SEO Migration Checklist - Step-by-Step Website Migration Guide

Website and SEO migration can sound intimidating, but it’s often an essential step for businesses hoping to boost their online presence.

You may need to migrate your website to improve site performance, enhance security, update outdated technology or rebrand your online identity. Migration can also help you optimise your site for better positioning on SERPs, provide a better user experience (UX) and ensure it works seamlessly on mobile devices.

Migrating your website can increase traffic, higher engagement, and business growth – but what about SEO? A poorly managed migration can mean a drop in search engine rankings, leading to decreased organic traffic – and potentially, a negative impact on your business.

Read on as we walk you through the SEO migration process. Use our SEO migration checklist to help you do it smart and maintain or even improve your SEO performance.

How to create an SEO migration checklist

Pre-migration – plan and prepare

Before diving into website migration, it’s essential to lay a strong foundation with thorough preparation.

Start by setting your migration goals – do you want to maintain your current organic traffic, or aim for more? Knowing your objectives will shape your strategy and help you define what success looks like after migration. Map out your migration with a detailed timeline that covers all technical and content-related tasks, ensuring your team stays aligned and nothing gets missed.

Getting SEO experts involved early is crucial. They can spot potential issues and guide site architecture, URLs, and tools like Google Search Console. It’s also essential to communicate with all stakeholders, from in-house teams to third-party agencies. Set expectations, share the timeline, explain potential risks and outline the benefits to keep everyone informed and aligned.

In addition to these initial steps, conduct a comprehensive SEO audit to understand where you currently stand and identify issues that need attention during the migration. Back up all your website data, including content, images, and databases to safeguard against data loss.

Record key metrics like organic traffic, keyword rankings, and conversion rates to benchmark your current SEO performance. This will give you a baseline for post-migration comparison.

Review and optimise your existing content for quality and relevance. Create a detailed map linking old URLs to new ones to avoid ‘404 not found’ errors. Revisit and update your site architecture and internal linking to ensure they are user-friendly and logical. Lastly, prepare 301 redirects to guide both users and search engines from old pages to new ones, preserving your rankings and ensuring a seamless experience.

You can use tools such as Yoast in WordPress along with spreadsheets in Google Sheets to create and handle redirects. Other options include htaccess files or the cPanel with your hosting company such as WP Engine.

Read about why SEO fails and what you can do about it.

During migration – execution and monitoring

As you move forward with the migration, it’s crucial to keep a close eye on everything to ensure it all runs smoothly.

Start by implementing 301 redirects to seamlessly guide visitors from old pages to new ones – this is key for maintaining your SEO rankings and ensuring a positive user experience. Then, check and update all internal links to point to the correct new URLs to prevent any broken links on your new site. Make sure your new site is crawlable and indexable by search engines so they can easily find and index your content.

Conduct a thorough test of the new site to identify any technical issues, including broken links, loading speed and mobile-friendliness. This helps maintain a good user experience. Set up and verify tools like Google Analytics to track your site’s performance. Also, involve real users to test the site’s usability and gather valuable feedback.

Regularly monitor the migration process to spot emerging issues and address them promptly. This proactive approach keeps the migration on track and minimises disruptions.

Discover our ultimate guide to digital marketing analytics.

Post-migration – verification and optimisation

Once the migration is complete, your focus can turn to verifying and optimising the new site.

Start by verifying the site in Google Search Console to keep an eye on performance and catch any issues quickly. This step helps search engines properly understand your site’s structure and content. Then, submit a new sitemap to ensure your site is indexed efficiently.

Keep a close watch on traffic and keyword rankings to spot any potential issues early and tackle them head-on. Regularly check for crawl errors in Google Search Console and fix them to ensure everything is indexed correctly. Conduct a post-migration SEO audit to see how your site is performing and guide your ongoing optimisation efforts.

Don’t forget to install and verify your SSL certificate to maintain security and trust.

Lastly, monitor server logs for crawl errors or unexpected issues and ensure that all third-party tools and plugins are working properly.

Your easy SEO migration checklist

Stage 1 – Pre-migration

Define migration goals
Create a detailed migration timeline
Involve SEO experts early
Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit
Backup current website data
Benchmark current SEO performance
Audit and optimise existing content
Map old URLs to new URLs
Review and update site architecture and internal linking
Prepare 301 redirects

Stage 2 – Migration

Implement 301 redirects
Update internal links
Ensure the new site is crawlable and indexable
Test the new site for technical issues (eg. broken links, loading speed, mobile-friendliness)
Set up and verify analytics tools
Perform UX testing with real users
Monitor the migration process closely

Stage 3 – Post-migration

Verify the new site in Google Search Console
Submit a new sitemap
Monitor traffic and keyword rankings closely
Check for and fix crawl errors
Conduct a post-migration SEO audit
Install and verify SSL certificate
Check third-party integrations and plugins
Review server logs

Why an SEO migration checklist is important

Website migration can be complex, but expert help ensures a smooth process with minimal downtime and no data loss. At Submerge, we can optimise your site performance, improve SEO rankings and handle technical challenges securely.