Managing SEO during web site migration

[petersen]

We have an old web site which currently has good traffic and search ranking. However, the old design is not helping us convert traffic into customers and we have decided to re-design the web site.

Due to challenges resolving 4XX issues in the current setup, we will be moving the site to a new CMS and hosting provider. The domain will remain the same.

The plan is to create exactly the same pages in the new CMS, as what we have today. And to use the same URLs for each page. Content will remain the same in step one. We will only apply a new layout and design.

Besides keeping the URLs the same as in the old system. What else should we be aware of when doing a web site migration, that might impact our search ranking?

[NextDigital51]

Hi there,

I am actually in the exact same situation as you are in for 2 of my clients, but they are doing a re-design not for conversion issues, but just updating the site and moving it to a cms.

I got the client to map out all the new pages so we can put all 301 redirects in place, especially for pages that will no longer exist, we make sure we point them to the right category page.

Also we try to contact as much of the webmasters from where we have links from as possible to point the links to the new url, because you don't want your links to lose value due to redirects.

Keep an eye on Google WMT after you made the migration to make sure no errors come out I guess, I don't see much issues with site migration if you can keep urls the same but you never know.

[EGOL]

The domain will remain the same.The plan is to create exactly the same pages in the new CMS, as what we have today. And to use the same URLs for each page. Content will remain the same in step one. We will only apply a new layout and design.

This sounds like a fairly safe plan.  The only cautions I can think of are...

1. Be sure to maintain the same title tags, meta descriptions and on-page markup.

2. Changing the navigation structure (the persistent links in your design that repeat on every page... and any other significant internal linking) could divert or strengthen your flow of link juice.

Its good that you are working carefully to defend your current rankings but is there anything else that you might do such as bread crumbs, improved internal navigation, related content promotion, in-paragraph text links, etc. that will IMPROVE your rankings.  When you make a big design change the goal should be to improve rather than to simply maintain.

Go for it and good luck.