SEO CHECKLIST FOR WEBSITE MIGRATIONS

LAUNCHING A NEW WEBSITE IS EXCITING, BUT LAUNCHING PROPERLY TAKES CAREFUL PLANNING AND EXECUTION.

HERE ARE SIX KEY ELEMENTS TO CHECK BEFORE GOING LIVE:

#1 - SEO

Suppose your old website is currently ranking well in Google. In that case, you’re going to want to protect this valuable customer acquisition channel by getting an SEO pro to analyse your site and perform the following tasks:

• Setup page to page 301 redirects
• Ensure all keyword research is up to date
• Ensure all keyword mapping is up to date
• Ensure all content and optimisation matches user intent
• Ensure all pages titles are optimised
• Optimise image load times, filenames and metadata
• Ensure equivalent content value on redirected pages
• Implement optimised URL structure and hierarchy
• Ensure sufficient internal linking to boost user experience, crawling, pages per session and page value distribution.
• Page Speed, Accessibility and Best Practice Testing
• Error checking and correction, make sure there are no broken links, missing images, broken checkouts, console errors etc
• Check rel=”nofollow” on external links
• Check canonical URLs
• Check hreflang implementation
• Check page structure
• Check security headers
• Check console errors
• Generate a new sitemap and ensure the sitemap is linked from the robots.txt file
• Ensure any noindex tags are removed
• Test if Google can render your pages by checking the HTML and render preview via the Google Rich Results Testing Tool, and again after going live via Google Search Console.

#2 - BROWSER TESTING (DESKTOP & MOBILE)

Test every page of your website on a range of devices and browsers, e.g. Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge. Your web developer will typically do this as part of their service, but it’s best to be sure. A poor browsing experience can whittle away your site traffic and cause you to lose valuable conversions over time.

We recommend using a service like https://www.lambdatest.com/, which can help you test multiple browsers, versions and devices simultaneously.

#3 - GOOGLE ANALYTICS & GOAL TRACKING

Google Analytics tracking code installation often gets overlooked even though it’s one of the essential tools for tracking the performance of your new online marketing investment (your new website). Ensuring Google Analytics is set up from day one is crucial for allowing you to detect website performance and traffic fluctuation issues.

#4 - EMAIL & SOCIAL ALERTS

Ensure your brand advocates and valued customers know your new website refresh by scheduling a celebratory email and social updates. Depending on your site purpose and audience, you may want to let customers know how your new website will make their browsing experience easier and more valuable! This will help customers who may have grown tired of the old content or user experience to re-engage with your brand and content.

#5 - HOSTING LOCATION

If your target audience is in a specific country or city, it’s beneficial to make sure your website is hosted as close as possible to your audience. Hosting locally to your audience will help to improve page load times and provide a better overall user experience.

#6 - PRIVACY POLICY, COOKIE POLICY, AND TERMS & CONDITIONS

Ensure that you have a clearly visible Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Terms & Conditions pages. These pages are crucial for legal compliance, especially with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and others. They provide transparency on how user data is collected, stored, and used, and outline the terms of use for your website.

Make sure these documents are accessible via the footer of your website or in another prominent location, and keep them up to date with any legal requirements relevant to your industry or audience location.

HERE'S WHAT TO DO AFTER GOING LIVE:

• Submit your updated sitemap to Google
• Submit a Google Index request via Google Search Console
• Submit a change of domain if required via Google Search Console
• Re-check noindex, console errors and redirects to ensure there are no new issues

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