What to do in case of a traffic drop after a SEO migration?

If you have recently migrated your website to another domain or CMS, you may be worried about how this will affect your search engine optimisation (SEO). Will users be able to find the new site? Will existing backlinks still point to the right pages?

These are just some of the questions that may come to mind. Fortunately, migrating a website is not as difficult as it used to be. Thanks to excellent processes such as content aware crawlers and pre-built migration tools, it can be a quick and seamless process. But that doesn't mean there aren't SEO implications to consider. Hereonder you will find everything you need to know and do after a website migration if you want visitors to be able to find your new site. Or first read a little more about SEO migrations .

Check your analytics and other tools

If you Google Analytics or other web analytics tools used to track your website statistics, you need to make sure they are set up correctly on the new site as well. If you don't, you will miss crucial information about your users, which could have unpleasant consequences for your SEO strategy. The same goes for Google Search Console. This allows you to manage your site's SEO and identify problems. Once you have moved your site to the new domain, you need to verify your new site within Search Console. From then on, you can start checking your SEO status.

Change the site's DNS

If you are migrating your website to a new hosting provider, you will probably need to change your domain's DNS records. DNS is the system that translates human-friendly website URLs (such as onder.nl) into IP addresses that computers can understand. This allows people to visit your site and, in the case of a migration, be redirected to your new domain. You can find instructions on how to change your DNS settings in different hosting environments on your new provider's onder support page. If you are migrating to another domain, you will need to update your DNS server with new records pointing to your new domain name. You will probably need to do this with your current DNS provider. If you are not sure what to do, contact your DNS provider to ask what to do.

Find and fix broken links

When you migrate your website, it is very likely that you will have to change some links on your site. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Perhaps you have changed the name of a page or removed a link that is no longer current. Whatever the reason, broken links on your site can have a big impact on your SEO. Every link pointing to your site is a potential user, and broken links can send them to a 404-error page lead. To find broken links on your site, you have a few options. You can use a website crawler like Screaming Frog (free) or DeepCrawl (paid) to find all the pages with broken links. Once you've found them, you'll want to replace them with new links to keep your visitors on your site.

Use responsive design

If you are migrating to a new domain, make sure your new site is fully responsive. If it is not, Google may think the two versions of your website are two different websites and consider this a duplicate content violation. If you don't have the resources to hire a web developer to create a fully responsive site from scratch, there are some great tools like Elementor or Squish that allow you to quickly and easily create a responsive design.

Migrate your blog and other content as soon as possible

Your old and new sites will coexist for a while, so you want to make sure your new content is published as soon as possible. If you had a blog on your old site, you want to migrate your blog posts as soon as possible. If you have existing backlinks pointing to your old site, Google will continue to index your blog posts and other content on your previous domain. So when you change domains, you want to make sure that all your old blog posts and other pages are already on your new website. This makes it easier for Google to crawl and index this content, so your new site will be discovered faster.

Summary

Migrating a website can be a daunting task, but with the right tools and careful planning, it doesn't have to be. By following these tips, you will make the transition go smoothly and preserve your site's SEO. Ultimately, there are many ways to tackle a website migration, and the best way to do it depends on your specific situation. However, with the right preparation, you can ensure that your new site thrives as soon as it goes live. For example, use our SEO migration checklist for this. Or put your question to us via the contact page.