Website migrations can feel overwhelming, but with the right approach, they don’t have to be. Whether you’re redesigning your site, moving to a new platform, or changing your domain, careful planning will help you avoid losing traffic, search rankings, and customers.
Website migration isn’t just a technical process—it’s a strategic business decision that impacts multiple areas of your organisation. A successful migration requires careful planning, clear objectives, and collaboration between key stakeholders.
From SEO and development teams to marketing and senior leadership, involving the right people early on ensures alignment with business goals, minimises risks, and helps maintain search visibility. This guide will walk you through the essential considerations so you can lead a smooth and effective transition.
Why website migrations need careful planning
Website migration projects are often complex and require meticulous planning to avoid significant disruptions to search visibility, user experience, and revenue. A poorly executed migration can result in lost traffic, broken links and backlinks, and a decline in conversions. The most common risks include:
- Loss of hard-earned search rankings – If redirects are not correctly implemented or if content is removed without proper consideration, search engine crawlers may struggle to understand the new site structure, leading to ranking drops.
- Users struggling to find products or services – Changes to navigation, URL structures, or internal linking can make it difficult for customers to locate key pages, leading to frustration and increased bounce rates.
- A slow or buggy new website affecting conversions – Performance issues, missing metadata, or technical errors can negatively impact both user experience and search engine crawling, reducing the chances of maintaining or improving conversion rates.
- Missing or inaccurate analytics data – If Google Analytics tracking codes are not correctly migrated, businesses may lose valuable insights into traffic, user behaviour, and conversions, making it difficult to measure success and identify issues post-launch.
To prevent these pitfalls, it’s crucial to involve an SEO specialist from the outset. They can help map old URLs to new URLs, maintain proper indexing signals, and ensure that both search engines and customers continue to find and navigate the site effectively post-migration.
A structured migration plan, including pre-launch audits, thorough testing, and post-migration monitoring, is essential for a smooth transition with minimal impact on search rankings and business performance.
What you need to do for a successful migration
1. Involve the right people from the start
Your pre-migration process should not just be left to the web developers. Bring in your marketing, SEO experts, content teams, and digital marketing specialists early. They’ll help ensure the new website is designed to perform well in search results, align with ongoing campaigns, and keep users engaged.
2. Make a plan based on your goals
Think about what you want to achieve with the migration—there are many different types of migration for different needs. Is it a rebrand of the old site? A switch to a better platform like WordPress? A fresh redesign? Moving to a new domain name to better reflect your brand? Or are you changing from a subdomain to a main domain? Being clear about your goals will help set benchmarks, shape the process, and avoid unnecessary risks.
3. Keep what’s already working well
Before making changes, take stock of your current site’s performance. Which pages bring in the most visitors? Which products or services rank well on Google & Bing?
A common mistake is launching a new site without preserving these successful elements. An SEO specialist can help identify what’s worth keeping by doing an SEO audit of the old website so your business doesn’t lose valuable traffic.
4. Move Your Content Properly
When moving content to your new site, make sure nothing important gets lost or broken. Missing pages, duplicate content, or broken links can frustrate customers and hurt your search rankings.
Here are some key things to check:
- Is all important content there? Make sure key pages, blog posts, and product descriptions have been moved over.
- Do old links still work? If page URLs have changed, set up 301 redirects so visitors don’t hit dead ends.
- Are titles and descriptions the same? Keep your page titles, meta descriptions, and canonical tags to help with search rankings.
- Have images and videos moved too? Check that all pictures and media load correctly.
- Is the robots.txt file updated? Ensure search engines can crawl key pages and are not blocked by outdated directives.
Taking the time to move your content properly ensures customers and search engines can still find what they need.
5. Redirect old pages to their new versions
If your website’s URLs are changing, you’ll need to set up proper redirects. This ensures that visitors (and Google) can still find your most important pages. Broken or missing redirects can lead to frustrated customers and lost sales.
(SEO Tip: A ‘301 redirect’ tells search engines a page has permanently moved, preserving its ranking power.)
Changing URL structures is a part of the migration that impacts ranking fluctuations the most. Whenever possible, it is worth considering if URLs can be kept the same with the new website.
6. Test before you go live
Before launching the new site, plan in some time to test everything! A staging site allows you to spot and fix issues before they impact customers. Things to check include:
- Are all pages loading correctly?
- Do all internal links work?
- Is the site easy to navigate on mobile?
- Is the new design user-friendly?
Giving yourself at least 2 weeks for this is very important. There may be issues you uncover that require development fixing and things always take longer than planned!
7. Monitor performance after launch
Once your SEO-friendly new site is live, keep an eye on metrics like organic search traffic and rankings. It’s normal to see small fluctuations, but if visits drop significantly, something may have gone wrong.
Some key post-migration checks include:
- Submitting the new site to Google Search Console for faster indexing.
- Ensuring redirects are working properly.
- Checking for broken links and errors.
Your SEO and marketing teams should keep tracking keyword rankings and organic traffic performance over time, making necessary improvements to ensure long-term success.
(SEO Tip: Think of an XML sitemap like a roadmap for search engines—it helps them find and understand all the important pages on your website. If you’ve just launched a new site or made big changes, submitting your XML sitemap to Google Search Console is like giving Google a shortcut to discover your content faster!)
Case study – Seamless website migration for a high-end design brand
A prestigious design brand, renowned for its handcrafted sculptures and bespoke outdoor artworks, required a seamless migration of its websites to a new platform. The challenge was to maintain search visibility, ensure a smooth user experience, and safeguard valuable organic traffic throughout the process.
Results:
- Successful migration with no significant drop in organic traffic.
- Improved site speed and mobile performance, enhancing user experience.
- Maintained rankings for key search terms, ensuring continued visibility.
- Strengthened site structure for long-term SEO benefits.
By implementing a meticulous migration strategy, we ensured a smooth transition that not only protected but enhanced the brand’s online presence, positioning it for future growth.
Final thoughts
A website migration is more than a technical update—it’s a business move that can impact your visibility, traffic, and revenue. By involving the right people early, setting clear goals, and keeping a close eye on performance, you can ensure a smooth transition.
If you need expert guidance on your migration, our technical SEO team is here to help!