When you develop a business website, it isn’t that the website will remain in that state or form forever. You won’t just be involved in updating the website considering the content, design or layout, but there can be times when you will need to migrate your website.
Website Migration
Website migration basically means changing the technology or the set-up of the website. Migration doesn’t apply to changes that you make in content or change its theme or layout. It’s not a simple but a serious migration process. Imagine the difference between changing your home design interior to completely moving to a new home in a different city or country. The latter is a serious migration, relative to what a website migration is.
Website migration is related to its platform, and structure and the technology that it runs on. While on paper a professional will be able to implement this effectively, it comes with some side concerns as well, like losing on search engine rankings. Therefore, you must be prepared to implement effective and timely SEO strategies post site migration so that your business doesn’t lose much in terms of SERP ranking and traffic.
Why Would You Need to Migrate Your Website?
There could be several reasons for that, including:
Moving to a New Server
May be you aren’t satisfied with the performance of the resent server, or the present hosting conditions are not suitable to your use, or you are getting deal or performance factor elements on some other host.
Domain Change
It can be because of rebranding, or you just feel like having a better brand URL for your business website.
Moving to a New Framework
The current CMS or framework is outdated, or your site’s scalability needs a new framework, or there can be other reasons for doing this.
HTTP to HTTPS
HTTPS come with high security features, so it makes sense to migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS, which also boosts the SEO ranking.
Change in Navigation, Structure or Design
When you have a feeling to stat-based or fact-backed reason that changing the site structure, design and navigation would be better for your website.
Mobile Version Addition
Adding a mobile version of your website is a must-have thing in today’s times when it comes to targeting more and more potential customers.
As mentioned above, there can be several reasons for you to migrate your website.
Risks in Website Migration
When you are changing the website, pertaining to its host, design, navigation, domain, structure, and other reasons, it will come with radical change there are several risks involved. Most notably the effect on SEO factors, traffic and content value.
Therefore it is important that your website migration is done considering all the aspects in mind, and it should be done right and successful, by also following Google guidelines.
Mitigating Site Migration Risks
Make sure you have ascertained the reasons and are sure that there is strong evidence or reason to migrate your website. Ensure to create a checklist about what to do and how. Have an experienced professional on-board to carry out the website migration so as not to incur any errors.
Tips to Follow When Migrating Your Website
Do Not Move at One-Go
Have a test sample ready so you know if everything will work right or not, and then start moving your website steadily and gradually.
Do Not Mix Multiple Migration
Some website owners look to overhaul their websites completely, like changing the domain URL, having a new design, layout and navigation while also moving to a new host. All these things shouldn’t be done in a single go, but one-by-one step.
Migrate When the Traffic to Your Site Usually
Does your website receive low traffic on the nights during weekdays, or some other time? This is the time when you should be migrating your website so to incur less impact that site migration will cause. The server load will be low, and so your website will be indexed faster.
Prepare for the Worst
Nothing is immune to errors, and at times, there can be issues of pitfalls and such concerns, for which you must be prepared beforehand.
Inform Users – Promote Your Website Before Migration
Your loyal customers and some new potential visitors won’t feel good about if you migrate your website and they have no clue about this. So, ensure that you are informing about the site migration and when it can happen through all the means, including social channels as well. Highlight all the changes and specific things that should be conveyed to the users.
Track Site Migration
Have dashboard ready that tracks your existing website in comparison with the new website, and how the new site is behaving and performing considering ranking, link factor, user experience and other important factors.
Plan Site Testing
Keep testing your new website during and after the migration process. This will help in identifying certain errors and issues and will help you rectify them timely.
Conclusion:
Site migration is not an easy task, but it isn’t so that can be considered as a big challenge. You have to have a plan ready for that and a professional to carry out the process. Make sure to hire professional digital marketers after migration so as to bring it to the high-ranking position as fast as you can.
