Site migrations, like growing pains in pre-teens, are sometimes necessary. Site migrations can help when businesses (from eCommerce to law firms) are growing, too. In this article, we’ll explore the top 6 secrets of a successful site migration process.
It may be a tricky process, but you can definitely go about it with as few risks as possible. Continue reading to learn some super helpful tips to make the site migration process a piece of cake.
What Is Website Migration?
Website migration is the process of transferring your site and all its contents to a new location. The scale of site migration can vary, whether it’s through many small steps or large-scale overhauls. It all depends on what your goals are.
There are many reasons why site migration may be necessary, such as:
- Enhancing security by upgrading from HTTP to HTTPS.
- Changing your hosting platform
- Buying a new domain name
- Rebranding
- Upgrading your website
- Adding new, better features
Regardless of the reason, triple-check that you’re approaching the whole process strategically. This ensures that you can continue doing business as usual and see even greater results than before.
6 Website Migration Tips To Remember
Going in prepared and with the right mindset is key. Keep these six crucial tips in mind to minimize roadblocks and set the stage for a breezy process.
1. Define Your Migration Goals: Successful Site Migration Secrets
Why are you migrating your site in the first place? Do you want to beef up security? Are you saving money by changing to a cheaper hosting platform? Setting specific goals ensures that you approach the migration process strategically and get even better results than before.
Don’t be afraid to seek professional advice as well from technical SEO experts, web developers, or IT professionals. Industry-specific marketing teams can offer even more highly specialized advice, like law firm CMOs or a healthcare web dev company. They help lay out a solid migration plan that’ll prepare you for the migration journey.
2. Audit Content and Prioritize the Best
A content audit filters and prioritizes the pages with the most traffic. Tools like Google Analytics give you a bird’s eye view of all your pages’ metrics, such as conversion rates, clicks, or site visits, giving you an idea of which pages to prioritize using successful site migration secrets.
For example, a law firm’s marketing team might look to see which landing pages brought in the most qualified leads. They would take extra care to ensure such a landing page is preserved in the case of a technical issue. A law firm CMO could prioritize a hypothetical Car Accident Lawyers page over a page that doesn’t bring in as many conversions.
Once you’ve gathered the best-performing content pieces, back them up and store them in a safe location. You can never go wrong with tools or plugins that offer backup features. To double down on security, store this data on cloud-based services and physical backups when possible.
3. Test Redirects on a Staging Website: Successful Migration Secrets
Redirects ensure that URLs lead people to the right page. This is especially important if you’re rebranding with a new domain name and want to prevent confusion or loss in rankings. Preserving traffic is possible… when done correctly.
A 301 redirect can let the search engines know that you’re permanently moving from one URL to another. Test your redirects on a staging website (a replica of your site that’s not accessible to the public).
Do the URLs lead to the right landing pages (for example, a law firm’s practice area pages or consultation booking forms)? Are there any errors that you missed? It’s ideal to conduct multiple tests to be absolutely certain about site migration secrets.
4. Conduct a Pre-Launching Test
Take your website on one final test drive before launching officially to the public, even if you’ve already moved all your content and other assets to the new site.
A pre-launch test is your chance to spot any last-minute issues, whether in UI/UX (user interface/user experience), navigation, mobile responsiveness, links, etc. You want to work out any final kinks before allowing Google to crawl and index the site.
This is especially important for law firms, where a smooth, intuitive user interface and user experience can directly impact client conversion rates. Test the website’s navigation to check that potential clients can easily find the practice areas they need, such as “estate planning,” “personal injury,” or “criminal defense,” and that your contact forms, free consultation requests, and live chat options are functioning properly.
5. Inform Users and Stakeholders (and the Search Engine): Successful Site Migration Secrets
Don’t forget to let your users and stakeholders know that you migrated site. Otherwise, it’ll only lead to confusion — it could lead to confusion and make users think you’ve disappeared completely. This can be frustrating and confusing for eCommerce shoppers but especially stressful for the healthcare or legal industries that handle sensitive matters and information.
Update users about upcoming site changes through email blasts or social media announcements. This keeps them engaged and prevents anyone from being left out of the loop.
If you’ve changed domains, let the search engine know as well via 301 redirects. This means that the search engine recognizes your brand-new domain, helping you retain all your hard-earned traffic and Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings.
6. Do Final Technical Checks
Like with any website, check if all technical elements are working. You can enlist the help of a specialist to set these up correctly. If possible, see if there’s a specialist in your industry (legal marketing is very different from B2C apparel marketing.).
Here’s a quick rundown of some of the technical elements to remember & site migration secrets:
- XML sitemap: XML sitemaps tell Google what pages you want to be crawled. After the migration process, check if your sitemap still lists the same pages.
- robots.txt file: This file tells Google which pages not to crawl. Make sure the sites that you don’t want to be crawled are listed here.
- Analytics tags: Check all analytics tags on the pages you want to monitor post-migration. This will allow you to monitor traffic, page visits, clicks, and so on.
Wrapping Up: Last Thoughts on a Smooth Website Migration
Website migration may be daunting at first, but it’s a big step in the right direction. It’s a chance to give your business a fresh start with a new domain name, website design, or upgraded security. As long as you plan and test thoroughly, site migration will be a walk in the park!
This article was written by Pranjal Bora, who works as a fractional law firm CMO at Digital Authority Partners.
The post 6 Secrets to a Successful Site Migration appeared first on Visualmodo.
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