In this presentation, Faye will take through the necessary steps you need to take to ensure a successful website platform migration and how to avoid the loss of organic traffic and keyword rankings.

1. Bristol SEO Meetup
An SEO’s Guide to Website
Migrations

2. About Me
• Digital Marketing Executive at Edico Media
• 4 years experience in SEO & PPC
• Started Bristol SEO Meetup
Follow Me
• @FayeWatt
• @BristolSEOMeet
• https://www.meetup.com/bristol-seo/
@FayeWatt

3. About Edico Media
• Bristol-based Digital Agency
• Specialises in:
• Digital marketing management (SEO, PPC, CRO, Social)
• Web application development and infrastructure
• Digital/development strategy and consulting
Follow Us
• @edicomedia
• https://edicomedia.com
@FayeWatt

4. 2019 Meetups
• 26th February – Both speakers confirmed
• 26th March – One speaker confirmed
• 30th April
• 29th May – Speaker confirmation pending
• 25th June
• 24th September
• 29th October
• 26th November
@FayeWatt

5. Types of website migrations
• Domain change
• Merging multiple domains
• Platform migration e.g. WordPress to Drupal
• Platform upgrades
• HTTP to HTTPS
• Site migrations with URL changes
• Site migrations without URL changes
@FayeWatt

6. Why migrations go wrong:
• Poor strategy and planning
• Lack of time and/or budget
• No SEO consultation
• No on-going monitoring and/or testing
• Slow to fix issues post-migration
• Launch date during peak traffic period
@FayeWatt

7. Successful site migration:
• Minimal loss of traffic
• Minimal loss of search visibility and keyword rankings
• Minimal loss of inbound links
@FayeWatt

8. Pre-migration
Create a plan:
• Launch date - during a quiet traffic period i.e. not Q4 for ecommerce!
• Assign specific tasks to each person involved
• Create a timeline for each task
• Allocate time for testing
• Allow time for fixing any issues found pre-migration
• Be prepared for post-migration issues
@FayeWatt

9. Pre-migration
• Get a copy of the old website’s HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media files
• Crawl your website and export:
• URLs
• Meta data
• Structured data
• Canonical URLs
• Meta robots directives
• Page headings
• Internal linking structure
• Internal redirects
• Media URLs
• XML Sitemap
@FayeWatt

10. Pre-migration
• If changing URLs; map all changed URLs from old to new
e.g. olddomain.com/example > newdomain.com/example
• Prioritise and focus on migrating the pages that really matter:
• Indexable pages
• High traffic or page views
• High converting
• High number of inbound links
@FayeWatt

11. Pre-migration
Benchmark current performance:
• Google Analytics – organic traffic and conversions
• Keyword rankings and search visibility
• Site audit issues
• Page speed – test different pages i.e. homepage, category page, subcategory, product
pages, blog post, etc.
@FayeWatt

12. Pre-migration
Export a copy of your backlink profile and include:
• Referring URL
• Anchor text
• Linked URL
• Linked URL status code
• Linked URLs that redirect and their destination URL including any in a redirect
chain
@FayeWatt

13. Pre-migration
• Set up a staging environment e.g. staging.example.com
• Exclude your staging environment from the search index
You can do this by:
• Adding a conditional statement to the template file containing the head element
to render a noindex meta tag if the server hostname is not equal to your
production hostname
• If your using WordPress you can do this in the header.php file
@FayeWatt

14. Pre-migration
Finally…
Keep control of your old domain!
@FayeWatt

15. Pre-launch
• Set up your staging environment on your SEO audit tool to quickly identify any
SEO issues
• Crawl the staging environment and compare to old website crawl, looking for
any missing, incorrect or broken:
• Meta data
• Internal links
• Structured data
• Navigation
• Page headings
• Media files
• Canonical URLs
• Meta robots directives
@FayeWatt

16. Pre-launch
• Review new website structure and check for any missing pages or sections of
content
• Does the number of pages match the old website?
• Update internal links to the new URL to avoid internal redirects
• Create an updated sitemap
@FayeWatt

17. Pre-launch
Redirects
• Check old URLs 301 redirect to the new URL
• Avoid using 302 or JavaScript redirects
• Don’t forget legacy redirects!
• Avoid redirect chains
@FayeWatt

18. Pre-launch
• Add property to Search Console
• Set up Google Analytics BEFORE the new site goes live
• Mark date of migration in Google Analytics
Testing
• Continually monitor and retest the site for new issues once any change has been made –
no matter how small!
@FayeWatt

19. Pre-launch
Finally…
Run a final crawl of the old website the day before
the new site goes live
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20. Post-launch
• Look for any noindex meta tags
• Crawl old URLs and make sure none are returning a 200-status code
• Check redirects are working correctly
• Crawl your new website for any broken, missing, or incorrect:
• Meta data
• Internal links
• Structured data
• Navigation
• Page headings
• Media files
• Canonical URLs
• Meta robots directives
@FayeWatt

21. • Check for any missing content or sections of content
• Perform a page speed test
• Add/update sitemap in Search Console
• Reach out to your most valuable links
Post-launch
@FayeWatt

22. Post-launch
Perform an SEO audit:
• Robots.txt
• Sitemap
• Meta data
• Structured data
• Page headings
• Media files
• Image alt text
• Crawl errors
• Custom 404 page
• Canonical URLs
• Meta robots directive
• Page speed
• Mobile-friendly
@FayeWatt

23. Post-launch
Monitor and Review
• Monitor number of indexed pages
• Check old URLs are being removed and replaced by new URLs
• Check for any duplicates
• Review your backlink profile and identify any lost links
• Monitor organic traffic and keyword rankings
• Check crawl stats in Search Console
• Continually monitor and fix crawl errors
@FayeWatt

24. Any questions?
@FayeWatt

25. Thanks for Listening!
@FayeWatt
@BristolSEOMeet
https://www.meetup.com/bristol-seo/