Website migrations are notoriously tricky to ace. Content, front-end, marketing, back-end: everything must come together seamlessly.
Migrations can cause disruption to web rankings and content strategy, and in the worst-case scenario, a poorly done migration leads to down time and a negative customer experience.
Whether you are migrating your website to a new domain, design, or platform, keep in mind the following tips for success.
What tends to go wrong in website migrations?
Arm yourself with knowledge to avoid these common issues and pitfalls:
- Lack of clarity and ownership, especially around roles and sign-off.
- Poor timetabling and rushed project management.
- Poorly executed content strategy, especially when it comes to the archiving of old content and redirects.
- Misalignment between commercial and technical goals.
- Poor communication between stakeholders, especially between developers, designers, and content creators.
- No discernible launch strategy or marketing for new website.
- Post-launch SEO rankings drop due to a variety of reasons, including inadequate redirects and poor site structure.
Plan before you migrate
Properly planning out your web migration project will save you a lot of time in the long run.
- Look into your reasons for migrating. What do you hope to achieve? Do you have clear goals? Document these (more on goal setting below).
- Plan out your resources correctly, allocating teams and team leads where appropriate.
- If you’re working with an agency, ask them for a project plan or co-create one. You must be ready to clarify direction, scope etc. You may also have to supply the agency with a redirect list, new content etc.
- Benchmark your current web and content performance so you have something to compare to post-launch.
- Avoid scope creep by being clear on parameters:
- Do you have any back-end systems or integrations that need to be ported over?
- How about your images, media gallery, or digital asset management system: how do they fit in your website?
- Do you have payment portals or other systems that need to be configured?
- What about cookies and consent management?
- What about multilingual elements and translation?
Every ounce of complexity will bloat the project, impacting budgets and timelines, so it’s worth clarifying what needs to be done.
💡 Check out our handy website project checklist to make sure you are covering all bases.
Define your website objectives before kicking off your digital project
Be clear about what you want to achieve and think about your short- and long-term goals. (Keep in mind that making drastic changes to your website will have significant after-effects).
- Are you looking to improve website performance? Are you changing web platforms to improve maintenance and upkeep? Are you managing a redesign, a domain change, or a larger brand change for commercial reasons? All these factors will impact how the migration project is managed. Understand the reasons for migration and set clear goals for the migration process based on these.
- Document and discuss your goals to stay accountable. Create benchmarks around your goals to track success.
- It’s important to have realistic timelines that reflect your objectives. Book in team meetings and presentations to embed your new website within your business and ensure that objectives are met.
💻 Managing an ecommerce website? Ecommerce project migration tips here.
Audit and analyse your current site from a structural POV
Audit your current site before the migration and use the data to execute your migration project. Take this opportunity to get under the hood of your website. A website migration is not primarily (or wholly) a cosmetic thing.
- Review website analytics and other web performance tools such as Google Search Console to understand your current baseline.
- Review your content architecture, any content or product categories etc. Your website structure is paramount to good digital branding.
- Crawl all website URLs with a tool like Screaming Frog or Site Bulb to create a comprehensive site map: you might be surprised what is in there! There are lots of ‘hidden’ URLs involved in websites: you will need to review/redirect all of them.
- Review any digital assets such as images and videos. This is a good time to compress any images to increase performance.
- This is also a great chance to review your metadata: page titles, meta descriptions, and any other content or SEO data such as tags.
Follow (best) web development practices
Many web development practices such as having a test environment are standard practice by now, but it’s still worth noting that it’s important to have a place to test things out, monitor integrations etc.
- You need to have a contingency plan and the ability to roll back if things do go wrong, so take back-ups as a precaution. (This can be easily automated by your web development team).
- If you are adding complexity to your website, these new elements will start interacting with each other, adding in even more complexity. It’s imperative to always run things in a test environment first. Whether you’re using Word Press or a custom CMS it’s important to have a place to test things and train staff.
- Configuring your web environment is an important part of any migration project. Leave enough time for configuration and training so that the right teams have the right access.
📖 Read our specialist tips on websites for publishers to get an idea of what types of websites tend to work for publishers.
Choosing the right platform
There are many content management systems and platforms out there: it’s hard to say which tech is best, as it entirely depends on the individual context and ecosystem.
- A website is part of a wider ecosystem. Keep in mind the other potential back end and front-end solutions you need to integrate with as this may inform your platform choice.
- Some industries have preferred platforms and tech, and it can make sense to fall in line with the rest of your industry.
- The main things to think alongside usability are: scalability, security, and features. There are certain content management systems that are much more flexible and others that are much more secure, others work better for multiple domains, ecommerce, or multilingual sites. It all depends on your business goals and needs.
Migrating content and data takes more time than you think
Despite there being lots of tools, scripts, and handy automation hacks, there is still a lot that you need to do manually when migrating. You will need to make decisions on how to deal with old content and whether you need to keep it or redirect it.
- Migration tools can help, but there will also be a lot of manual entry and decisions to make. A script can be written to automate migrations, but you will still need to think of the “rules” behind the automation.
- You need strategic oversight for managing your content archive. Involve your copywriters and marketers to make smart decisions on older pieces from your content archive. Remember that content also includes all images, videos, and documents.
- Migrate any databases and verify data integrity post-migration.
SEO factors to consider during migration
A rankings drop is a nasty migration side effect. Do your best to maintain your search visibility post-migration with these tips:
- Update and check all internal links – dynamic links can be an issue, so review these meticulously. Pay special attention to any footer or menu links, and multilingual site owners will need to factor in more time to check links across languages.
- Keep your URL structure the same if at all possible. When making changes, think about changing the page and its content first, URLs later. This will help conserve trust and link equity.
- 301 redirects are what you need to use to conserve SEO value. Try to minimise 404 (page not found) errors through redirections.
- Submit your sitemap file to Google Search Console and update your robots.txt file.
- Conserve, or ideally improve, your metadata.
Don’t skip the testing phase
Test all website functions, including forms, login systems, shopping carts, and interactive elements. It’s a good idea to have a “soft launch” to facilitate testing and bug fixing.
- Compatibility and performance testing will help you iron out any website kinks.
- Check all links and redirects. Run crawls and 404 page error reports to find out any rogue redirects.
- Rigorously test forms and make purchases through the new site.
- Check mobile performance and prioritise your mobile UX: it is important for rankings and users!
On the launch day itself
Here are some pro tips on what to do and what to look out for in the days leading up to the actual website launch:
- DNS propagation (pointing the website to the new server) can take longer than you think, so plan accordingly.
- Have your analytics and real-time reporting tools ready to go and monitoring. (PowerBI might be an option for you when it comes to gathering website intelligence – here is our guide to this data visualisation tool).
- Server logs can be a useful tool to check for any unusual website activity.
- Google Search Console is your friend when it comes to diagnosing SEO issues.
- Have a marketing strategy across email, media, and socials to ensure your new website is getting the attention it deserves.
DevOps attitude and agility will carry you through
Adopting a DevOps culture will help you manage your migration project in a more flexible way. (Our tips on how to leverage DevOps here). Your website strategy is an ongoing thing that you will need to consistently review and check in with.
- Futureproofing your site means not getting stuck in your own echo chamber. User feedback and super user groups can help you keep an open mind.
- Internal reviews and audits are also a good way to ensure everyone from sales and marketing to finance and recruitment is properly represented.
- Development cycles and tech in general mean that you will need to invest in your website to keep it working and functional. Have regular web development reviews to stay on top of things and conserve cybersecurity.
Looking for more advice on website projects or planning a re-platforming migration? Get in touch to speak to our specialist web developers.
