Are you about to “Go Live” with your new website? While publishing your new site can be done in little to no time, there are a number of things to consider before you complete the migration of your old website to your new design. Learn which website migration risks you should be aware of to ensure that your website is successful in the long term.
Switching your website to a new design is an exciting process, but not without risks. Keep these tips in mind to protect your website from losing traffic or search engine ranking. Click To Tweet
Common Site Migration Issues
When you upload a new website design to your domain, Google is going to notice. While it may not happen overnight, slight changes to your website can create a myriad of issues in regard to search engine optimization. Make sure you and your web development team pay attention to these factors post-launch of your beautiful, new website.
- Lost meta information
- Slow page load speed
- Broken internal links
- Not redirecting old pages
- Improper URL structure
1) Lost meta information
Losing meta information such as title tags or meta descriptions for your pages can result in traffic loss over time since Google will recognize it as an entirely new page. Before you go through the migration process, be sure to keep a backup of old meta information just in case all of the information isn’t transferred correctly.
2) Slow page load speed
If you’re performing a full site migration or changing to a new server, the load speed of the page can be affected. Pay attention to which pages may be losing organic traffic and verify that your caching system is installed and working properly.
3) Broken internal links
If your old website linked to pages that resulted in 404 codes, there is no reason to transfer these over. Make sure any broken links are completely removed before completing the migration of your new website.
4) Not redirecting old pages
While removing pages can be a great benefit for technical SEO, it also poses a severe SEO risk for your website’s overall rankings. Before you migrate to your new website, make sure that you have the proper redirects in place to link the old URLs to new pages.
5) Improper URL structure
Small changes to the URL structure of any landing page can result in broken links, especially if your sitemap was reorganized drastically. Pay attention to whatever changes were made to each page URL to ensure the best possible user experience.
Boosting Your Migration Process
Designing a new website is an exciting opportunity for new and existing businesses to grow and expand their online visibility. Making the change without safeguarding your existing content, however, can result in the opposite result and cause your website to lose traffic. With a team of certified SEO specialists and web development professionals, ITVibes is prepared to handle any issue that may come up in the migration process.
Contact us for more information about our web design and development services.