Migrating an online store from one platform to another is quite an undertaking. It is a process that involves so much that one component is often forgotten. Namely, SEO. And that is very undesirable, because if SEO is not included, you can say goodbye to your accumulated history, link value and position in Google search results.
Why an SEO migration is so important
H1, a partner of ours that we often work with, asked us to explain more about an SEO migration. Jelle, our SEO specialist, knows better than anyone how important SEO is in a migration. Angelique Nanning from H1 asked him all about it.
TOMAHAWKS SEO migration checklist
To ensure a flawless SEO migration, check out the information from our video as well as this checklist.
- Know the status quo: map the most important pages and current positions for migration. This is important to spot changes.
- Create a test environment: Never do this directly on the live environment, but run tests before making SEO adjustments.
- Test trackings: place test orders, newsletter subscriptions and download files. Check that everything is being read through properly.
- Think out the new URL structure: Make a survey of old URLs with a crawler and Google Analytics. Then figure out what the new urls will look like.
- Redirect old to new urls: Have a web builder implement a redirect scheme on the test environment and verify that the old urls are properly redirected to new urls. This is to verify that the value of old urls is properly passed on to the new ones.
- Upload the new sitemap: upload both the new and old sitemap in Google Search. This way the search engine sees the new sitemap and which old urls have redirects and indexing goes faster.
- Final content check and go live: from images to meta descriptions and product information, make sure everything is right on the test environment and then go live!
- Check redirects and tracking:Prevent errors after going live with a check on the test environment. In addition, recheck redirects and tracking on the live environment to make sure everything is going well.
- Deploy Google Search console: use this tool to check the indexation of all pages after going live as well as a new url (if a new domain).
After each migration, you may see a drop in organic results because the search engine needs time to re-index the online store. But a good SEO migration ensures that this process goes as smoothly as possible. Tomahawk and H1 are of course ready to help during this process.
