How To Avoid SEO Traffic Loss While Migrating to Magento 2

Introduction

Hello, Magento 2 owners!! You might remember the big change in Magento Platform during the month of June 2020 and that was the End of Support to Magento 1. With this, all the store owners who deployed their Magento store on Magento 1 had lost all the access to new functionality updates, new features, bug fixing, etc. So either you need to migrate the store to Magento 2 or build a new store on Magento 2 platform. But doing any of these 2 you need to ensure that there is no loss of SEO traffic while migration and also not the revenue.

Migrating to Magento 2 is not an easy or a quick job. We have already shared a list of things that will change if you shift to Magento 2 from Magento 1, but we also wanted you to know more, so we came up with the SEO checklist to make your migration process much smoother and better.

There is no doubt that Magento 2 offers a lot of improved and advanced features that help store owners to enhance user experience, boost sales and improve conversion rates. But all these things will only work smoothly if the Magento 2 Migration is executed properly. And if not, then there might be an SEO Traffic loss due to Magento Migration and thus there will be a drop in overall store revenue.

So basically you need to plan properly and also follow the ways to avoid drops in rankings along with the points to keep in mind to avoid the unwanted website traffic drop.

So, if you are migrating your store for the first time then there are chances to miss some key factors during the Magento 2 migration process that will eventually lead to a loss in SEO traffic during migration. So to avoid losing organic SEO traffic we have listed below a few tips to follow. But before jumping to the tips let’s first know why a website SEO migration strategy is so important and what an SEO migration plan is.

In this blog post, you will discover some of the most important technical SEO work that you need to keep in mind with your migration.

Why is a website SEO migration strategy important?

Website migration is not a simple process. It’s actually a significant change that can affect the online visibility of the brand and also the SEO. In simple words, website migration plays an important role in a website’s SEO and it can make devastating changes if migration doesn’t perform effectively or if it goes wrong. So you need to migrate a website without losing SEO, because neglecting the SEO aspect of your website during the eCommerce migration may cause a drop in the website’s organic traffic and rankings which directly impacts conversions and revenue. Also, it takes weeks to months to recover from this loss and error range. This long road to recovery depends on the SEO traffic loss, type of errors, ranking signals impacted, planning to recover, and action to a recovery plan.

We all know that you can find many ways and get dozens of the best solutions online including SEO tips and advice. But without a proper plan, there is a doubt that you don’t have an SEO Traffic Loss Due to Magento Migration. Also without an effective SEO strategic plan, you won’t be able to make your store user-friendly and it even makes your website more vulnerable.

So here we are with the list of tips that can help you in SEO because at last, the aim of SEO migration is to prevent the loss of your website’s traffic, rankings and conversions. Take your time to have a look through this eCommerce migration SEO checklist before migrating your Magento store.

Now let’s quickly jump on to the tips about “How do you migrate a website without losing traffic and SEO?”

Important tips for avoid losing the SEO traffic during and after Magento Migration

1. Choose the Right Time for Migrate to Magento 2

Magento 2 Migration is not a one-day process. Rather it’s a whole new store creation process based on an old database. So you need to define the perfect time for Migrate to Magento 2.

The right time to migrate to Magento 2 is when the number of orders and the website traffic are the lowest. Store Owners need to take care that migration should not perform during the peak sales time or when the visitor’s view is on the peak. So make sure that you should not perform the Magento migration process during the sales season. And the peak season to sell the products depends on the type of business.

Most online shops have their peak sales season in the holiday season like New Year Eve, Christmas, and others like end-of-season sales, clearance sales, etc. Customers often purchase a lot of goods during these points in time. Thus the high web traffic during this sales season could result in low performance, lagging, and site downtime. And more seriously, the customers could not complete the order or view the page.

So choose the correct time to migrate your store and also try to avoid loss of SEO traffic when migrating to Magento 2.

2. Make The SEO Friendly URLs

There is no doubt the Magento migration is a perfect time for store owners to optimize their URLs. Additionally, to increase the rankings and the SEO value store owners can pass some keywords to the URL. With a keyword-rich URL, it will be easy for customers to also understand the website content.

To avoid SEO Traffic Loss While Migrating to Magento 2, you need to make sure that the URLs of the site are SEO friendly. It doesn’t matter how many pages you have for your old site. You need to maintain a record of each and every URL so that you can easily reference and redirect them during the Magento 2 Migration. During this record, also identify and make the list of broken links and exiting redirects.

To create an SEO-friendly URL, store owners need to follow the two key steps:

1. 301 Redirects

Store Owner needs to ensure that the 301 redirects have been mapped correctly.
If you are changing the URL structure then it is required to implement the 301 redirects. For your information, there will be no change in the structure if you are migrating your website from Magento 1 to Magento 2. But if the migration process is done from any other relevant platform then of course you need to perform correct redirect pages.
If the redirects are implemented incorrectly, it will directly affect the website traffic loss. Even though SEO is not something you bother with, it can cause 404 errors whenever a customer clicks on the old URL.
So always try to make an SEO-friendly URL while migrating to Magento 2. And if in case you are migrating from any other platform, then kindly optimize the site URL. Also, research the keywords and find out the best-fit keywords for your new site. Because a keyword-rich URL will help the search engines to understand the page content.

2. Manage Inbound & Outbound Links

Managing inbound and outbound links is too important so make sure that you keep the list of URLs of all pages on your store as they were during the pre-migration stage. This will simply help you to keep their benefits intact even post-migration process also.
And for the changed URLs, you need to apply appropriate redirects like 301, 302, 401, etc to make sure that all the inbound links are directed towards the right URLs.
Doing all this process will avoid any effect on your link-building activities & SEO rankings.

3. Transfer Only Important Extensions

We all know that unnecessary things always affect the site’s performance. So make sure that you only transfer the important extensions while migrating the online store.
Migrating unnecessary and not-required extensions may cause unnecessary effects on the website. So do not forget to assess only the must-have extensions and their impact on the sales revenue.
Additionally, the new Magento 2 version offers a lot of extensions and add ons which are feature-rich. So do not worry about the migration, you can choose some of the new extensions and add them with the same features and functionalities.

In addition to the above tips, you also need to take care of the below points

Make a list of all the changes to the site structure due to Magento Migration
Data Migration should be performed properly and beautifully
Thorough site testing after the complete migration process.
Monitor after launching your website

Read the article for more SEO checklist details: The Complete SEO checklist For 2021

Conclusion

Keep this SEO checklist in hand whenever you plan to update or migrate your online eCommerce store. There are chances that you can lose online visibility of your brand and store in search engines if you ignore these tips. So just remember that your main aim of Magento migration should be that your online store should be more SEO friendly than before.

If you need any help in Magento migration for your Magento store 1 to the updated version, MageAnts can help you here. Hire Certified Magento 2 Developers Hire Certified Magento 2 Developers from MageAnts and migrate your store without ZERO data loss. MageAnts not only provide the Magento 2 Migration Service, but we are also here to help you out with any Magento-related queries like Theme Development, Magento Extensions, and Customizations, etc.

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About Author

Vishal Lakhani

Magento Certified Developer Vishal is not just a dedicated developer but also a passionate blogger. He believes that content with 10 meaningful and helpful words is quality-rich content than randomly filling 1000 words. Apart from blogging and playing with Magento, he loves to read, travel and learn something new every day.