Our 6 Takeaways when Creating an SEO Strategy for website redesign and Migration
As digital marketing evolves, SEO strategies that help businesses achieve their goals are becoming increasingly important. When a website redesign and migration comes into play, it can be difficult to know what tactics will best serve your business’s success. According to Rize Online Reputation Repair, through trial and error we have developed several takeaways that any business owner or digital marketer should consider when creating an SEO strategy for website redesign and migration. In this post, we share our top six pieces of advice; from understanding the importance of content parity to developing a solid technical plan – read on for our hard-earned learnings!
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1. Establish Content Parity
When planning an SEO strategy for custom website design and migration, it’s crucial to understand the importance of content parity. This means that you should make sure there is a seamless transition between the old site and the new one, in terms of the content users are looking for. For instance, if your old website had a blog post on “5 Tips to Improve Your Website”, you should aim to have this same blog post on your new website with no changes. If not, both websites will be competing for ranking which can lead to a decrease in organic search visibility.
2. Utilize 301 Redirects
A 301 redirect is essential when moving from an old domain to a new domain name. This type of redirect informs search engine crawlers that content has been permanently moved and helps keep your website’s SEO rankings intact. Thrive Web Design Services shares that it’s also important to ensure you are setting up the correct 301 redirects, as incorrect ones can result in duplicate content issues which can cause major problems for your website’s organic visibility.
3. Conduct a Site Audit
Before migration, it’s a good idea to conduct an auditing process of both domains – old and new – to get an overview of the current state of things. This audit should focus on all existing pages, titles tags, meta descriptions, alt tags and other important factors that could have an impact on SEO performance post-migration. Additionally, you can use this time to identify any technical issues that could cause problems for your website down the line.
4. Monitor Indexed Pages
When a website is migrated, it’s important to make sure that all of the indexed pages from the old domain are still active or redirected on the new domain. It’s also wise to set up monitoring tools like Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to track changes in indexing as well as impressions and click-through rates over time. This data can be invaluable in evaluating how successful your SEO strategy was post-migration.
5. Analyze Your Backlink Profile
Migrating a website without analyzing its backlink profile can have disastrous consequences, as those links can become invalid if they are not set up properly. Before migrating, it’s important to analyze your current backlink profile and ensure that all of the links will continue to be valid on the new domain. Additionally, you should also look into gaining more high-quality backlinks to boost your website’s SEO rankings post-migration.
6. Develop a Technical Plan
Migrating a website without a technical plan in place can lead to unforeseen issues down the line – so it’s essential to have one ready before you begin the process. This includes making sure that any tracking codes are in place, canonical tags are correctly implemented, robots.txt files are updated, as well as other technical aspects like hreflang tags and site maps.
Last Words
These are our 6 takeaways when creating an SEO strategy for website redesign and migration. When executed correctly, a sound SEO plan can help ensure that your website’s organic traffic doesn’t suffer post-migration. It’s important to understand the importance of content parity, utilize 301 redirects, conduct a site audit, monitor indexed pages, analyze your backlink profile and develop a technical plan – all before migrating a website! By following these tips, you should be able to successfully migrate your website with minimal disruption to your organic search rankings. Good luck!