Web Migration: Creating a Website Migration Project Plan
Website migrations are enormous projects that require significant time, resources, and expertise to execute successfully. Luckily, following a website migration project plan will help ensure your project goes smoothly and minimise disruptions to your web traffic.
Start by defining your goals and getting buy-in from your teams. You should also use every tool, including crawling and content inventory software. For more information about the web migration project plan, click here.
Define the scope of the project
As with any large-scale project, scoping the website migration is a critical first step. This involves identifying what needs to be done and who’s impacted by it. It’s also an excellent time to ensure the right team members are involved. That includes system administrators, designers, developers, copywriters, SEOs, and managers overseeing the work.
The next step is determining what content needs to be migrated and preparing for it. This involves setting up a staging environment, which will be used to test and verify the new site before it’s launched. Including this step in the project plan ensures no surprises during the launch.
Another important consideration is ensuring the website is SEO-proof before launching. This can be accomplished by performing a thorough content audit, revealing any issues that must be addressed during the migration process. In addition, it’s a good idea to set up a new sitemap and submit it to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.
Finally, it’s essential to understand the website migration’s impact on traffic and rankings. This can be done by analysing traffic and conversion data before the migration and comparing it after the migration. In addition, it’s a brilliant idea to consider the impact of technical SEO specs like URL redirects and indexing, which can significantly affect site visibility.
It’s also essential to determine how many resources will be needed for the website migration and to create a realistic timeline for the entire project. This will help the project manager allocate resources and minimise the chances of unexpected challenges.
Determine your goals
Website migrations can be complicated. They can include a site redesign, a new domain, or migrating different parts of the same website. Each type of migration has its own set of goals that should be defined and communicated to the people involved. For example, a simple HTTP to HTTPS move could focus on retaining existing traffic, while a complete site overhaul might have growth as one of its objectives. For more information about the web migration project plan, click here.
Testing every change in a closed staging environment is essential before it goes live. This will allow you to see how the change might impact traffic and SEO rankings without risking any penalty from Google. This is especially important for any significant changes. During the testing phase, it is also essential to record all of the pages on your site (or at least the ones you’re migrating), along with their URLs and metadata. This will allow you to compare the old and new places after the migration.
If you are changing your URL structure, it is best to wait a few days after the migration to increase your DNS TTL to the new value. This will help prevent your visitors from seeing 4xx errors on their browsers. It will also give the search engines time to index your new pages before the old URLs expire.
A site migration can be a considerable undertaking, so it’s normal for some bugs to be fixed. However, suppose you have a plan and have devoted the necessary development resources. In that case, you should be able to minimise the issues that must be addressed after the migration.
Create a timeline
Whether you are migrating from one CMS to another or simply changing domain names, the timeline for your site migration should be created early. This will likely run alongside your primary strategy and development project and requires the full attention of content, development, and management teams.
The first step in creating a timeline for a site migration is to inventory your existing content. This will help you determine what needs to be migrated and where gaps will exist in the new site architecture. Then, you can start planning how to fill those gaps. It is essential to consider whether any new content will be added and how that will fit into the overall site map.
Consider how it will affect your SEO efforts when planning a site migration. This will help you determine your SEO campaign’s scope and ensure it isn’t compromised. You should also look at your organic traffic levels and how these will be affected by the migration and your search engine ranking.
It is also essential to plan how to handle redirects during the migration. This will allow you to maintain organic visibility and ensure users can find what they need. You should also consider how much time you want to dedicate to this task, as it can be pretty labour-intensive. For more information about the web migration project plan, click here.