How to Successfully Migrate Your Website Without Losing SEO Rankings

What if switching your website platform could actually boost your SEO instead of hurting it? If you're looking to upgrade without sacrificing your hard-earned search engine rankings, you're in the right place. Join me on this episode of the eCommerce made easy podcast as we uncover the strategic steps to successfully migrate your website without compromising your SEO performance.


Mentioned Resources:

--> Seo Audit Tools:
Google analytics
Google search Console
Ahrefs
SEMrush

--> Site Crawl Tools:
Screaming Frog

--> How to Choose the Right Website Platform
EP 046: How to Select the Right Platform for Your Online Business

--> How to Optimize Your Website Images
EP 022: The Power of Image Optimization


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Chapters

• 0:01 Moving Website Platforms Without Losing SEO
• 11:41 Improving SEO Through Website Migration

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

I get asked this a lot how do I move a website platform without losing search engine rankings? It's something vitally important, especially if you're already an established business looking to update or move platforms. So how do we do that and not lose our hard-earned work of establishing our website, building up some search engine optimization? How do we do that and not ruin all that work that we've done before? So today we're going to be diving into how you can switch website platforms without losing your search engine rankings. So, no matter whether you're a brand new business owner and you've never considered doing this yet, you might in the future. So this is a good one to listen to for future information and if you already have an established online business, this is an excellent opportunity for you to learn how to do this when the time's right, and do it without losing all of your hard-earned work. So let's dive in.

Speaker 1: 1:02

Welcome to the e-commerce made easy podcast. I'm your host, keri Saunders. When we started this business, all I had was a couch, a laptop and a nine month old my main goal to help others. Now, with over 20 years in the e-commerce building industry and even more than that in web development, I have seen a lot. I love breaking down the hard tech into easily understandable bits to help others be successful in their online business. Whether you're a seasoned e-commerce veteran or just starting out, you've come to the right place. So sit back, relax and let's dive into the world of e-commerce together. Welcome back to the e-commerce made easy podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Today, we're diving into a big topic how to move your website to a new platform or upgrade it without losing your search engine optimization rankings that you've worked so hard for. So, whether you're upgrading to a new platform, moving platforms because you're unsatisfied, or you want to grow your business and get something that has better and bigger features, we're going to run through some key steps. That is common across any platform you might be moving from and to to make sure that we're protecting your search engine rankings. So the first step that we need to do is we need to plan ahead. This is not something you just do on the whim on the last minute. You really need to plan this ahead. So make sure this is like the first step that you're doing when you're working on this process of moving or updating your platforms.

Speaker 1: 2:27

We need to plan ahead and audit our websites. So what does that mean? So that means that we need to do a few different things to audit our website. First, we need to do a search engine optimization audit. You can use tools like Google Analytics, google Search Console or other third-party platforms and we'll link to a few of the most common ones in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 2:51

And you want to get a clear picture of your current site's performance. How well is it doing for keywords that you want to be ranking for? You may want to look at metrics like traffic too, your rankings for each different keyword that is important to you, and make a list of your most high performing pages so you can ensure that these pages for sure are not going to be affected and retain their rankings. So when you are making sure that you're at least your top pages are going to transfer and perform well, that is going to be key, because sometimes we can work on those key pages but we don't have enough time or energy or maybe budget to do all the pages. So, as long as you're doing at least your top pages that really drive traffic to your website and revenue to your business, that's going to be a minimally most important. And then we also want to do a site crawl so you can do this with some tools out there, and we're going to link to a few of those in the show notes. Some of them are free, some have a limited number of crawls and they're free for that, and some of them are paid.

Speaker 1: 4:00

But we want to get a full map of the structure of your website. So what links to where and how is it all laid out? It gives you a detailed list of your URLs, your page titles, your meta descriptions and other search engine optimization elements that you may have helping your site perform well. We want to make sure that these elements are transferred over correctly to the new platform. So having a record of what's already there will help you do this mapping and, as with anything, we want to back up everything. We want to back up your entire website, all your files, your content, your databases. This is something. If you have a developer helping you with this, they should be taking care of this. So if you're not the one doing this yourself, then be sure to make sure your developer is doing these steps. So this is why I want to include this in here, so if something does go wrong during the migration, you can go back to your old site if that is necessary. So when we're planning ahead, that helps us be successful and not run into major problems whenever we're doing this upgrade or migration.

Speaker 1: 5:08

So point number two is when we are choosing this new platform whether it's an upgraded version of what we already are using or moving to a different platform altogether we want to make sure we're choosing the right platform and features for search engine optimization. Now we have another podcast episode on how to choose the right software for your business and that may be helpful here. So we're going to link to that in the description and show notes of this one. But we want to make sure we're choosing the right platform for, especially, search engine optimization. We want to make sure it can work for that and most of them do, but we want to make sure we're having at least these minimal features.

Speaker 1: 5:47

So for one customizable URL. So we want to be able to customize the link at the top for each of your pages. Now this is pretty standard in pretty much every single platform out there now, so that shouldn't be a problem, but I want to make sure that you're double checking that it actually is, because we want to make sure we're having search engine friendly URLs and ideally we want to have the same URLs as we had on our old platform, so being able to match those up directly is the best idea when you're doing a platform move or an update, and so we want to make sure that we can do that. We also want to make sure that the new website doesn't have just weird long URLs, that you can customize them and make them as short and succinct as possible, with your great keywords in them. Now we also want to make sure that this new platform has mobile optimization already built in. Again, this is something that should be standard in every platform that's already out there, but some of them do this a little bit better than others, and mobile indexing is super high on importance for search engine optimization.

Speaker 1: 6:53

We talk about that a lot here on the podcast. If your website is not performing well on mobile, then you're not going to perform well in search engine rankings and being found online via search engines, so we want to make sure that the mobile site is fully responsive and mobile optimized so that your new platform is going to fit the bill. A bonus here that you can look for too, and that I really have come to like and really feel like it's necessary, is. Some of these newer platforms also allow you to put up different images for mobile versus the desktop version. This can be very important when we're wanting to optimize our images for mobile and we can also link to that podcast episode in the show notes on how to optimize your images. But we want to make sure that we can put up a smaller banner image for mobile because we don't want to be loading up a really large image. If it's a desktop on a little tiny device, we want a smaller version of it. We don't want to shrink that down. If possible. That can really help your search engine rankings because then the file size is appropriate for the device.

Speaker 1: 8:00

We also want easy metadata editing. If you're not familiar with metadata, that is simply your page title, which every platform out there should let you edit your page title. It should let you edit your page title. It should let you edit your meta descriptions and your meta keywords. Now, meta descriptions I talk about this in some of our podcast episodes isn't used as much anymore for search engine optimization, but it does be used whenever we're searching for something. It's the description underneath your link, so it is what can draw a customer into your website. So making sure you can edit. That is still very important because it can help you convert on your website better. We also want to be able to edit, like heading tags and alt text for your images. Those should be all standard, so just make sure those are still in there. They're very crucial for keeping your search engine rankings intact.

Speaker 1: 8:52

And then a nice to have is built in search engine optimization plugins or tools. So many of the platforms like WordPress, shopify, squarespace, magento, bigcommerce they can have or already have built in plugins that help you with search engine optimization, so it's a really good idea to have those, especially if SEO isn't your jam but you want to do a decent job of it. Having those can really help you stay on top of things, even if you might not be an SEO expert. Okay, so then point number three is to create 301 redirects for all your pages. Now you might be saying, carrie, what's a 301 redirect? I kind of heard of it. What a 301 redirect means to search engines like Google and Bing is it's a permanent redirect Whenever they land on the page, and then the page says oh, this is a 301 and we're going to go to this next page, for example. That redirects means that tells the search engine, when it says to be a one type of redirect, that it is a permanent one. So they basically it's telling you, telling the search engines okay, take your original url you just had and that one no longer exists, please replace your search engine directory with this new link that we're going to send you to next.

Speaker 1: 10:09

So it kind of sounds technical and it's something that if you're not techie enough to do something like this, then you're going to want to have a developer help you and you may want to ask them do you provide 301 redirects? So that's a question you might want to ask if this is something that you're having somebody else handle for you your platform mover update, and so you want to do that to any links that you know you can't create in the new platform, the same URL. So say you have a really important web page, you want that link, that URL, to go to a new version of it on the new platform. So you want to have a 301 redirect from the old to the new. So it is really important to do that because Google will get lost and Bing will get lost and be like, oh, this page doesn't exist anymore and they kind of ding you for like having loose ends, basically so pages that don't go anywhere anymore. So having that 301 redirect to tell them this is the old page we acknowledge that this was an old page, but we want you to look at this other new page instead. Some platforms have this built in where you can put in 301 redirects yourself, and I think that's great. If not, then definitely have a developer help you when you're doing this move, to make sure any important links get that 301 redirect. And then you're going to want to test these. You want to make sure that they work. So when you go live, try one of those old links, make sure it takes you to that new link. You may not be able to see the 301 version part of it, but if it redirects you to there, then you could be pretty confident that you have that set up okay.

Speaker 1: 11:41

So then point number four is monitor your search engine optimization during and after the migration. So once the migration is complete, you want to make sure this is all working and everything's transferring properly. You want to make sure this is all working and everything's transferring properly. You want to monitor your search engine optimization closely. You want to ensure that everything is functioning as it should and that your rankings aren't taking a hit. So keeping an eye on your rankings and comparing them to what you prepared in step one, which is where we already did like a ranking evaluation before the move so you want to keep an eye on your rankings after the move and make sure those aren't moving too far down. You might expect a little bit of a drop whenever you do move platforms. A small fluctuation is totally normal, but if you see a big drop, then there's probably an issue that needs some attention and you need to get fixed.

Speaker 1: 12:35

You also want to check for some errors. So use your Google search console and check for website crawling errors, broken links or any other issues that you might be impacting your site's performance. So little subtle things like that can actually affect your other pages. So even if you have problems with, say, another area of your site, it can affect the really good areas that performed well. It can just bring it down and general your overall reputation and ranking with Google and Bing. So make sure you're monitoring even those little side things that might. You might have missed a few links or URLs that you didn't do a three or one like we're talking about earlier. So when you catch those, fix them right away, because that's going to help you.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Overall. You want to monitor your traffic and engagement. Keep an eye on Google Analytics, for example. Make sure your traffic isn't dropping significantly. You probably might see a little bit of a dip and then a bounce back up, but if you see a sharp drop down in engagement and people coming to your website, they can really signal a problem with your migration or your redirects. So make sure you're checking that so when you're staying on top of this, you can mitigate and fix any issues that come up much faster and you won't be wondering three, four weeks in line why does my revenue drop so much, when you didn't realize you had these problems on your website after the migration or upgrade?

Speaker 1: 13:57

And then point number five so actually doing an upgrade or migration to a new platform can give you a search engine optimization boost. So it's not just about preventing a search engine optimization potential damage from not doing it properly, but you can also get a boost. So say, the new platform you went to is more modern. It's either an updated version of what you already have or it's a more modern website platform that can actually help enhance your search engine rankings because you're having updated basically code underneath, because Google does see updated basically code underneath, because Google does see the HTML code underneath and the JavaScript and things like that, so you don't see that you have updated code it. Also, when you're doing these type of thing, it kind of forces you, as the business owner, to update and optimize your content.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Many times, many times, you're putting a lot closer look at our website. When we're doing a migration, we're really scouring through some of the wording on our pages and whether we want this page anymore or not or whether it's performing well, and so we tend to fix and work through some things that need updated on our website so that can actually help improve your website search engine rankings. Also, moving and updating to a new platform usually will increase your website speed, because many times we're going to a newer platform that's more efficient and it's just going to work a lot faster. It might have a content delivery network already in place, which is basically it's called a CDN, if you've heard those words. It's basically a way to service your images in your JavaScript faster. If that's a little bit over your head, don't worry about it. You can reach out to us if you have questions of whether you think you might need it or not. A lot of platforms have it built in already, so you don't even have to worry about it anymore.

Speaker 1: 15:46

Also, going to a newer, updated platform can really increase your mobile usability, because many times these platforms are updated and they do a better job at mobile friendliness. I know one of the platforms we started working with at late of 2023 was a platform that actually lets you upload a separate image for mobile than for your desktop, which is a really great feature to have, as I've said before, because many times, those images is what really drags to have, as I've said before, because many times, those images is what really drags you down on mobile, on speed issues. So I really highly recommend having a web page that allows you to do that and, if not, work with one of your developers whether it's us or somebody else to help you be able to do that, because it's very important for search engine optimization and mobile speed. Okay, so that's it. So by taking care of the migration to enhance your search engine optimization, you're setting yourself up for even better rankings and better success moving forward. So don't let moving or updating your platform be super scary. You can follow these steps here and make sure that your developer is following these steps if they're taking care of a lot of the work to ensure that it's a smooth and easy, nice transition.

Speaker 1: 16:58

Thanks again for joining me for this week's episode of the e-commerce made easy podcast. I hope you found it valuable and enjoyed it. If you have any questions at all, you can click on that text, carry a message link that's in all of our descriptions on podcast apps, or you can also email us at podcast at bcsengineeringcom. And while you're at it, we would love to hear from you and have you read us or review us on your favorite podcast app, and we will see you next week.