SEO Website Migration Services

Domain Migration Strategy

When you move your website from one domain to another, you’ll want to make sure to keep all its SEO juice. This is called a domain migration. Maybe you’re rebranding, maybe you’re merging with a different company, or maybe you just want to start fresh. For example, if your business changes a lot and you want to reflect a different name, or want to target a different market, you’ll need to move to a new domain.

The things that go wrong with domain migration is you end up losing organic traffic, and not effectively letting Google and other search engines know about the change with 301 redirects. 301 redirects with domain migration say “hey, I moved! And this is my new address”. This is so your old URLs can still pass their link juice to your new URLs, and both visitors and Google can continue to find you. You’ll also need to change your social media and business cards to your new domain. After you’ve done that, you’ll want to watch your website’s analytics after the migration to make sure that traffic didn’t dip. If it did, you’ll want to fix it.

Moving from a really basic CMS to a really fancy CMS is what we generally call a platform migration. This can mean huge improvements in how the website performs and what the website can do. For example, a company might want to migrate from a really basic CMS to a really fancy CMS because the really fancy CMS has a lot more functionality like better e-commerce features, better SEO tools, or a better UX (user experience).

With all the upsides, there are some pretty big downsides. One of the issues is how you correctly move all the content to the new system. This can include images, formatting, and the structure of the page as well as SEO attributes. If this is done poorly, you might end up with broken links and missing images. So, before you do a migration, you should definitely do a comprehensive audit of your existing site. A great migration strategy will also be prepared for the SEO implications by having a great redirect strategy and preserving the metadata through the migration.

Re-brand migration is when you keep the same domain and content, but you update the design and branding of your website. This could happen if your company goes through some strategic changes, like a new rebranding and visual identity, thus requiring you to update your website to reflect this new look.

Re-branding is great because it’s a second life of sorts for your website, but you need to be able to clearly communicate these changes to your audience without frustrating your existing users. Good re-branding includes updating the visuals, but it should also keep the core functions of the website the same. For example, if a user is used to navigating your website a certain way, updating the design shouldn’t disrupt their experience. With some careful planning and user feedback collection before the rollout, you may be able to anticipate some areas that need additional work after the copy to ensure a seamless migration.

Knowing these kinds of website migrations and how to handle them isn’t just important for your website’s performance and your future users, but it’s also just as important for maintaining your website’s long-term visibility and relevancy in the years to come online.

With a structural migration, you’re changing an internal part of your website. This can mean things like changing around URLs, site navigation, or a complete overhaul. Normally, you’ll want to make your website more user friendly, meaning that visitors can easily find what they’re looking for. For example, you might reorganize your content into categories so that it’s easier for visitors to navigate and engage with your website.

But because you’re making such big changes, you can really impact your SEO and your website traffic if you’re not careful. This is because search engines heavily rely on the architecture of your website and also the URL structures to properly index pages. To minimize risk, you’ll want to have a very detailed plan of what the new structure will look like, and use 301 redirects to tell search engines and users where your new pages are. You’ll also want to do some testing to ensure your migration will be successful and to catch any unforeseen issues.

Consolidating multiple domains into one unified website can streamline your online presence and enhance SEO but requires meticulous planning to preserve link equity.

Expanding your website to target new geographical markets involves creating localized versions of your site, necessitating a strategic migration to handle hreflang tags and regional SEO nuances.

If your current site is plagued with slow load times, technical issues, or other performance problems, migrating to a more efficient setup can improve both user experience and SEO.

If your site has been hit by Google penalties, a migration might be part of a broader strategy to clean up and optimize your SEO.