Download - Website Migration: SEO Survival Kit (Artur Jach TFM&A 2014)

Website Migration

SEO Survival Kit

@arthurjach Artur Jach

https://twitter.com/arthurjach

SEO Awesomeness

The road to glory



Quick intro

The SEO campaign is doing well and you’re taking the credit for it

BossClient

Unless you’ve met this cuddly pair

Your white hat SEO is paying off

But one day you hear the dreaded words “website migration”

Great… it’s tempting to take this route

Why panic?

Top reasons

New CMS

New design

New domain

Domain consolidationExpansion

Google Penalty

Architecture

So why migrate a website?

You then pull yourself together, do your research and seek help

Brand & domain name considerations

List of current and historical pages

Keyword research & analysis

CMS & Content migration

considerations

Reviewing sitemap and site structure

Reviewing wireframes and designs

Technical and code optimisation

Content optimisation (titles, descriptions, copy,

links)

Redirect mapping and strategy

Pre-launch checks & recommendations

Post-launch indexation and visibility checks

(getting the site indexed)

Post-launch evaluation

Discovery Optimisation Launch Ongoing SEO..

Three migration steps

Is your new domain name too ambiguous?

Is it too generic?

Destined for instant success?

A new brand name? Or is it?

Free CMS platforms might do the job

If you need a scalable, enterprise solution with great support for SEO think about Sitecore– Easy editing of the usual on-site SEO elements– Separation of business logic and presentation layer >> SEO friendly HTML and URLs– Smooth content migration using the API for direct system to system content

migration– Redirection module is a great asset for matching old pages and URLs

Help yourself with SEO friendly CMS

Sitecore Customer Engagement Platform

Current website:– Screaming Frog / Xenu (crawl the site)– Webmaster Tools (most popular pages)– Google Analytics (best SEO landing pages)– Searchmetrics, Linkdex, BrightEdge (rankings pages)

Historical URLs– Webmaster Tools (404 not found pages)– Wayback machine + link download plugin (pages from the old website)– Open Site Explorer / Majestic SEO (old pages linked to from external sites)

Get a list of all pages… you’ll need it

KeywordRank Search Volume Search Volume Ranking URL

cake recipes20 71,583 http://www.flora.com/flora/tasty-and-healthy-recipes/cake-recipes/

lemon drizzle cake7 57,265 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Lemon-drizzle-cake.aspx

carrot cake recipe18 51,621 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Carrot-cake.aspx

macaroni cheese35 13,583 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Dinner-recipes/Macaroni-cheese.aspx

crumble recipe28 13,225 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Baking-recipes/peach-and-raspberry-crumble.aspx

healthy meals11 13,050 http://www.flora.com/flora/tasty-and-healthy-recipes/

how to make cupcakes16 10,687 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Lemon-cupcakes.aspx

lentil soup49 10,362 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Soup-recipes/Moroccan-red-lentil-soup.aspx

baking recipes12 10,133 http://www.flora.com/flora/tasty-and-healthy-recipes/baking-recipes/

change 4 life38 8,458 http://www.flora.com/flora/flora-and-change4life/

brownies recipe27 8,183 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Chocolate-brownies.aspx

coronation chicken49 8,025 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Sandwich-recipes/cheats-coronation-chicken.aspx

minestrone soup25 7,962 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Soup-recipes/Minestrone-soup.aspx

beef burger recipe38 7,925 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Dinner-recipes/Herbed-burgers-with-potato-wedges.aspx

american pancakes34 7,808 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Breakfast-recipes/american-pancakes.aspx

healthy dinner recipes33 7,670 http://www.flora.com/flora/tasty-and-healthy-recipes/dinner-recipes/

chicken stir fry48 7,212 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Dinner-recipes/Chicken-and-honey-ginger-stir-fry.aspx

profiteroles37 6,950 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Profiteroles-with-chocolate-orange-sauce.aspx

lemon cake9 6,815 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Lemon-drizzle-cake.aspx

easy cake recipes29 6,470 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Cake-recipes/Carrot-cake.aspx

change4life30 6,266 http://www.flora.com/flora/flora-and-change4life/

cheese straws31 6,126 http://www.flora.com/Flora/Tasty-and-healthy-recipes/Baking-recipes/Cheese-straws.aspx

Do your keyword research





considerations





links)







Three migration steps

Are target keyword groups reflected in the sitemap?

Optimise before the first line of code is written

Time to actually do something

http://searchengineland.com/seotable







considerations





links)







Those three migration steps again

Create a like for like redirect mapping using all gathered URLs

Things to remember:They must be 301 permanent redirectsUse ‘catch-all’ wildcards if the list is longPrioritise redirects by how beneficial they are to SEOTest on preview version of the siteIt’s tempting to cut corners and to do a site-wide redirectAt the same time don’t overdo it

Redirect strategy is the single most important part of SEO migration

Then the moment of truth

1. Check the site can be indexed

2. Submit XML Sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools

3. Get the site indexed

4. Test redirects

Are we there yet?

The following chain of events might be expected:1. Post-migration dip in SEO visibility2. Temporary spike3. Return to “normal”4. Continuous improvement

1

2

3

4

The aftermath and expected SEO performance

1

2 3

4

On other websites it may take longer to recover

The return of the hero

Thank You




CMS & Content migration considerations




Content optimisation (titles, descriptions, copy, links)






Discovery Optimisation Launch Ongoing SEO...

