have a tremendously negative impact on SEO and sales.
How website migration could harm your SEO?
You may be wondering what can possibly go wrong. After all, it’s just a website migration. Well, it turns out it’s not always a walk in the park.
So, what are the risks? The most common issues arise due to a lack of up-to-date SEO knowledge on the part of developers performing the migration. Unfortunately, sometimes webmasters that are well-versed experts don’t realize that not knowing SEO principles can lead to making many mistakes that can seriously deteriorate the condition of the site.
Most notorious website migration mistakes
As you probably know, 301 redirects are an HTTP responses indicating that a user should be redirected to a new site. But this isn’t the only role of redirects.
They make it possible to transfer the majority of your page authority and power to the new site, allowing you not to waste the effects of the performed SEO activities. Failure to perform 301 redirects will have a tremendous impact on your website visibility.
Google robots won’t be able to efficiently navigate and crawl your website if the sitemap isn’t correct and includes old URLs.
When doing website migration, it’s crucial to update the sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.
This is another notorious mistake that will prevent you from collecting data on a continuous basis.
Connecting Google Analytics, Google Search Console or Facebook’s Pixel is an essential part of a site migration.
Sometimes during the e-commerce migration, developers forget to transfer some of the products which quickly results in decreased sales.
Of course, it doesn’t have to be a serious mistake, provided that you realize something is wrong right away. The situation is much worse when you discover it after a few months.
You’ve probably invested lots of time and effort to create FAQ sections, blog posts, video manuals or other content pieces published on your website. It would be a shame to waste that potential!
For this reason, it’s crucial to make sure that your existing content is transferred to the new website during the migration.
Although elements like titles or meta descriptions aren’t visible on the website at first glance, they have a huge impact on your positions in the search results and decision-making of users. That’s why, you mustn’t forget about them.
Internal linking is another important aspect. Sometimes, when moving the content of a page, internal links are either omitted or aren’t modified accordingly. Such mistakes have a negative impact on website crawling and user experience.
It may seem to you that website migration is an ideal moment to delete part of categories or rename them. Well, it’s not. Trust us.
Unfortunately, inconsiderate modifications can frequently result in decreased visibility. After all, the menu design and site architecture are elements that have a key impact on SEO!
It’s a great and simple recipe for generating numerous 404 errors, that can quickly translate into a negative user experience and decreased visibility in the search results. Why? Because Google may come to the conclusion that it’s not worth displaying your website in the search results if it doesn’t contain the content it should contain.
How can an SEO agency help you with website migration?
We often try to be Jacks of all trades. While it can be an effective recipe for saving lots of money in many situations, it’s worth keeping in mind that website migration is a complex process where thoughtless decisions can do more harm than good.
Therefore, if you’re planning to transfer your page, you should benefit from the support of an experienced SEO website migration consultant.
Why? Check out the benefits below:
- You can consult the design of the new website;
- The expert will also give you advice on the choice of technology that will be the most beneficial both SEO and UX-wise;
- The agency will oversee the process of transferring all content and optimizations that should be done during and after the migration. This will take a weight off your shoulders;
- You’ll avoid the most notorious mistakes such as lack of redirects, or not transferring all products, forgetting about tags, and plugging in tools;
- If you’re concerned that you might forget something, an SEO agency will oversee the entire process for you, from start to finish, to guarantee that your website migration is successful.
Bartłomiej Bober
Manager
Why should you choose Delante?
At Delante, we have successfully performed many website migrations. Thanks to it, we’ve both the necessary knowledge and extensive experience in SEO migration. We know many CMS and technologies (not just the most popular ones) like the back of our hand.
What’s more, we stand out thanks to our business approach to SEO. We realize that it’s one of the components of Internet marketing, supposed to help you achieve your goals and grow sales.
Do you have any doubts if we can handle your website migration challenge? Contact us, we’ll be happy to answer all your questions!
Case Studies
Our clients are the best testimonial of our experience and skills. Want to learn more about our successes? Read the case studies:
SEO migration step by step
What are the stages of SEO migration service? Take a look below!
The first stage is to plan precisely what the migration will involve. Then, we choose the most suitable moment to do it, determine its type and make a list of tasks that must be performed during the process. If these tasks include changing URLs, we specify their structure at this point. Moreover, we also create a 301 redirect map.
We secure all site data – the backup alone is the bare minimum. At Delante, we also export data on titles, meta descriptions, URLs, header tags (H1-H6) or structured data information, internal and external linking, and all analytics. While some of these activities aim to secure the site’s data in case the migration fails, others are performed to gather historical data that can come in handy for future activities, including marketing.
In this phase, we prepare the landing page for launch. We check if we have a complete set of data, if all content has been exported, we verify structured data and internal linking. In simple words, we make sure everything is tiptop. The day before launching the new site, we make a final backup version of the old one.
Many people find stage 4 to be the most stressful, but the previous weeks spent preparing for this are supposed to ensure that the actual migration is a walk in the park. At this point it’s crucial to make sure that all analytics tools are properly plugged in, the site isn’t generating 404 errors, indexing is possible, and there are no problems with missing pages or content. Once everything is verified, it’s time to update the sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console.
Once the new site is live and the migration is completed, we perform a full SEO audit, which makes it possible to detect any issues early on.
As you can guess, the SEO audit can’t be the last step in the process. After the migration, we still devote a lot of time to analyze the website condition and check if there are any broken backlinks, indexing issues, or problems with redirects.
Types of SEO migration
There are many forms and types of SEO migration. It isn’t just moving a site from one CMS to another. What are the types of SEO migration?
FAQ
Yes, website migration can increase SEO traffic. However, although properly done migration can improve your site’s visibility and bring in more traffic, it’s worth keeping in mind that there is a lot of risk associated with the process. It must be carried out entirely correctly so that you don’t experience negative aftermaths such as decreased traffic or visibility.
For this reason, it’s advisable not to perform SEO migration, unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing, or have the support of professional developers and SEO specialists.
Website migration can be a real challenge SEO-wise. To prevent decreases in your visibility, you need to have the right plan. These are some of our tips:
- When planning a website migration, consider the seasonality of your business and choose a moment when it’s not busy. Don’t do it before Christmas, or Black Friday if you run e-commerce.
- Remember about the 301 redirect map.
- Remember to submit your updated sitemap to Google Search Console.
- Keep all analytics and SEO-related data (e.g. titles) for historical analysis.
- Take your time! It’s better to perform one task at a time. We described the exact steps of SEO migration earlier on.
The migration process itself shouldn’t take long but the preparation for it and website analysis afterwards is a completely different kettle of fish. Depending on the size of the website, the entire process can take up to several weeks.
The key audit checks and stages of SEO website migration include:
- planning
- data collection
- staging environment
- the launch day
- post-launch website analysis
- monitoring and review
Apart from these stages, you should avoid the most notorious migration mistakes and take care of:
- creating 301 redirects,
- transferring all content, including blog posts and other pieces,
- modifying internal linking,
- remembering about SEO titles and meta descriptions,
- transferring the entire assortment.