Performing a Website Migration

1 August 2022

A website migration may be done for many reasons. The process can be very involved, too. And without a plan, the result can be a website that’s simply not appealing.

With the right preparation, it’s possible to successfully conduct even a complex migration. There’s no need for the team to get stressed when the migration has been properly planned, organised, and implemented.

What is Website Migration?

Website migration refers to the process of making major changes to a site’s index-ability and visibility. If a migration is done the wrong way, without planning, the result can damage your SEO and your ranking in the search engines.

In the following sections, we’ve together a checklist you can use to create a website migration plan and make it successful!

Website Migration Checklist

Even with the best plan, a website migration usually results in a temporary drop in traffic. It’s almost impossible to have a web migration without a drop; so, it’s best to accept this and plan ahead. The goal is to minimise the drop in traffic. If the migration is done well, traffic will grow again over time.

1. Before the Migration Make a Plan

Any plan needs to have a clear objective and a goal. Ask yourself what the migration should accomplish. And consider how the changes will affect each page on your site.

It’s also good to have measurable outcomes when doing a migration to improve SEO. However, if the redesign is mainly for branding and refreshing the website, then these factors won’t have as large an effect on SEO.

2. Keep The Right People in the Loop

Website migration usually takes a team to accomplish successfully. The departments involved may include:

Data analysts
Web developers
SEO specialists
UX specialists
Designers
Content writers & marketers

The goal here is to keep everyone in the loop and involved in the process from the beginning. Each department has its own specialty; however, when combined, the website tends to be more successful, as well as the migration.

Keeping everyone in the loop can help the project go more smoothly. It never goes well if parts of the team only learn about the migration at the last minute.

3. Create an Overview of Metrics & Benchmarks

Another issue to take care of is to create an overview of your site’s current performance. Metrics & benchmarks can help the team evaluate the impact of the migration on the site.

For SEO, it’s necessary to have the following metrics:

Indexable URLs
Site speed
Site structure
Pages crawled
Organic rank
Organic traffic

Use these metrics as a comparison for the post-migration of the site. If you find huge differences in the metrics, it could indicate there’s a problem that must be fixed.

4. Set a Migration Deadline

As you go through the planning process, it’s also essential to create a migration deadline. The migration process should be done as quickly as possible. The reason for this is the migration effects will be kept to a minimum.

As the migration is in process, avoid adding new content or publishing new pages, such as landing pages. Once the migration has finished successfully, then you can start to add more content.

Next, remember that the migration will cause some downtime, where the site is not accessible or functioning correctly. For this reason, migrations are usually best when done during off-hours or during a period of low traffic. Doing this limits the number of site users who may have a problem using the site.

5. Create a Content Inventory

Before the site is launched, be sure to create a content inventory, which includes all documents, content, pages, media files, and other assets. In addition, a backup copy of each of these should be made and stored securely.

The benefit of a content library is that you can quickly tell if anything gets lost during the migration. If you spot a problem, it’s easy and fast to fix the issue before it becomes a huge problem. Backups make it possible to upload content to the new site quickly.

6. Overview of Site’s URLs and Backlinks

Migrations can change the structure of a site. The issue is that external sources that link to your pages may no longer work. They will point to a URL that no longer exists. When visitors follow the links, they may see 404 errors. It can also cause a loss of SEO signals from the backlinks.

Make sure to create a complete overview of the site’s backlinks. Here, again, it creates a reference point and allows you to redirect incoming links to the new version of your website pages.

7. Web Accessibility Check

Another essential part of the migration plan is to ensure the site is accessible to users who have disabilities. Certain changes on the site, such as the use of colour combinations, can make it difficult or impossible for some users to access the site.

If you make major UX changes, then be sure to check the site’s accessibility.

8. Clean Up On-Page SEO

Migrating a website is the perfect time to clean up SEO and fix any errors identified. The goal is to launch the site with clean SEO.

Take a look at:

Title tags
URLs
Meta descriptions
Image file names & alt text
Heading tags
Internal and external links

9. Conduct a Post-Migration Audit

Your migration plan should also include an audit of the website to find errors before the site goes live. It’s also important to monitor traffic after the migration, so you can tell if the migration has been effective and successful or not.

Consider crawling the site to check for errors and quickly find any broken links. In addition, crawling the site can help spot new pages that may be missing meta tags, pages that are orphaned or not working, and SEO errors. When the crawl is done, then you’ll know what errors need attention.

Summing It Up

A website migration can be successful and faster when you have a plan and are organised for action. Keeping everyone in the loop is also essential, as each department will have something to add to make the site more valuable or even improve the UX.

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