What Is Website Migration A Complete Guide will be described in this article. There is no denying the fact that website migration is a humongous task. Once you know you have to go through it, there is no going back and no slacking.
What Is Website Migration A Complete Guide In 2024
In this article, you can know about What Is Website Migration here are the details below;
So, what is website migration?
It is a process that a website undergoes to change its technology or set up. A simple update site migration because website migration implies serious changes, mostly concerned with website platform, structure, content, location, or design.
No doubt that migrating a website problem-solving requirement brings with it a lot of the risks – from losing your ranks on the search engines to the losing parts of your website completely.
Reasons behind migrating your website
There are numerous situations that as a site owner you may face where you end up only with the option of site migration. Here are the top 6 reasons to implement website migration.
1. Adding a mobile version
In today’s world, mobile users have a lion share in visiting most websites. So, optimization for mobile platforms could be beneficial. You should analyze your audience preferences and find an appropriate cost to benefit the balance for creating a mobile-specific experience.
Customer experience on your website is most important to get more traffic and sales. If the navigation or design fails to impress the visitors, it will affect the conversions negatively.
3. Moving new framework or CMS
Having a website outdated platform can be painfully limiting for you. It is also disruptive to your audience, which can result in the downfall of sales.
Be sure to think whether moving to a different technology is the only option or if there is any way to enhance your current setup to meet your needs.
4. Shifting from HTTP to HTTPS
Moving to the HTTPS protocol for your website is important from a security standpoint. Most browsers pop a warning for the unsecured pages who don’t have HTTPS protocol.
Although you might not need to switch your whole site to HTTPS right away you could begin with the pages that store user’s personal information.
5. Moving to a new server
Some owners are not satisfied with the bandwidth of the hosting services. They may want to switch to another host and to do that they should take their time to find the right provider.
6. Changing the domain name
The domain name has a lot of significance. You might want to change your domain name due to rebranding or getting hands better URL. However, like all other reasons behind migration, changing the domain name is also a big decision that you shouldn’t take without thinking about it seriously.
Fundamental rules of Website Migration
As mentioned earlier, it is not going to be easy to carry out website migration. Here are important rules to abide by when implementing the same.
- Firstly, give information to all of your users that you will be moving your website. Even after following all the instructions, your website may suffer from some problems, so, it would be better to inform your audience.
- Try not to migrate the whole site at once. First, have a sample of a new site. When you are sure that everything works accordingly, start moving your website in pieces.
- Do not couple multiple migrations at a single time. For instance, if you want to change your domain name and redesign your site architecture, it would be better if you do it one by one.
- When the traffic is low, it is a good time for migrating a Website because this will dwindle the impact in case something goes wrong. Also, a reduced server load will allow Google bot to crawl and index your new website speedily.
Six-Steps for Website Migration
Follow these 6 steps to carry out website migration successfully
#1 Initiate your website migration plan
Follow these:
- Establish the scope and timeframe of your migration
- Determine the individuals or team that will lead and support the migration
- Build a website migration checklist for the every task
- Create a budget list of the resources needed
It is a time-consuming process. Your company has to establish a smooth communication channel within its different team, ie., from managers to developers to SEOs. Also check Top Best SEO
#2 Get updates from the website design and development team
Redesigning your website includes reworking and reviewing wireframes, providing feedback, and more. It can also include other objectives, for example, increasing the website speed and processes by compressing images.
#3 Plan your technical SEO for the migration
Depending on the above step, be it the redesigning or enhancing website speed, the SEO team will create technical SEO specs for your website. Further, using this data the development team will launch your website.
These specifications can include:
- URL structure
- Redirects
- HTML sitemap
- XML sitemap
- Internal linking
Apart from building the above technical SEO specs, your SEO team should also consider the following:
- Crawl your existing website
- Gauge your existing website’s performance-rankings, speed, etc
- Export your existing website’s Google Search Console data for reference
- Your SEO team should create a document that outlines the planned redirects (in case of a new domain or changing from HTTP to HTTPS)
#4 Launch and test your new site
You can begin with the step after being thorough with 1,2& 3, or you can also test it at a stage when the development team begins building it. During the testing phase, ensure that your website is not accessible to search engines. Do so by restricting its access to specific IP addresses.
Follow the below checklist of items to test
- Analyze your site architecture
- Monitor your site’s usability
- Verify your page works on mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets
- Assess your site’s internal linking, like its navigation, header, and footer links
- Examine your site’s title tags, meta descriptions, copy, and more
- Check your site
- Ensure your site functions, like by loading pages, maintaining a decent page speed, and more
- Inspect your txt file, XML sitemap, HTML sitemap, and structured data
You can ask your team members to explore the different aspects of your website. For instance, one person may find a typo (like from a rebrand) on one page. Others may notice a broken button on a different page. The different perspectives help resolve the issues instantly.
#5 Migrating the website
To reach this stage, it may take a week or even a month. All your hard work leads up to this moment, and you will eventually migrate your website. An essential tip while migrating a website is to maintain a good website speed. Also check Reverse SEO Everything
Once you conclude the initial migration, perform these steps:
- Establish your robots.txt file does not block search engines
- Monitor your redirects work for your pages, specifically most valuable pages
- Upload your XML sitemap to the Google Search Console account
Performing the above three actions will help you spot critical errors quickly. Additionally, these will also ensure smooth website migration by submitting your site to the Google Search Console.
#6 Follow-up on your website migration
After successfully migrating your website, monitoring your website for the following weeks and or months will be very important. This is essential to observe the rankings and traffic.
It is normal to see a drop in traffic and the rankings immediately after the website migration, but a long-term decline can mean that there is a problem with your site migration.
Use Google Analytics to watch traffic and Google Search Console trace your rankings. The paid tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, keep an eye on your website’s performance in search results.
Conclusion
With a talented team, website migration is possible in-house. But as said before, if the ranking seems to drop and not gain momentum, getting expert help can resolve your issues. We at Orafox, will make the transition smooth and ensure that you regain your website ranking.
