A lot of people get confused over what is the true meaning of the phrase Website Migration, but it is all quite logical. Website Migration can take place whenever a site has substantial changes made to it that affects its search engine visibility, these changes would include things such as user experience, site structure, coding, content or overall site performance.
However, Google and other search engines do not really document the effect that Website Migration has on the site and the loss of potential traffic that ensues. It also does not highlight the extent of the damage to search engine rankings and how long it will take to rectify the damage.
Indicators of Good Site Migration
It is expected that undergoing a site migration will automatically affect traffic and cause loss of revenue. But this is not always the de facto position and should not be treated as such. It is possible to undergo a site migration without any major loss to either revenue or traffic, however only if the migration is carefully planned.
If you have planned a successful migration then two indicators can be seen.
- Minimal visibility loss in the short term
- Growth in visibility after that period
A great danger of site migration is to introduce too many major changes at the same time, if something fails you will not know what caused it. By the same token leaving major changes for a later date is not good either as it will take even more resources.
Site Migration Types
The major types of site migration are:
- Site location – when a site moves to a different URL
- Platform / protocol – moving from HTTP to HTTPS for example
- Content – rewrites, consolidation, or pruning
- Structural – changes to the sites architecture
- Design and user experience
And combinations of all of the above.
Major Migration Pitfalls
Site migrations are all different but most of them have common elements when things go wrong, for example:
- Poor planning
- Poor strategy
- No SEO/UX consultation
- Poor budget and resources
- Inadequate testing
- Bad bug fixing
Processes of Site Migration
There are six quite market platforms in the migration platform:
- Planning – risk assessment, objectives, strategy, project plan
- Preparation – wireframe review, priority pages identification, SEO specifications
- Testing – content and technical review, redirect test, launch assessment
- Launch Day – site launch action plan, live testing
- Post launch review – checks and reviews, bug fixing, performance checks
- Overall performance review – BAU activity prioritisation, migration report
How to Measure Success
So how do you measure if your site migration has been successful? Owners of the site are probably only interested in revenue and traffic impact but there are a number of other metrics that you should pay attention to including:
- Desktop and mobile visibility
- Desktop and mobile rankings
- User engagement
- Sessions per page
- Conversion rate by page and device
Probably as well as the above you should also take into account the number of indexed pages, submitted versus indexed pages, pages that receive at least one visit and site speed.
When you have taken all of the above into account as well as the changes to revenue and traffic then you can truly tell if your site migration has been successful.
If all this sounds quite daunting then you probably need the assistance of a professional digital marketing company such as Voova Digital. We have the experience and the professionals who can tell you all about Website Migration and the steps to undertake a successful one. Contact one of our friendly advisers today to see exactly what we can do for you.