Maintaining your SEO value when moving to a new site
Moving website? Don’t mess up your SEO in the process.
Let's make a scenario. You've had an awesome site for a while and spent a while getting it to rank on search engines. However, now you're looking to launch a brand new site but don't want to lose all that SEO effort from before. You probably asked, is that even possible? Yep, and I'm going to tell you exactly how you can do it.
Check Your Keywords
Okay, so I'm guessing that you had a list of tracked keywords for your previous site - right? This may seem like a very obvious thing to do but if you're going to focus on new keywords for the new site, make sure you just expand the current list rather than scrapping old ones.
I've heard online about so many people who decide they'd like to rank under new keywords, so they create a brand new keyword strategy - only to then realise that they've lost rankings for the keywords that drove the traffic.
Optimised Content
Before you take the site live, proofread and check all content is not only well-written but also contains your set of keywords. A good way to increase your Domain Authority (DA) is to include relevant internal and external links in content. This is called Link Earning and is a great way to build up your DA. If you'd like to check how you're doing, I recommend using a tool like Moz or SEMrush.
An awesome way of continually updating the site is by producing a content/blogging plan, where you can keep track of stuff that needs doing. Here's a top tip, keep the site active and you'll have a better chance of being found! Blogging is very important, it provides great content to read but also helps rank higher.
Keyword Tracking
You know what I mentioned earlier about keywords? Well, a keyword strategy is what you need. Especially, when launching a brand new website. It's good to keep track and see where you were before the new site went live. Then, keep monitoring on a monthly basis. Of course, if you're not sure about any of this - just drop me a message and I can help you.
If you see lots of drops in where you rank, don't break your mouse and keyword just yet. Remember, Google is re-indexing stuff so it'll be okay. Here, have a 🍪 and relax.
Re-Directs & Speed
It doesn't matter if you have a new domain or are sticking with the same one, re-directs are vital for your post go-live SEO. Pages you see that no longer exist, rig up a 301 re-direct and send traffic to the right place.
Speed is important too, tools like GTmetrix can help show you the site/page speed. Google actively takes how fast your site is on different devices to determine your ranking. If your competitors have a super fast load time but you're as slow as a snail (excuse the poor comparison, it's pretty late) then you're going to lose out.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
A service that is becoming more popular is Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO), which is when you test your site to improve and generate conversions. When launching a new site, this could be something to consider. CRO is a useful way of maximising conversions but can provide insights into the design of the site. Specifically, the customer journey. However, you'd start doing this after it goes live.
That's Not All...
Of course, there are so many other factors to take into consideration. I've not even touched on robots.txt, schema markup, sitemaps, metadata and URL structures. I hope this basic list of information has been helpful though, it should be of use to anybody launching a new website. If you need any help, I can help with my full Go Live Checklist!
