Many companies lose a lot of their website traffic when transitioning to a new website (website migration) or restructuring their current website. This is disastrous for your findability, even though you have probably already invested a lot of time and energy in it. Besides, it is also unnecessary, because with a thorough SEO migration, you will not lose traffic.
Help with SEO migrationThe moment you make a lot of structural changes within your website, this also changes the situation for Google. Helping Google understand this situation We call SEO migration. Structural changes and so different types of migrations that fall hereonder are, for example:
Let's keep as much as possible to the old
Every SEO specialist ever
The above quote does speak to situations we experience, because just like humans, search engines can't handle change very well either. So if you're going to change your website in terms of situation anyway, you'd better help Google understand this as much as possible. The moment you don't help Google and don't do a SEO migration, your good positions in Google disappear like snow in the sun. For many organisations and brands, the website or webshop is an important onder part of the business and then losing organic traffic hurts the bottom line tremendously.
In terms of visibility, a website migration zonder SEO help looks like this:
The above situations are not uitzonderlijk: we are often approached by organisations that shoot into panic mode a few weeks after going live because organic traffic is gone.
But what is the ideal way to help Google understand your migration? And what steps should you take to do so as a website owner or SEO specialist? We list the steps of the SEO migration plan for you:
We always recommend including SEO in the plans for a new website or changing website, but it is not necessarily necessary. Think, for example, about discussing a new structure or taking stock of which content should be brought to the new situation. However, making preparations for a SEO migration is necessary. The onder parts in this preparation and planning phase are:
No website migration is the same, but these are generally the most important steps in this phase. Obviously, it is also very important to make good planning agreements together (website owner, SEO specialist and web builder).
This is the phase before going live with the new website or changing website. This phase is about doing everything you can to make sure Google understands as much as possible which page is moving to a new page. The onder parts of this phase are:
The moment to press the button has arrived. Time to show everyone your new website! This phase consists of the following onder parts:
Something goes wrong in all SEO migrations, even those that go completely by the book. It is always important to consider SEO capacity and development capacity at this stage
This phase is strongly related to phase 3 and runs imperceptibly into it. Because apart from the fact that SEO is a continuous process, you can also adjust your SEO migration in this phase. This phase consists of the following onder parts:
We at Onder do a lot of SEO migrations, from large to small and complicated to uncluttered. We highlight three migrations of recent times
Daka is a chain of sports shops + a fairly large webshop. They specialise in many product groups and are particularly strong in winter sports items. Daka's marketing team knocked on our door to onder support in the webshop migration that was upcoming.
Daka's new situation was so different that Google did struggle with it at first, but after adjusting with technical changes and content additions, we had an upward trend again, just in time for the post pandemic winter sports season of early 2022.
Industore is a technical wholesaler with a sizeable webshop. Industore specialises in a number of niche markets and is therefore particularly findable on technical products. Organic traffic is important for Industore.
Industore was also a typical migration by the book: all onder parts were tightly finished by ourselves, Industore and the connected developer. Still, you see a small dip after going live followed by a nice increase in organic visibility.
Internetvergelijk.nl is a comparison platform for internet, television and telephone subscriptions. The platform relies heavily on organic traffic and was and is highly findable on a variety of search terms that match the target audience's orientation phase.
The most exciting aspect of migrating Internetvergelijk.nl was the transition from pages in HTML to a JavaScript framework. Fortunately, we were able to test extensively in the test environment with a Prerender solution that still works well. The transition is hardly noticeable in the results, as organic traffic is still rising.
We see SEO as a craft and the SEO migration service is very much a onder part of that. So we are happy to help you with that. Every website and every situation is different, so no matter how structured we implement migration plans: a SEO migration is tailor-made. We help many customers with SEO migration on the following three variants:
Are you new to the world of search engine optimisation or looking to improve your current strategy? Start with our comprehensive SEO check to make sure you're doing all the basics right. For a thorough evaluation of your website, check out our Live SEO analysis and SEO analysis website. If you have questions about specific terms.
Can we help your organisation with this? Then get in touch with us!
We are happy to share our knowledge with you. So would you like to get started yourself with a SEO migration checklist and follow our step-by-step plan as you see fit? Then download the SEO website migration checklist from Onder. Success not guaranteed of course 🙂
Radboud University faced a complex challenge this spring: we wanted to largely switch to an entirely new website (new technology and new look-and-feel), but because that cannot be done in one go, we also had to continue using parts of our old website(s) for a considerable period of time. And, of course, we wanted to continue to be found at least as well by the major search engines. During the SEO migration and the many redirects this required, Martijn and his colleagues helped us very well atonder. Despite the fact that we only had a few weeks to get this right, they got the job done to our complete satisfaction, thanks to their expertise, pragmatism, flexibility and the ability to change gear quickly when circumstances changed.
Thanks to good analysis and a comprehensive redirect plan from Martijn and his team, we had a flawless replatforming that saw DAKA switch to Magento. The advice to DAKA's content team ensured a better URL structure, category descriptions, meta titles and descriptions. The accessibility and knowledge of Onder is very good and for this reason I can definitely recommend Onder as a SEO partner.
In the SEO field, Finner has accumulated quite a lot of knowledge over the years. It was therefore not easy to find a good sparring partner. We certainly found one in Martijn. When migrating to a new domain and website, he helped us excellently. He is substantively strong, honest and a nice person.
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