Avoiding SEO Disasters During Site Migrations
How to: Site Migration Without Losing SEO Results
Site migrations are one of those tasks that can make even the most seasoned developers break out in a cold sweat. Moving an entire website from one platform to another, or even just restructuring a site’s architecture is not for the faint hearted. The thing is, a site migration is not just a tick box of technical tasks. Done wrong, it can tank your rankings, lose you valuable traffic, and scupper any of your SEO efforts. But when done right? It’s a smooth transition that preserves your SEO value and lays the foundations for more growth.
Here’s how to make sure your site migration doesn’t mess up your SEO.
1. Start with a Solid Plan
Before you even think about hitting the “go” button on your migration, you need a plan. The biggest mistake brands make is treating site migrations as a purely technical task. Sure, your dev team might be ready to handle the logistics, but without input from your SEO team, its risky business.
Your plan should include:
- A complete inventory of your current site: Identify all your key traffic-driving pages, top-ranking content, and high-value backlinks.
- Mapping old URLs to new ones: Ensure that every page on your old site has a proper 301 redirect to the corresponding page on the new site.
- A timeline for each stage of the migration: From planning to post-launch monitoring, make sure everyone knows what’s happening and when.
2. Conduct a Pre-Migration SEO Audit
Before the migration, conduct a full SEO audit of your existing site. This will give you a clear benchmark to measure against post-migration. Focus on:
- Crawling your site: Use tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb to crawl your entire site and gather data on URLs, meta tags, internal links, and more.
- Analyzing your backlink profile: Identify your most valuable backlinks so you can prioritize them during the migration.
- Assessing site performance: Check your site’s speed, mobile-friendliness, and overall user experience.
3. Collaborate Closely with Your Dev Team
Communication is key. Your SEO team and dev team need to be in sync from day one. While your dev team will handle the technical aspects of the migration, your SEO team must ensure that nothing gets lost in translation. Miscommunication can lead to issues like:
- Wrong redirects: Pages that should be driving traffic to your new site could end up leading visitors to dead ends.
- Lost backlinks: Valuable links pointing to your site could be lost if not properly redirected.
- Internal linking chaos: Without careful planning, your internal linking structure could become disorganized, confusing both users and search engines.
4. Test, Test, and Test Again
Before you go live, you need to test everything—multiple times. This includes:
- Checking your redirects: Make sure all 301 redirects are working correctly and leading to the appropriate pages.
- Reviewing on-page SEO elements: Double-check that title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and other on-page elements have been properly transferred to the new site.
- Monitoring site speed and performance: Ensure that the new site loads quickly and provides a good user experience.
5. Monitor Post-Migration Performance
The first few weeks after a migration are nerve racking. You need to monitor your site’s performance closely to catch any issues before they cause long-term damage. Keep an eye on:
- Google Search Console: Look for any crawl errors, 404 pages, or drops in indexed pages.
- Traffic and rankings: Monitor your organic traffic and keyword rankings to ensure there’s no significant drop.
- Backlinks: Use tools like Ahrefs or Majestic to ensure your backlinks are still pointing to the right pages.
6. Be Ready to Adapt
Even with the best-laid plans, things can go wrong. Maybe a few redirects didn’t work as expected, or a drop in traffic was more significant than anticipated. The key is to be ready to adapt quickly. If you notice issues, address them immediately. This could mean fixing broken redirects, updating sitemap files, or even tweaking content on key pages to better align with the new site structure.
7. Invest in the Short Term for Long-Term Gains
It’s important to remember that a site migration is an investment. Yes, it may take time, resources, and possibly a temporary dip in traffic to get everything just right, but the long-term gains are worth it.
Site migrations don’t have to be a nightmare. With the right planning, collaboration, and a focus on SEO, you can move your website without losing the traffic and rankings you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Bringing in SEO experts who have experience with site migrations can be the difference between a smooth transition and a costly mistake.
