What Senior Marketers Need to Know about SEO Migration

Marketers are often under pressure to make their company’s website “look great” and “rank high on Google”. At Rocket, we know that this is more challenging than applying a fresh coat of paint. While most marketing managers have experience working with web development companies to create great-looking websites, we find that they are often fuzzy on what’s involved to ensure their site maintains rankings on search engines. 

Let’s delve into SEO Migration - what it is, what it involves, and how it can enable your business to remain at the forefront of search visibility while you make changes to your website.

SEO Migration or Site Migration involves substantial changes to a website that can significantly impact its search engine visibility. This can include a combination of modifications to the site’s location, platform, structure, content, design, and user experience. 

Poorly executing these major changes can cause website traffic to nosedive, leading to a loss in leads and revenue for the business. Imagine investing years into building your brand’s online presence, only to see it diminish overnight due to a poorly executed website overhaul. There’s the added risk of competitors getting ahead with search engine marketing and also the risk of leaving a poor impression on users who land on the wrong page or worse, on a 404 page. 

The primary objective of SEO Migration is to preserve and improve your search engine rankings. It’s like relocating a physical store to a more promising location while ensuring that your loyal customers still find you effortlessly.

SEO Migration projects typically take three to six months to complete, while more complex migrations can take up to a year or more. The duration of an SEO Migration project depends entirely on the complexity and scope of work involved. Some of the factors that impact this timeline include the size of your website i.e. the number of pages, databases, subdomains etc, technical complexity including switching between different CMSs, and resourcing for testing and QA. Search engines like Google can also take varying amounts of time to recrawl and ‘relearn’ your site.

SEO Migration should not be an afterthought, but rather a critical project that has dedicated time, resources and extensive planning, whenever you are planning major updates to your website. Here are key indicators for when you should start looking for the best SEO migration agency for your business:

If you’re moving your website to a new content management system or switching hosting providers.

If you intend to make major changes to your website’s design and layout or even the site structure, which will impact the crawlability of your site.

Changes to your domain name and company branding, which includes the main site name or even switching from .com to .com.au will warrant the need for SEO migration.

Consolidating sites after a merger or getting rid of subdomains and microsites, all require meticulous planning to retain the SEO value of each domain.

SEO Migrations are highly technical projects that involve several experts including SEO specialists, web developers, designers, copywriters and the like. This involves hundreds of small tasks over weeks. Some of the key deliverables of such projects include:

Identifying potential issues of the current and redesigned site that could impact SEO performance post-migration.

Ensuring all valuable content including keywords, is correctly mapped to the new site structure.

Updating meta tags, headers, and structured data as required for the new site architecture.

Mapping old URLs to relevant new URLs to retain link equity and prevent 404 errors, ensuring a smooth user experience.

Tracking SEO performance after migration to quickly rectify any drops in traffic or rankings. Follow-up technical audits are also necessary.

At Rocket Agency, we understand the intricacies of SEO migration and its profound impact on your business. Our team of experienced SEO specialists can guide you through the complexities of any migration scenario, ensuring that your transition is seamless, with minimal impact on your traffic and revenue.