Everyone knows about website migration horror stories, so it is crucial to plan the transition carefully. SEO specialists should be involved from the outset to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Based on organic traffic data, identify which pages need to be combined or deleted based on organic traffic data—plan tracking setup and create a redirect map.
1. Redesign
Website redesign is the process of altering the visual appearance of an online site to make changes to its usability and effectiveness of marketing measures, such as search engine optimisation. The redesign can have positive results on usability as well as marketing measures like search engine optimisation. Redesign may increase the click-through rate on buttons, ads or other elements as well as dwell time and visitor comfort when using the website – essential factors in establishing an effective web presence.
2. Upgrade
Upgrades may involve design changes, migration from HTTP to HTTPS, or restructuring of URL structures. However, these migrations tend to be less complex than full redesigns and still present issues for SEO and UX that must be addressed.
As with any website migration project, testing a closed environment is essential as soon as the site is ready. It will enable us to identify any errors which need fixing before its full roll-out.
Attract all stakeholders involved in your project – IT/SEO experts, designers, copywriters and analytics teams alike. Each one will bring something different to the table to ensure all deliverables are met, while clear communication throughout will help ensure everyone works towards similar goals. A task management system such as Trello or Wrike can help keep track of deliverables and deadlines while keeping an overview of who’s responsible for each task – Trello/Wrike can also keep track of which tasks need doing and who’s accountable.
3. Rebrand
Change is inevitable for any business, but sometimes this involves altering more fundamental elements like their brand, logo and URL – which could have serious ramifications for SEO and how people find you.
An effective way to mitigate potential SEO repercussions is to devise and test a plan. It will ensure that any changes made are done to cause minimal problems; at first, this may mean moving one section of your site at a time to see its effect on Search.
Before Augmentum web migration content from an old site to the new one, it’s also recommended that you freeze content using Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider to create a content map and identify all existing URLs as well as check for errors, including any redirect chains (e.g. A to B to C).
4. Change Domain
Augmentum web migration may occur for any number of reasons, from changes in structure and design, platform functionality and UX to content relocating or changing its domain name – this might be in response to new product or service launches, acquisition of an existing company with its domain name already taken, or simply wanting to strengthen brand recognition.
Change of domain should be undertaken with great caution as it can have devastating repercussions for SEO performance and lead to an unexpected decrease in rankings, indexed pages, and organic search traffic. To ensure an effortless transition, engage expert SEO consultants from the outset of any project.
Establish the reasons for migration, set a budget and timeline, and implement a content freeze. Next, crawl your site, creating an inventory of pages. Next, devise a 301 redirect plan, testing in closed environments to ensure they work as expected, update DNS servers with your new domain address, try everything again before updating, trying again as a final step and setting up web analytics or tracking tools as appropriate.
5. Change Hosting
There can be numerous reasons for switching website hosts. Perhaps you need more disk space, bandwidth allotments, a different CMS platform, or enhanced editing and website administration features.
No matter the reason, website migration can be a challenging undertaking. When poorly handled, it can result in status code errors, compromised SEO performance and frustrated users.
To ensure a seamless transition, it’s essential to crawl the legacy website and collect an inventory of pages needing migrating. Furthermore, FTP client upload message log and folder permission checks should also be performed to ensure there aren’t any issues that might inhibit migration efforts.
