A website migration is what it sounds like, a migration of an old website to a new website! A website migration redirects all old website pages to any new pages on the newest version of the website so it does not impact ranking in search engines. A website migration is not something easily done and takes a considerable amount of time and dedication! 

Why would a company need to perform a website migration checklist? This is because without a migration, any current ranking or website traffic will be lost. A company will completely start over from the beginning. No one wants to start SEO over again after they have been working on it for months or even years! Even if there was not a strategic SEO strategy in place, this would lose all branded keywords and website traffic! 

Your website needs the deluxe beauty spa list and treatment when it comes to a migration. At Denver Media Group, our team has migrated hundreds of websites so our checklist of before and after is pretty clear! 

Here is our ultimate website migration checklist! 

Planning stage

The first stage before a website is completely ‘shut down’ is to make sure there is a smooth process to transition everything over. What from the old website needs to be moved over to the newer one? 

Examples can range from the following: 

• Content

• Service Pages

• Ecommerce

• Accounts

• Newsletters

• Forms 

From there a site map needs to be created to make sure the new website will flow as it should. Google states a site map is, “Where you provide information about the pages, videos and other files on your site and the relationship between them.” 

There will be a homepage, about us, service pages, a blog page, contact us but what about everything else in between? 

A brand new site map is claimed to be a “beautiful” piece of the entire program our lead developer states. This is because this helps to develop the website as it exactly should be and leaves no questions left unanswered. It gives our developers a step-by-step process of how your website should flow and how users will navigate through it.

URL structure 

When it comes to website migration, a URL structure is critical for SEO purposes! A site’s URL structure should be as simple as possible. We are being candid here, no one wants an ugly URL,especially not Google! 

Part of the website migration process is to model the current URL structure around the existing one. This is because if the old URLs do not match up directly, a 301 redirect needs to be set in place. A 301 redirect tells searchers and search engines that this page no longer exists. This also lets anyone who has the current page bookmarked to not have any issues. 

For SEO purposes, a redirect has to be established to make sure SEO is not directing to an old page that no longer exists. As our experts stated before, Google is a very intelligent machine, but even machines need help to crawl and index the right pages. 

Database 

A website’s database allows for information to be collected, organized and categorized through SQL language. The database system in place lets the important content, categories, fields, etc. to be transferred over from one website to another. 

In a perfect reality, it would be that easy! A quick coding here and there, but each database is different from a WordPress website to ExpressionEngine and every other one out there! This is where a bit of restructuring takes place in the new database to make sure that the information is being transferred over to the newest pages and columns. 

A lot of times member accounts need to be migrated, sometimes form submissions, order history, etc. All of that is accounted for and planned for from the beginning.

As a company, it is important to find a website design and development companies who can help to check off all the important marks on a website migration checklist! 

For a free consultation on a website redesign or development project, give us a call today!