SEO Website Migration Service

SEO website migration refers to the process of making comprehensive changes to your website while retaining its existing SEO value.

This could involve changing the site's structure, switching to a new domain or CMS, or updating its content and design. The goal is to ensure there's no loss in your site's current traffic or its ranking on Google.

The process involves a series of important phases, including a pre-migration phase with detailed audits of the existing website and a planning phase where URL mappings and SEO setups are crafted. It is followed by a development phase where the website is built with SEO best practices in mind.

Before going live, it undergoes rigorous testing to ensure everything is set up correctly, and once live, it is monitored closely to guarantee optimal performance.

SEO migration is necessary when you are looking to make substantial changes to your website while preserving its current SEO standings. It allows you to upgrade or modify your website's aspects without losing the hard-earned SEO value, which includes elements like backlinks and keyword rankings.

Whether you're rebranding, changing your CMS for better functionality, or enhancing the user experience, SEO migration ensures a smooth transition, avoiding issues such as broken links or lost rankings.

It provides an opportunity to optimise your website further, correcting existing issues and enhancing performance for a better user and SEO experience.

The time frame for an SEO migration process can vary significantly based on the complexity of your website and the scope of the migration. Generally, it could take from a few weeks to several months.

The process is divided into several meticulous phases, including pre-migration audits and planning, development with SEO best practices, rigorous testing in a staging environment, and a focused post-migration phase with continual monitoring and optimisations.

Each phase is essential to ensure a smooth migration that preserves your SEO value and enhances the website's overall performance.

While it's technically possible to undertake SEO migration yourself, it is a highly intricate process that involves a deep understanding of SEO principles, website development, and content management. Given the risk of potential traffic and ranking losses if not conducted properly, it's often recommended to engage professionals with extensive experience in SEO migrations to handle the project.

Professional service providers like Marketix Digital ensure that all the vital aspects of your current SEO standings are audited and safely transitioned to the new website structure.

We manage everything from URL mappings, 301 redirects, content transfers to quality assurance, all while adhering to SEO best practices to ensure that your website retains its SEO value during the transition.

SEO migration, if not conducted meticulously, harbours several risks including a potential drop in rankings, loss of traffic, and broken site functionalities. Common issues might involve improper redirections leading to 404 errors, losing SEO value of high-performing pages, or overlooking the transition of valuable meta data and content.

Mitigating these risks involves careful planning and execution during all the phases of migration, including pre-migration audits to set clear goals and benchmarks, a well-structured development phase to ensure SEO-friendly build and logical link structures, followed by comprehensive testing before going live to catch potential issues.

Continuous post-migration monitoring and optimisation are vital to identifying and quickly rectifying any emerging problems, ensuring a successful migration process.

301 redirects play a pivotal role in any SEO migration process as they help in steering users and search engines from the old URL to the new one, ensuring that the SEO value of the original page is retained. This is critical in maintaining the link equity and historical performance metrics associated with the old URLs, preventing them from encountering dead ends (404 errors) which negatively impact user experience and SEO standings.

Creating a 301 redirect map as a part of the planning phase helps in meticulous documentation of how the old URLs correspond to the new ones, facilitating a seamless transition without loss of traffic or rankings. Implementing it correctly during the launch phase is essential, followed by continuous monitoring to ensure they are functioning as intended, preserving the SEO integrity of your website post-migration.

Pre-migration Phase

1. Audit Current Website

Before any migration begins, it’s vital to conduct a thorough audit of your current website. The audit should encompass:

SEO audit: Detail your current rankings for various keywords, document the existing backlink profile, and understand your present SEO setups including meta tags, header tags, and XML sitemaps.

Content audit: Catalogue all the content elements on your existing site, highlighting the high-performing pieces that bring the most value. Keep a keen eye on the most visited pages, and the keywords that are driving traffic to them.

Technical audit: Delve into the current website structure, identifying URLs, their structures, and any existing issues like broken links or slow-loading pages.

2. Backup

Before initiating the migration, ensure to have a full backup of the existing website. It would act as a safety net, securing all your data and allowing for a rollback in case something goes awry during the migration. It's essential to store the backup safely, ensuring it is complete and up-to-date to prevent data loss.

Planning Phase

3. Set Clear Goals

Define the objectives clearly before initiating the process. The goals could be manifold such as improving site structure, enhancing user experience, or updating the content strategy. Clearly laid out objectives will guide the migration strategy and help in maintaining a focused approach throughout the process.

4. Benchmarking

Benchmarking is about recording the current metrics to have a standard for comparison post-migration. Metrics could include current traffic, rankings for different keywords, and conversion rates. This would help in objectively assessing the impact of migration on the site’s SEO performance.

Development Phase

5. URL Mapping and 301 Redirects

URL mapping is the cornerstone of migration planning. The process involves creating a detailed roadmap of how individual URLs will be redirected to the new site. Implementing 301 redirects will guide search engines and users from the old pages to the new ones, safeguarding the SEO equity that the original pages held.

6. SEO Setup

Ensure the new site embodies SEO best practices right from the ground up. Key on-page elements like meta tags, header tags, and alt attributes for images should be correctly set up to facilitate search engine crawlers and enhance the site’s visibility on search engine result pages.

Testing Phase

7. Content Transfer

When transferring content, maintain the quality that exists on the current site. Ensure that the high-performing content retains its essence, and the SEO attributes such as keywords focus, and meta descriptions are suitably aligned to the new site’s objectives.

8. Mobile Optimisation

Given the increasing reliance on mobile devices, your new site must be mobile-friendly. Ensure that the design is responsive, providing a seamless experience across different devices and screen sizes. Also, verify that mobile load speed is optimal to retain user engagement.

Launch Phase

9. Staging Environment

Before going live, set up a staging environment, a replica of the live environment, to test all functionalities. It allows for a safe space to spot and rectify errors before the official launch, saving you from unforeseen complications post-launch.

10. SEO Tests

In the testing phase, run detailed SEO tests to ascertain everything is working as expected. Use SEO tools to check various elements like meta tags, internal links, and page speed. Ensuring all these aspects are finely tuned will set a solid groundwork for SEO post-migration.

Post-migration Phase

11. Monitoring

Post-migration, it is pivotal to keep a close eye on the site’s performance. Regular monitoring will enable you to spot any issues promptly and fix them before they escalate to bigger problems affecting the user experience and SEO rankings adversely.

12. Search Console

After going live, submit the new website sitemap to Google Search Console to initiate re-indexing. This step is vital to help Google understand the changes and index your new site correctly, facilitating a smooth transition in terms of search engine rankings.

Our technical SEO audit leverages a wide array of industry-leading tools to ensure a meticulous analysis.

This includes Screaming Frog and Ahrefs for a detailed site crawl, SEMrush for competitive analysis and keyword research, Google Search Console for C.R.I.C.S framework, and Google Analytics for data analysis, and various other tools including custom Python scripts that we deploy for bespoke analysis and insights.

These tools, coupled with our expertise, allow us to provide an audit service grounded in depth and quality.