SEO Migration Process

  1. Scoping Session

    Collecting critical pieces of information that determines timeframes and costs to avoid delays and reduce risks.

    • Current platforms/CMS
    • Platforms/CMS to migrate
    • Parties involved
    • Existing time frames
    • Other available information

  2. Architecture & eCommerce Segmentation

    2 Weeks

    Phase A — Market Research, Site Architecture & eCommerce Segments

    • Organic search competitor analysis
    • Full site keyword research
    • Where users navigate to
    • New page architecture & recommendations
    • Category hierarchy creation
    • Industry impressions potential & target market online search behaviour
    • Keyword to page mapping (Offsite promotional strategy)

    Phase B — Amendments & Consultation

    • Presentation of work
    • Consulting, further research and amendments
    • Implementation consultation

  3. Pre-Migration

    2 Weeks
    • Conduct a website audit
    • Crawl legacy site
    • Create XML sitemaps for legacy and development sites
    • Check a benchmark ranking
    • Map out 301 redirects
    • Set up a robots.txt file and add an XML sitemap
    • Prevent search engines from indexing development site
    • Analytics tracking check
    • Indexation check
    • Page Speed check
    • Robots.txt check
    • Canonicals check
    • XML Sitemap check
    • Response codes check
    • Metadata moveover check
    • Redirects check

  4. Post-Migration

    2 Weeks
    • Set up Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster tools
    • Ensure tracking code is included on all pages
    • Fix any broken links
    • Implement and test 301 redirects
    • Create an XML sitemap for the development site and add legacy & development XML sitemaps
    • Choose the best time for the website to go live
    • Allow search engines to index new site
    • Submit sitemaps to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools
    • ‘Fetch as Google’ in Google Search Console and ‘Submit URLs’ in Bing Webmaster Tools
    • Use the ‘Change of Address’ tool in Google Search Console and the ‘Site Move’ tool in Bing
    • Re-run Pre Migration Checks
    • Run additional migration checks
    • Check for indexation

  5. Q&A and Check

    3–4 Weeks
    • Annotate Google Analytics and update Goals
    • Update social media profiles and online citations (if migrating to a new domain)
    • Crawl new website and check for errors that need fixing
    • Perform a ‘site:’ search to check that all new URLs are being indexed
    • Check if any channels are experiencing a decrease in traffic
    • Check ranking
    • Disavow any bad links
    • Build new links and internally link to any main new pages
    • Re-audit your website
    • Re-submit your XML sitemap
    • Let the dust settle!

Risks!

If a migration is not executed correctly it could lead to (but not limited to) the following issues:

  • Staging site indexed
  • Incorrect redirect implementation
  • Noindex pages
  • 404 errors and dead pages
  • Missing/No Content
  • Incorrect Metadata
  • Incorrect internal links
  • Missing/Incorrect GA
  • Disavow any bad links
  • Incorrect Goal/Ecommerce set up
  • Incorrect Canonicals
  • Lack of CMS fields/Restrictions
Organic traffic graph showing a steep, sustained drop after a failed SEO migration
Site that experienced a failed SEO Migration (We were approached 6 months post migration to resolve)
−$500K

This business lost $500K per month in a failed migration and had to revert to the old platform.

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