What is SEO migration​?

Maintaining a strong online presence is paramount for businesses of all sizes in today’s digital world. A successful SEO strategy can help boost visibility, drive organic traffic and generate leads and sales. However, even the most successful websites may need a change in domain, hosting provider or platform from time to time. These types of changes can be disadvantageous to your search engine rankings and organic traffic if not handled carefully.

Are you planning to move your website to a new domain, hosting environment or content management system? Are you worried about how this might affect your SEO performance? Keep reading this guide to find out how to move your website while maintaining its SEO performance.

How to choose the right technical SEO agency: things to consider.

Website migration is the process of moving a website’s content, design and functionality from one digital environment to another. This can involve a variety of major changes including the domain name, the hosting provider, the content management system (CMS), or a design overhaul. If you have a skilled team and it’s a relatively simple migration, this can be done in-house. However, for a more complex migration, consider hiring a digital marketing agency.

So, what types of site migrations are there? There are many different types of site migration depending on the changes needed.

Site location changes: This could be a domain change or rebranding, switching HTTP to HTTPS, moving or merging sections of the website, or changing the mobile set-up.

Platform changes: This includes switching to a new platform, upgrading the platform version, integrating different platforms or adding new platform features.

Structural changes: These changes include internal linking, site hierarchy, navigation, and user flow.

Content changes: This could be adding or removing pages or content on the site, consolidating content or pages, or introducing new languages.

Design and UX changes: These changes include look and feel changes, media changes, UX-driven changes across devices, and site performance changes.

Will a migration impact SEO performance?

If a website migration is not done correctly, it can affect SEO performance and impact your search engine rankings, organic traffic, and leads, and even your local SEO. Some businesses let excitement get in the way when it comes to relaunching their new website without considering an SEO migration strategy. This can lead to a huge decline in organic visibility and traffic.

How long does SEO for site migration take​?

How long a site migration takes depends on several factors such as the complexity of the migration, the size of your website, the amount of content that is being moved, and the quality of the migration.

A simple domain migration may take a lot less time than one with a complex platform or one that needs a complete design overhaul. Websites with more pages and content will take a lot longer to migrate and index. Some well-planned and executed SEO migrations can take a month while others may take longer.

Typically, it takes several weeks to a few months for a website to regain its full SEO performance following a migration. Give yourself plenty of time to plan for the migration properly and discuss it with your team at length to ensure a smooth transition and minimise the negative impact.

SEO migration checklist​: things to consider.

If you are considering an SEO migration, there are many things to remember to ensure the migration is completed on time. We’ve put together a comprehensive SEO migration checklist to help you along the way.

Plan URL structure and redirect mapping

Well-structured URLs and redirects are key to successful SEO migrations. They maintain user experience, prevent broken links and preserve valuable link equity.

Planning your URL structure

1. Keep URLs simple and logical.
2. Try using simple, descriptive keywords in your URLs.
3. Use hyphens to separate words in URLs.
4. Include relevant keywords but avoid keyword stuffing.
5. Maintain a consistent structure throughout your website.

Creating a redirect map

1. Create a spreadsheet or inventory of all your old and new URLs.
2. Map the old URLs to the new, relevant pages to help maintain search equity.
3. Focus on redirecting high-traffic and high-value pages first.
4. Strip parameters from URLs and combine multiple URLs into a single, standard URL.
5. Test your website on different browsers and devices to ensure a smooth user experience.

Update internal linking

A successful website migration requires internal links to be updated. This ensures that both users and search engine crawlers can navigate your new website easily and that link equity is distributed effectively.

How to update internal links

1. Use a crawler tool like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, or SEMrush to identify and fix broken links on your site. These tools can also show which pages have the most internal links.
2. Use the SEMrush site audit feature to conduct regular audits. Check the “Internal Linking” report for pages with few links and add links from related pages.
3. Prioritise linking to your most important pages. Identify which pages get the most organic traffic and use contextual links from these to link to other relevant content.

Test the migration in a staging environment

A staging environment is a duplicate of your new website that users can’t see. It allows you to test the migration, helping you to identify and resolve any potential issues before going live. Testing the migration gives your team time to check the site search functionality and ensure it returns accurate results. It also gives you time to verify that all content is accurate, up to date and consistent with your brand guidelines, and you can also test and implement 301 redirects. This helps ensure a more successful migration with minimal disruption to your users and search engine rankings.

By following these critical steps as outlined ensures a smooth transition without loss of search visibility. Remember, a successful SEO migration requires careful planning, thorough execution, and continuous monitoring. Prioritising these steps can help minimise disruptions to your website’s traffic and maintain a strong online presence.