Website Migration Services in Kitchener

Moving to a new domain, or migrating content across to a new CMS, can generate huge problems for your search traffic. If SEO is not taken into account in the planning stages of creating a new site then you can find yourself suffering a nasty surprise when the day of the changeover happens.

Migration: It’s not as simple as just redirecting everything

Retiring old content

Sometimes when you migrate site the first instinct is to cull old content. However, sometimes the biggest drivers of traffic can be those old pieces that rank well for user’s search queries. Though the content might be old, we need to think how would you cater for those topics, markets or products?

If search queries that relate to that content are no longer relevant, then the traffic dip might not cost too much. If you’ve simply overlooked this, then the results can be painful. We can help with advising which content should be kept, which should be updated, and which should not be transferred across – based on the behaviour of your users.

A chance to optimise site structure

Often in our seo audits we comment on the site structure. Though a high priority action, we often expect the site structure to remain the same for a number of months due to the process involved in changing it.

What we look for is meaningful organisation of the URLs and relationships between pages that dictate hierarchy. However it means new URL structures and redirect mapping that must be undertaken with the highest attention to detail.

That is why it usually only occurs during a web migration, due to the care, time and thought that goes into it. However it can be one of the most beneficial opportunities to seize and to reap the rewards afterwards.

Redirecting your old site to new

When you have new URL structures it is so important to redirect EVERYTHING. We will provide the redirect mapping document with all old urls to the new url equivalent or best alternative. As well as ensuring all current redirects go straight to the final destination in order to avoid redirect chains.

Benchmarking

Has the site been completely crawled and a snapshot of search visibility taken? If not, you’ll struggle to analyse post-migration performance. If a traffic dip occurs, which keywords and product categories are affected? Preparing correctly helps diagnose issues later.

Migrating to HTTPS

We have migrated our clients to HTTPS countless times, we could do it with our eyes shut. We will always recommend secure hosting as it is a publically declared ranking factor. But it can involve so many steps that you haven’t thought of :

• Purchasing the SSL certificate
• Updating links, references and resources
• Updating sitemaps
• Updating robots.txt
• Adding the Search Console property
• So much more…

Because we are a full service agency, we can also offer our retained hosting management service, so that if anything goes on, you know it will always be taken care of quickly.

Thinking about migrating to a new website? We can help every step of the way. Take a look at our web design projects and builds.

Do it with Spotlight

We can help you to make sure that your new site fits your design priorities whilst retaining your traffic, and along the way we can make sure your site is ready to grow into the future.

The migration process will be explained clearly and we can work with your designers and developers to ensure that the process is as painless as possible, both for you and your revenue.