Navigating ecommerce migrations - Emma Russell - SearchNorwich 17

In this talk from SearchNorwich 17, Emma Russell explains what the different types of migrations are and when you might encounter them.

This talk also includes examples of some migration horror stories and a framework to follow for SEO when doing a domain name migration.

About Emma Russell:
Emma spent over a decade working in SEO, both in-house and with agencies, before founding Oxford Comma, an SEO agency creating bespoke strategies for e-commerce companies. She has worked with companies including Sure Deodorant, House of Fraser and Mitsubishi.

Day to day, Emma works closely with other members of the team to ensure all our clients reach their full growth potential, and oversees all areas of Oxford Comma.

Transcript

3. EEAT Emma Russell fact file 🚀 Morally grey Dr in Godzilla: King of Monsters 🚀 Brilliant but rebellious maverick 🚀 Environmental activist 🚀 Releases Godzilla’s nemesis, King Ghidorah
4. EEAT Emma Russell fact file 🚀 Founder of Oxford Comma Digital 🚀 E-commerce SEO 🚀 In my spare time I knit 🚀 Seen some migration horrors
5. What is a migration?
6. A migration is horror
7. Why is a migration horror?
8. Great SEO
9. Move to Wordpress and redesign
10. Domain name migration
11. There are many different types of migration Domain name migration Platform migration Hosting migration Redesign
12. What is a domain name migration? Moving from one name of a website to another For example: https://herfreesoul.com to https://freesoul.com
13. Why are domain name migrations done? ➔ A company is bought by another and renamed ➔ A company wants to tweak their target audience ➔ A company wants to reframe their branding
14. What are some common pitfalls? ➔ Redirects aren’t added properly and Google or other search engines can’t find your new content ➔ You’ve built up authority under one name, which is then difficult to transfer to a new name
15. What is a platform migration? Moving from one tech stack to another For example Moving from Squarespace to Shopify
16. Why move platforms? ➔ You’ve outgrown your platform and have new requirements that your platform can’t meet ➔ You have requirements you didn’t realise you had and need a platform that meets those requirements
17. What are some common pitfalls? Your new platform still doesn’t have everything you need Your new platform relies heavily on client-side JS and Google isn’t putting in the resources to render it
18. What is a hosting migration? Moving from one host/server to another For example: Moving from GoDaddy to 20i
19. Why change hosting? ➔ Some servers won’t guarantee enough uptime for your needs or prove unreliable (*cough, GoDaddy, *cough) ➔ As you grow you might need something more scalable ➔ You might want more control over your servers
20. What are some common pitfalls? ➔ Choosing GoDaddy as your hosting provider ➔ Understand the full server setup e.g. are you using something like Cloudflare? ➔ Are there speed implications? ➔ ALWAYS UNDERSTAND IF THERE’S GOING TO BE DOWNTIME
21. What is a redesign? Changing the look and feel, including potentially, the taxonomy of your site For example Getting a branding refresh
22. Why are sites redesigned?
23. What are some common pitfalls? ➔ In the process of redesigning, sometimes companies decide to remove sections of the site that actually drive a lot of traffic ➔ You can say “if you’re happy to sign off an X% decrease, then it’s fine” - get this in writing
24. Common misconceptions 1. Migrations are just about getting your redirects right 2. You’ll always lose traffic in a migration a. Migrations always drop 15% of traffic 3. A migration is always a really long project 4. A migration can be done over a weekend
25. How to handle a Domain name migration Platform migration Hosting migration Redesign
26. Don’t Panic
27. Step 1: Understand what’s changing By understanding what’s changing you can understand what you need to set out in your requirements
28. Step 2: Understand if this is a chance to make improvements Maintaining what you have Going after growth
29. Step 3: Assess what’s working well and benchmark You need to benchmark traffic and everything that’s getting you that level of traffic
30. Step 3: Assess what’s working well and benchmark As SEOs and marketers you need to drive what to keep or what to remove. You should have sign off.
31. Step 4: Create your requirements Example document here
32. Step 5: Create your requirements Full story here
33. Step 6: Solutioning and cutover tasks Other than testing, you may have things you need to do, such as submitting XML Sitemaps to GSC etc.
34. Step 7: Testing Communicate with the team how you’re going to test
35. Step 7: Testing Tell them in advance what the high priority issues are and how you’ll communicate them
36. Step 7: Testing Test against your requirements for staging and live. Nothing should be a surprise on live.
37. Thanks! You can find me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elrdigital/