If you’re launching a new website, migrating your former website might be part of that process. In short, website migration involves moving your website from one platform or hosting environment to another. This can feel like a daunting task, but it’s often necessary for growth, improved functionality or – in many cases – if you are rebranding. Poorly executed website migrations can result in lost traffic and reduced search engine rankings.
To help you navigate the website migration process, we’ve put together these top tips to help maintain performance along the way.
Carry out a page audit
Before the website migration begins, the first step should be carrying out a page audit. An audit, which can be conducted by a marketing or SEO specialist using data from Google Analytics, involves carrying out a full analysis of your website and looking at all the factors that are impacting its visibility online.
The audit may include:
- Reviewing high-traffic pages
- Checking for any high-ranking keywords
- Making recommendations if you are planning on removing any key page
The audit will help you better understand your website’s current performance, ensuring that you keep all pages working effectively. The last thing you want to do is blindly remove pages that are your top traffic-drivers that are working hard for you. If you don’t do this, you could risk losing a big chunk of your online traffic overnight.
Create a site map
Creating a site map is crucial during the website migration process. This is a visual plan, that allows you to produce a clear structure for your new website, helping to ensure that every required page from the old site is accounted for. This will reduce the risk of missing information or important pages during the website migration steps.
Work on a staging URL
While designing and building your new website, you should always work on a staging environment. A staging environment, otherwise known as a temporary web address (URL), is used to test and review your new website before it goes live.
To allow this to happen, your website developer should add a ‘noindex meta tag’ to your website – in other words, an HTML code that prevents search engines from indexing your webpage. This will mean that your website will not appear in search engine results pages during the build or test process. This is crucial because you don’t want Google ranking your new website until it is completely finished and ready to go live.
Keep URLs the same when possible
When you can, try to keep the URL – web page addresses – the same. Avoid renaming or recreating new URLs if you can. There are several reasons for this, including:
- Search engine rankings: search engines will have already ranked your existing URLs, so changing them unnecessarily can result in ranking or traffic drops.
- Backlink preservation: any external sites linking to your website will continue to work without requiring redirects.
- Retained user experience: those who might have bookmarked pages or accessed them previously via search engines will still find your website without encountering a problem.
Where you do need to alter URLs, don’t panic; just ensure that you apply redirects, as outlined below.
Create a re-direct map
Sometimes, you can’t help creating new URLs – for example, if two pages merge or you drop a particular service from your business. In these situations, create a re-direct map, which shows where each page will be redirected. This will then need to be uploaded to a plugin or htaccess file within the backend of your website.
This will ensure all old URLs are redirected to the new pages. This prevents users from encountering 404 errors while preserving your current SEO ranking.
Implement metdata
When migrating to a new website, managing your metadata ensures the transition is as seamless as possible. Metadata is information embedded in a website’s HTML that provides context to search engines and plays a significant role in its ranking. It includes meta title tags, meta page descriptions, alt text for images, and header tags.
Depending on the updated content, try to retain the same metadata for those high-traffic pages or rewrite it if necessary. Most importantly, though, ensure the new metadata is unique, concise, relevant, and optimised for search engines.
Set up Google Analytics (GA4) and Google Search Console
Both Google Analytics and Google Search Console can be used to provide insight into how well a website is performing. While Google Analytics highlights the behaviour of those visiting a website, Google Console looks at search engine data.
It’s important to ensure both Google Analytics and Google Console are set up to monitor the performance of your new website. Track metrics like page load times, traffic levels, and search rankings to discover what’s working well and what needs improvement. This will help you identify potential errors and resolve them quickly.
Fuel your online visibility with a brand-new website
Website migration is a complex process, but with a team of creatives by your side, you can maintain – and better still, improve – your website’s performance. Our web design and SEO experts support you every step of the way, ensuring a smooth website migration from start to finish. By auditing your old site, maintaining your current SEO rankings and optimising your new platform, we will help ensure a seamless transition for you, your business and your clients.
Are you ready to migrate?
