This is the slide deck that we presented in partnership with Nathan Huppatz from www.costumes.com.au at the 2013 Online Retailer conference in Sydney. Planning, creating and implementing a new website design can be very exciting but many companies do not consider how this change can affect their search engine visibility. This deck runs through the steps and methodology taken to migrate the website to an entirely new domain and new platform.

1. Planning a Website
Upgrade/Migration to Maintain
(Boost) Growth
Nathan Huppatz & Jason Mun
Costumes.com.au / Bespoke

2. Who is Nathan?
• Started in eCommerce back in 1998
• Experienced online retailer
• Author of 'Making Money on eBay for Dummies„
• Launched, sold, run online businesses for 10 years.
• Founder of Costumes.com.au
@huppy
http://au.linkedin.com/nathan.huppatz

3. Who is Jason?
• Been in online marketing for 8 years
• Specialist in SEO
• Worked with websites large and small
• 7 years agency-side experience
• Co-founded Bespoke
@jasonmun
Jasonmun.com
www.bespokeagency.com.au

4. What We‟re Covering Today
New Branding & Migration to New Domain
How to Plan for Migration
Tips, Tools & Gotchas
Impact & Results

5. Background of Costumes.com.au
• Started in 2009 as 'fashionforfun.com.au' – mostly lingerie and sexy
costumes
• In 2010, changed focus to costumes. Added suppliers, 4,000 products
• 2011 we decided to really focus on the business.
• 2012 bought 'costumes.com.au' domain, and began work on
complete site rebuild to help with growth
• Re-brand in May 2013, business investment for growth
• So why change?

7. Establish a Framework
1.
Determine
Objectives
2.
Data Discovery &
Collection
3.
Planning &
Implementation
4.
Launch & Go-Live
5.
Measure
Impact/Success

8. 1. DETERMINE OBJECTIVES
What are you looking to achieve with a migration strategy?
What’s changing with the new website?

9. These were our objectives…
Traffic Conversions Revenue
• Minimise traffic loss
• Minimise decline in rankings
• Minimise website errors
• Ensure new website is search friendly
Traffic Conversions Revenue
We do not want
this to happen

10. Scope of the migration
 Changing domain names
 New Design & UX
 Product categorisation
 URL structures
 Information architecture
 New plugins & functionality
Helps identify common situations, pitfalls and solutions

11. 2. DATA DISCOVERY & COLLECTION
Gather metrics to help with planning & prioritisation

12. Start with Keyword Research
0
50
100
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300
adultcostume
fairycostumesforadults
fairycostumesforkids
princesscostumesforadults
kidsfiremancostume
monsterhighcostumesfor…
adultdressupcostumes
adultmermaidcostume
adultshopcostumes
kidsmermaidcostume
cinderellacostumesfor…
cheapplussizecostumes…
batmancostumeforkids
disneycostumeideasfor…
madelineadultcostume
arieladultcostume
kidsbookcharacter…
minniemouseadultcostume
costumekids
plussizedressupcostumes
angelcostumesforkids
superherocostumesfor…
kidsclowncostumes
adultminniemousecostume
adultcupcakecostume
sexyadultcostumesaustralia
mensadultcostumes
plussizesnowwhite…
peterpanadultcostume
shepherdscostumeforkids
devilcostumesforkids
tinkerbellcostumeadults
adultsnowwhitecostume
fairytalecostumesforadults
adultcostumeshops
fairycostumesadults
adultclowncostume
snowwhiteadultcostumes
adultarielcostume
SearchVolume
Use this data to:
• Determine ideal product categorisation
• Determine keyword targets
• Meta-data optimisation
• Content optimisation
• More...

13. Keyword Research Tools
Google Keyword Tool
Great for mining keyword ideas and search volume data.
TIP: Use [exact] match
Google Analytics
Export a list of keywords that drove traffic to the website
TIP: Traffic sources > Sources > Search > Overview > Keyword
Ubersuggest.org
Great for mining Google Suggest data
Soovle.com
Pulls keyword suggestion from up to 15 search engines (eBay &
Amazon as well)

14. Identify Top Performing Pages
 Scrape & crawl current website
 Gather website metrics
 Gather SEO metrics
If you can’t implement 1-to-1 redirects, ensure that the top 100 most
valuable pages are catered for

15. Tools to Gather Metrics
Screaming Frog or Xenu Link Sleuth
Great for website crawling and scraping
Google Analytics
Export data: visits, pageviews, conversions, revenue, etc.
Moz’s Open Site Explorer
Gather link data and other SEO metrics
Go to “Top Pages” report > Export CSV
Google Webmaster Tools
Export link data from Search Traffic > Links to Your Site

16. Don‟t Forget to Benchmark
Before Migration After Migration
Keep track of these vital stats:
• Traffic Sources (Direct, Referral, Social, etc.)
• Organic Traffic
• Conversions
• 404 errors
• Keyword rankings

17. 3. PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION
Allocating tasks, new website setup & redirects

18. Get Your Team Together
The Boss SEODevelopers
Web
Designer
• Brief everyone & allocate tasks
• Share data & information
• Use Google Docs for collaboration
• Keep an open communication

19. Lock Down Test/Staging Website
 Robots.txt disallow
 Apply meta robots tags (noindex,nofollow)
 Password protect
Avoid duplicate content issues & competitor snooping

20. Work On New Site Architecture
Homepage
Categories
Sub-categories
Products
• Use keyword research
• Name categories accordingly
• Create a flat and intuitive architecture
• Map relevant keywords
• Avoid keyword cannibilisation

21. Optimise On-Site Elements
 Title tags
 Meta descriptions
 URL structure
 H1 headings
Source: http://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors
TIP: Create recipes for developers
{Category Name} | Fast Delivery – Costumes.com.au
Buy {Product Name} Online | Fast Delivery – Costumes.com.au
Shop online for {ProductName} from Australia‟s leading
costumes store. Great prices & Fast delivery!

22. 301-redirects
 Create 1-to-1 redirects for top priority pages
 Misc pages can be redirected to key pages
 Create automation rules (if possible)
 Avoid multiple redirect hops
 Fix any existing 404 errors
Map it all in excel and let the developers do their magic!

23. 4. LAUNCH & GO-LIVE
Checklist and things to look out for

24. Go-Live Checklist
 Crawl website – check SEO elements
 DNS update (keep both servers running..)
 Remove blocks (robots.txt, meta tags, etc)
 Add & verify new domain with GWT
 Fill out “Change of Address” in GWT
 Check HTTP header response
 Verify 301-redirects
 Check Google Analytics code
(Use the same code to keep historical data)
 Monitor errors

25. “Change of Address” in GWT
Access from
here
Do this on the old website’s GWT account!
TIP: Make sure you verify both www and non-www subdomains

26. Check 301-redirects
Upload old URL list in to Screaming Frog
Use list
feature
Check these
Web-sniffer.net for spot
checking

27. Monitor 404 Errors
Monitor and fix errors in Google Webmaster Tools
(errors are inevitable)

28. 5. MEASURE IMPACT/SUCCESS
Let’s look at some results

29. Impact on SEO Visibility
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3-Jan
10-Jan
17-Jan
24-Jan
31-Jan
7-Feb
14-Feb
21-Feb
28-Feb
7-Mar
14-Mar
21-Mar
28-Mar
4-Apr
11-Apr
18-Apr
25-Apr
2-May
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16-May
23-May
30-May
6-Jun
13-Jun
20-Jun
27-Jun
4-Jul
11-Jul
18-Jul
25-Jul
VisibilityScore
fashionforfun.com.au costumes.com.au
Migration happened
here
We tracked rankings of 100 keywords (before & after migration)

30. Tools to Track Rankings
Advanced Web Ranking
http://www.advancedwebranking.com/
Rankerizer
http://www.rankerizer.com/
Rank Checker
http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

31. Organic traffic after migration
Steady traffic for 4 weeks, then strong uplift in SEO rankings

32. Key take-aways
 Spend time looking at site structure for users
 Control Google indexing (no duplicate content)
 Take the opportunity to implement best practice 'on site' SEO
 Implement 1-to-1 301 redirects
 Test and Prepare
 Follow Migration steps!
 Check post launch. Stamp out 404s etc
Good Luck!

33. Thank you!
Nathan Huppatz
www.costumes.com.au
@huppy
Jason Mun
www.bespokeagency.com.au
@jasonmun