Avoiding Traffic Drops in Site Migration

Within certain corners of the online marketing world, site migration has a bad reputation. Many in this world mistakenly believe that all site migrations, even the best ones, will result in significant losses to traffic and revenues – this simply isn’t the case.

That’s not to say that all site migrations will go without any loss; if you don’t take the proper steps, you absolutely will see these kinds of drops. Here we’ll go over why this doesn’t have to be the case for your website, plus some examples of good and bad migrations.

Myth of Expected Traffic Drop

If you’ve been involved with a site migration, it’s likely you’ve heard this myth. While it’s true in some very specific cases, there are absolutely ways to avoid it in the majority of situations. You can migrate without losing traffic or revenue, and many of the best site migrations actually end with significant growth right after a re-launch. It just takes the right planning and execution.

Bad Migrations and Their Effects

Recently, a large retailer went about a site migration all wrong and lost 35 percent of its visibility in just two weeks due to a switch from HTTP to HTTPS. It took the company six months to recover, with a huge impact on revenue due to organic search.

That’s not even the worst of it, though – this recovery won’t be possible for all companies. Another big retailer made this same switch recently, but it resulted in a permanent visibility loss of nearly 20 percent. Our next section will go over the goals you have to prioritize to avoid this happening to you.

Examples of Good Migrations

A successful site migration will depend on the type, the objectives, and the key performance indicators. That said, there are two primary characteristics that indicate a successful migration:

• Short-term goal: Minimal loss of visibility during the first few weeks
• Long-term goal: Growth in visibility after this, depending on migration type

How to accomplish these will vary, but there are a few basics to know. Try to never include too many changes at the same time – if a single area goes wrong, it’ll be tough to pinpoint this area. On the flip side, don’t delay too long on major changes, as this will require more resources and might be more complex.

No matter what, make sure you have a good idea of the migration types available to you and the reason why many fail. This is one of the many services the pros at an SEO company like SEO Werkz can offer – call us today to learn more about this or any of our other high-level SEO services.