With marketers typically redesigning, overhauling or migrating their website every two years the pressure on maintaining organic search visibility is mounting. Whilst emerging technologies, new content management systems and new tools in SEO help with effective website migration, there are still many pitfalls to avoid and steps to take to ensure your site doesn’t lose visibility in search. This presentation will explore how to survive website migration and maybe even improve your SEO performance by following a simple SEO migration process.

1. Website
Migration
SEO Survival Kit
@arthurjach Artur Jach

2. SEO
Awesomeness
The road to glory
@arthurjach Artur Jach

3. Quick intro

4. Boss
Client
The SEO campaign is doing well and you’re taking the credit for it

5. Unless you’ve met this cuddly pair

6. Your white hat SEO is paying off

7. But one day you hear the dreaded words “website migration”

8. Great… it’s tempting to take this route

9. Why panic?

10. So why migrate a website?
New CMS
Architecture
New design
Top
Google
Penalty
reasons
Expansion
New domain
Domain
consolidation

11. You then pull yourself together, do your research and seek help

12. Three migration steps
Discovery
Optimisation
Launch
Brand & domain name
considerations
Reviewing sitemap and
site structure
Redirect mapping and
strategy
List of current and
historical pages
Reviewing wireframes
and designs
Pre-launch checks &
recommendations
Keyword research &
analysis
Technical and code
optimisation
CMS & Content
migration
considerations
Content optimisation
(titles, descriptions, copy,
links)
Post-launch indexation
and visibility checks
(getting the site
indexed)
Post-launch evaluation
Ongoing
SEO..

13. Destined for instant success?
Is your new domain name
too ambiguous?
Is it too generic?

14. A new brand name? Or is it?

15. Help yourself with SEO friendly CMS
Free CMS platforms might do the job
If you need a scalable, enterprise solution with
great support for SEO think about Sitecore
–
–
–
–
Easy editing of the usual on-site SEO elements
Separation of business logic and presentation layer >> SEO friendly HTML and URLs
Smooth content migration using the API for direct system to system content migration
Redirection module is a great asset for matching old pages and URLs

16. Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform

17. Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform

18. Get a list of all pages… you’ll need it
Current website:
–
–
–
–
Screaming Frog / Xenu (crawl the site)
Webmaster Tools (most popular pages)
Google Analytics (best SEO landing pages)
Searchmetrics, Linkdex, BrightEdge (rankings pages)
Historical URLs
– Webmaster Tools (404 not found pages)
– Wayback machine + link download plugin (pages from the old website)
– Open Site Explorer / Majestic SEO (old pages linked to from external sites)

19. Do your keyword research
Rank
Keyword
cake recipe s
lemon drizzle cake
carrot cake recipe
macaroni che ese
crumble recipe
healthy me als
how to make cupcakes
lentil soup
baking recipe s
change 4 life
brownies recipe
coronation chicken
minestrone soup
bee f burger recipe
american pancakes
healthy dinner recipe s
chicken stir fry
profite role s
lemon cake
easy cake recipe s
change 4life
che ese straws
20
7
18
35
28
11
16
49
12
38
27
49
25
38
34
33
48
37
9
29
30
31
Volume Ranking URL
Search Volume Search
71,583
57,265
51,621
13,583
13,225
13,050
10,687
10,362
10,133
8,458
8,183
8,025
7,962
7,925
7,808
7,670
7,212
6,950
6,815
6,470
6,266
6,126
cipe s/ca ke-re cipe s/
a/ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/flor
mon-drizzle-cake.aspx
cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe s/Le
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
s/Ca rrot-cake .aspx
cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
aspx
http://www.flora .com/Flor
pes/Macaroni-che ese.
hy-re cipe s/Di nner-reci
/Flora/Ta sty-a nd-healt
rumble.a spx
http://www.flora .com
peach-and-ra spbe rry-c
cipe s/Ba king-reci pes/
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
://www.flora .com/Flor
http
cipe s/
a/ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
px
http://www.flora .com/flor
cipe s/Le mon-cupcake s.as
ealthy-re cipe s/Ca ke-re
a/Ta sty-a nd-h
red-lentil-soup.a spx
http://www.flora .com/Flor
up-recipes/Moroccancipe s/So
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
s/ba king-reci pes/
sty-a nd-healthy-re cipe
ww.flora .com/flora/ta
http://w
e/
a/flora-a nd-change4lif
http://www.flora .com/flor
ocol ate-brownies .aspx
cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe s/Ch
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
tion-chicken.aspx
http://www.flora .com/Flor
ich-recipes/cheats-corona
cipe s/Sa ndw
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
trone-soup.a spx
cipe s/Soup-recipes/Mines
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
o-we dges .aspx
http://www.flora .com/Flor
ed-burge rs-with-potat
s/Di nner-reci pes/Herb
sty-a nd-healthy-re cipe
a/Ta
http://www.flora .com/Flor
ican-pancake s.as px
mer
cipe s/Breakfast-recipes/a
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
ner-recipes/
nd-healthy-re cipe s/din
a/ta sty-a
tir-fry.as px
http://www.flora .com/flor
ken-and-hone y-ginger-s
cipe s/Di nner-reci pes/Chic
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
ate-orange-s auce .aspx
http://www.flora .com/Flor
s/Profite role s-wi th-chocol
cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
s/Le mon-drizzle-cake.aspx
hy-re cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe
/Flora/Ta sty-a nd-healt
http://www.flora .com
rrot-cake .aspx
cipe s/Ca ke-re cipe s/Ca
a/Ta sty-a nd-healthy-re
http://www.flora .com/Flor
e/
a/flora-a nd-change4lif
http://www.flora .com/flor
se-s traws.as px
s/Ba king-reci pes/Chee
sty-a nd-healthy-re cipe
ww.flora .com/Flora/Ta
http://w

20. Three migration steps
Discovery
Optimisation
Launch
Brand & domain name
considerations
Reviewing sitemap and
site structure
Redirect mapping and
strategy
List of current and
historical pages
Reviewing wireframes
and designs
Pre-launch checks &
recommendations
Keyword research &
analysis
Technical and code
optimisation
CMS & Content
migration
considerations
Content optimisation
(titles, descriptions, copy,
links)
Post-launch indexation
and visibility checks
(getting the site
indexed)
Post-launch evaluation
Ongoing
SEO..

21. Are target keyword groups reflected in the sitemap?

22. Optimise before the first line of code is written

23. Time to actually do something
http://searchengineland.com/seotable

24. Those three migration steps again
Discovery
Optimisation
Launch
Brand & domain name
considerations
Reviewing sitemap and
site structure
Redirect mapping and
strategy
List of current and
historical pages
Reviewing wireframes
and designs
Pre-launch checks &
recommendations
Keyword research &
analysis
Technical and code
optimisation
CMS & Content
migration
considerations
Content optimisation
(titles, descriptions, copy,
links)
Post-launch indexation
and visibility checks
(getting the site
indexed)
Post-launch evaluation
Ongoing
SEO..

25. x

26. Redirect strategy is the single most important part of SEO migration
Create a like for like redirect mapping using all gathered URLs
Things to remember:
They must be 301 permanent redirects
Use „catch-all‟ wildcards if the list is long
Prioritise redirects by how beneficial they are to SEO
Test on preview version of the site
It‟s tempting to cut corners and to do a site-wide redirect
At the same time don‟t overdo it

27. Then the moment of truth

28. Are we there yet?
1.
Check the site can be indexed
2.
Submit XML Sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools
3.
Get the site indexed
4.
Test redirects

29. The aftermath and expected SEO performance
The following chain of events might be expected:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Post-migration dip in SEO visibility
Temporary spike
Return to “normal”
Continuous improvement
4
2
3
1

30. On other websites it may take longer to recover
4
2
1
3

31. The return of the hero

32. Thank You
Discovery
Optimisation
Launch
Brand & domain name
considerations
Reviewing sitemap and site
structure
Redirect mapping and
strategy
List of current and
historical pages
Reviewing wireframes and
designs
Pre-launch checks &
recommendations
Keyword research &
analysis
Technical and code
optimisation
Post-launch indexation
and visibility checks
(getting the site indexed)
CMS & Content
migration considerations
Content optimisation (titles,
descriptions, copy, links)
Post-launch evaluation
@arthurjach Artur Jach
Ongoing
SEO...