Switching eCommerce platforms and websites is potentially one of the riskiest things you can do in terms of search engine rankings. Even the SEO professionals are weary of it.
The problem is that it takes a long time for websites to build page rankings, randomly crawled by search engine bots. And you can never be 100% sure that the bots will read and re-assign all the page rankings that you have earned. With thousands of products and pages in a typical eCommerce website, the magnitude is much larger with something bound to go wrong.
Taking the difficult task to hand, we’ve scoured the web and resources from SEO experts to compile a list of must-read guides for any eCommerce company looking to upgrade their eCommerce platform. With these 8 must-read guides, you can safely migrate your store to a better platform while keeping all the SEO juice you’ve built up.
1. Practical Ecommerce’s SEO Site Migration Checklist
Jill Kocker from Practical Ecommerce discusses the importance of consulting SEO professionals for larger scale projects and the pros and cons of switching platforms on the same domain versus changing to an entirely new domain. She provides a detailed and actionable checklist for keeping your SEO rankings intact and highlights how your URL structure and navigation might change.
2. Moz’s Tips to Website Migration
Modestos Siotos created this incredibly detailed and valuable guide to website migration on YouMoz. It was then upgraded to the main Moz blog for its immense value.
The guide gives a very technical overview with detailed steps through the different stages of website migration. From the initial planning and setting of objectives through to the final testing and measuring of impact. There is even an appendix of additional resources and tools that can be used.
3. Luna Metrics Migration Tips for Big Content Sites
An ecommerce platform migration never involves only one group or department in a company. It involves marketing, development, customer service, and even fulfilment and operations. Not every department will understand the implications of what they need and how it affects SEO. Reid Bandremer from Luna Metrics lays it all out with 7 fundamental tips for your entire team.
4. Blue Acorn’s Guide to Changing Domains
Perhaps you’ve decided to go with the riskier option of not just only changing platforms but also moving to a new domain. In essence, this is building a new website from scratch. Using 301 redirects, you will hopefully be able to transfer all of your search rankings to your new site. Dodiet Sutardjo from Blue Acorn talks about 7 steps you must consider to correctly set them up.
5. Kissmetrics’ SEO Guide for Ecommerce Websites
Since you’ll be migrating your eCommerce platform and website, use this opportunity to review your SEO strategy and tactics. Chris Kilbourn, VP of Strategy at Fit Marketing, wrote this massive step-by-step guide on Kissmetrics to help you become an SEO-savvy business owner.
6. Lessons from Moz’s Domain Migration
As we mentioned, eCommerce website migration is a topic that even the SEO professionals are wary about. Case in point, SEOmoz, one of leaders in the SEO industry rebranded and moved their website to Moz. This was not without learnings and problems. In this post, Ruth Burr Reedy recounts the process and the lessons that they learned.
7. Tactics to SEO Site Migration
Ok, so you’ve read all these guides and understand the perils and strategies of migration your ecommerce platform. Now you need more tactical advice. Chris Soames details the 5 steps to an effective SEO migration on Smart Insights. He provides a very technical outline of the milestones, timeframe, tools, and objectives of each step in migrating your eCommerce platform.
8. How to Avoid an SEO Disaster in a Redesign
Reading up on every single guide possible and taking notes on each step of the process gives you a sense that everything will go smoothly. Most of the time it does. But it is entirely possible that there will be problems and something will go wrong. This post from Glenn Gabe on the Search Engine Journal assumes that something will go wrong. It gives a transparent recollection of how they were able to avoid a complete SEO disaster and turn things around. It’s never a bad idea to be prepared.
Start Your Migration
The point of this post is not to deter you from migrating your eCommerce store. It’s simply to prepare you so that you don’t find your rankings drop suddenly. The fact is, if you’re using an inhibitive eCommerce platform, you’re always better off moving to a more flexible one, even if there are risks.
Furthermore, if you’re planning on migrating to a platform like LemonStand, we’ve got built-in features to help ease and automate your migration, without any of the negative side effects.