SEO migration for Zehnder

Starting point

In the summer of 2022, Zehnder came to us to enquire about a migration path for their website. Both the Dutch and Belgian domains were transitioning from Drupal to Typo3. Zehnder wanted a flawless migration from the old platform to the new platform. Onder was also asked to provide technical specifications to make the new website run as smoothly and quickly as possible.

To brush up SEO knowledge onder the content team and as the transition from Universal Analytics to GA4 was imminent, a desire was also expressed to get training on this.

Run

Because the website could not be completed on time, it was not possible to migrate on the scheduled date. In the end, the deadline was postponed several times. We therefore had to remain flexible in our planning.

We heard a few hours after the migration that the url structure was still being changed. As a result, all 301 redirects were no longer correct and we risked dropping rankings because of many 404s this would result in. By intervening quickly and accurately, we prevented this and Zehnder was not affected.

Advantages

• By training the team, Zehnder can continue to work independently after migration to write optimised content and assess performance in GA4

• Professional migration keeps Zehnder's website highly findable in Google

A look at the trend in clicks last six months shows a decline after migration (on 7 March). However, we also see an increase again around May. Part of the decline can be attributed to the migration. Another part will also have to do with seasonality given the typical interest in heating products in winter and ventilation in summer. A dip in spring is therefore obvious.

Search term positions

Now that a period of about 3 months after the migration is behind us, we can also look back at the number of clicks compared to last year for this period. For the Dutch domain, we see an increase of over 9% clicks in the period 23-3 to 22-7.

The number of impressions does still lag behind (15%) compared to last year. Some of the impressions lagged because the PDFs did not migrate with them.

We also monitored the positions of search terms dear to Zehnder. Very high over measured, we fortunately see little fluctuation. As with any serious migration, positions did get lost. For instance, we saw positions disappear because search terms had moved to other or new pages with a lower URL rating. Because we stayed involved after the migration, we were able to point this out to Zehnder and provide content briefings where possible.

Meanwhile, those positions are also recovering.

Completion

Every SEO specialist secretly knows that a migration path zonder postponing the migration date is not a real migration path. Nor are twists and turns like the one described above very unique. Flexibility and built-in control mechanisms should ensure that you can parry and resolve as many unexpected events like this as possible. We are therefore pleased and incredibly proud that we were able to help Zehnder with this migration!

Advantages

• Onder guided Zehnder through the migration
• Zehnder has been provided with the necessary SEO knowledge by Onder
• Zehder is now able to continue working independently to expand her online marketing
• An important part of this project was the smooth migration, with minimal loss of traffic and positions. Throughout the process, the SEO results were closely monitored to make quick adjustments where possible.
• Onder's training in GA4 and content now enables Zehnder to independently create SEO-optimised content and monitor the website.