Are you considering a website migration? Have you considered the impact it will have on your SEO? If not, it’s time to start.
Moving your website from one domain to another or even from one CMS platform to another can have a huge impact on your SEO performance.
That’s why it’s important to consider the potential pitfalls before you make any changes. Here are 5 SEO fails marketers should avoid during site migration.
1. Not Establishing Redirects Properly
One of the most common mistakes made during SEO migration services of a website is not establishing proper redirects from the old URLs to the new ones.
This can cause problems for search engines and users alike, as they will be unable to find what they are looking for without a proper redirect in place. Make sure to take care of this step first before anything else!
2. Not Updating Internal Links
Another mistake often made during site migrations is forgetting to update internal links that may have been pointing at old pages or URLs.
This can lead to broken links, which can be detrimental to your SEO performance and user experience. Be sure to double-check all internal links and update them accordingly.
3. Not Updating Canonical Tags
Canonicalization helps search engines figure out which version of a page they should show in search results if there are multiple versions available (like if there is a “www” version and a “non-www” version).
Setting up canonical tags (rel=canonical) on each page will let search engines know which one is preferred by you and help prevent any duplicate content issues associated with multiple versions of a single page being indexed by search engines
4. Not Submitting Sitemaps
Your sitemap is an essential part of any successful website migration because it provides information about how pages are organized and which ones have been added or removed from the site.
It’s important to update your sitemap after every major change or addition so search engines can find and index your content quickly and accurately.
You should also submit this updated version of the sitemap directly with Google Webmaster Tools for quick indexing of all new content added during migration process.
5. Not Monitoring Your Site Performance
The last thing you want is for something unexpected to happen after a site migration, such as rankings dropping dramatically or traffic decreasing significantly due to some technical issue with the new site structure or codebase.
That’s why it’s important that you keep an eye on how your site is performing in terms of both organic search traffic and rankings in order to catch any potential issues quickly before they become bigger problems down the line.
It’s always good practice to check analytics data regularly regardless if you’re migrating websites or not, but it’s especially important during migration when changes can drastically affect performance metrics such as organic traffic, bounce rates and time spent on page etc.
Monitoring analytics data after every major change will help identify issues early on so they can be addressed quickly before causing further damage.
Final Thoughts
When migrating your website, there are many potential pitfalls you need to be aware of in order for everything to go smoothly without any hiccups along the way!
From establishing proper redirects and updating internal links, canonical tags, and sitemaps, there is plenty that needs attention prior and post-migration in order for everything to come together correctly without any major issues affecting your SEO performance or user experience negatively.
Stay mindful when migrating websites – being prepared will save you time and resources in the long run!
