What is a website migration?
A website migration will be required when launching a new version of your website and ensuring you maintain (or improve) your organic visibility despite changing key elements such as your site content, structure or design.
There are a number of reasons you may migrate an existing site such as:
- Rebranding & moving to a new domain
- Amending your site’s page structure (presumably to make it better)
- A change or upgrade to your CMS
- Merging two or more sites
- Site re-design
- HTTPS migration
- Launching international sites
- Upgrading to a new server
Whatever the reason, if a migration is not done correctly, you can cause significant damage to your organic performance in a small period of time, which when fixed, could take a significantly longer period of time to recover.
How can a migration go wrong?
There are a number of common mistakes that are made when launching a new website, including:
- Not implementing redirects from old content to new if there are URL changes
- Not allowing your new site/pages to be crawled
- Not allowing your new site/pages to be indexed
- Completely changing the SEO focus (or forgetting to optimise) key pages on the site
- Not implementing tracking correctly, which will affect the ability to asses how a migration has gone
There will inevitably always be a fluctuation in site performance when a new site is launched, as search engines take time to crawl and index the new structure/content – but when carried out correctly with appropriate planning, execution and analysis, the disruption can be kept to a minimum.
What is the correct approach?
Every site is different, but general approach would involve:
- Benchmark existing performance – indexed pages, traffic, search visibility and rankings
- Identify current crawl and content issues – ensure these aren’t in place on new site
- Optimise test site based on existing performance and potential opportunities
- Identify all live URLs and set up redirects to relevant pages on the new site
- Implement redirects at launch
- Carry out post migration analysis to ensure smooth migration, and fix any issues that arise
How can Organic Digital help?
I can assist with all aspects of your site migration which covers:
- Pre-migration audit
- Optimisation of new website
- Compile redirects to implemented at launch
- Assistance with actual migration
- Post migration analysis
With years of experience covering migrations of all sizes, including small brochure sites, ecommerce sites and sites with hundreds of thousands of pages, I can help migrate your site with minimal disruption.
Useful Resources
If you want to find out more about website migrations, the following resources are a good starting point, alternatively, if you want any assistance fill in the contact form below:
- The Website Migration Guide: SEO Strategy, Process, & Checklist
- HTTPS Migration – What You Need To Know & How We Did It
Testimonials
The following are genuine testimonials left by actual real life people on Organic Digital's Google Business Listing in relation to my website migration services. To read more, visit the testimonials page.
"Dave is an excellent person to deal with, he offered tremendous support during our recent website migration and his thorough and knowledgeable support meant that we quickly saw significant improvements in search rankings. His ongoing support and detailed reporting provide insight and guidance as we continue to make improvements to performance."
Brian McArdle
moleonline.com
"Heritage Parts Centre started working with Dave at Organic Digital mid-2020, presenting to him a number of challenges following a website migration earlier in the year. What Dave provided saw a number of quick wins (that quickly and drastically stabilised our organic traffic), and subsequently worked through some more strategic technical SEO optimisations that has seen a tremendous improvement in our SEO performance. It has been refreshing to work with Dave who have been genuinely excited by the unique challenges that our market presents, and look forward to continue our work with him. His direct, professional, pragmatic and creative problem solving and optimisation methods continue to make a positive difference to our business, and I recommend him highly."
Rob Tickner
heritagepartscentre.com
"Dave was excellent in assisting us with a website migration, providing all the technical support we needed and more. He made everything easy to understand and helped with ongoing recommendations for further development. I would highly recommend Dave to anyone."
Katie Hope
chlobo.co.uk
"Dave has been an excellent partner to work with. He is very responsive and offers clear and intelligent advice. He has helped us with a rebrand and domain change including migrating old content and maintaining links. We would recommend him to any organisation looking for a trusted partner in SEO management"
Sarah Beeston
thecompliancepeople.co.uk
"We have worked closely with Dave as one of our key partners for a number of years. His knowledge and experience in SEO and site migrations is second to none. Highly recommend Dave as an extension to your digital marketing team."
Andy Venables
hillsgreen.co.uk
