Why working with a SEO specialist is crucial for website migrations

Website migration—whether it’s a redesign, domain change, or platform switch (e.g. WordPress to Webflow)—is a high-stakes process that can greatly impact your site's search engine visibility, organic traffic, and ultimately, your business’s bottom line.

If you're looking to undergo website migration, working with a SEO Specialist prior to the migration process is not only essential, but crucial for your ongoing SEO efforts. Neglecting to work with an SEO specialist during website migration is one of the most risky things you can do.

In this post, I write about the importance of working with an SEO specialist during a website migration.

What’s at risk during a Website Migration?

A website redesign is exciting, but can come with many risks. If a website migration is done poorly, it can lead to negative SEO impacts like:

• Loss of search engine rankings and drops in organic traffic
• Broken links and crawl errors
• Loss of authority and backlinks
• Poor user experience due to missing content
• Revenue drops due to lost visibility

Any of the above are quite problematic, especially if your website is well-established and has a strong SEO foundation.

Why SEO Specialists are needed during a migration

With that being said, why are SEO specialists needed during a website migration? It's because the truth is, web designers & developers have different priorities than SEO specialists.

During a website redesign, designers and developers are solely focused on redesigning a website so that it looks great visually and functions well. However, during this time, SEO is typically the last thing that's on their mind.

While designers often focus on aesthetics and the user journey, they may unintentionally miss key SEO elements that are vital for search engine visibility. Without close collaboration between designers, developers, and SEO specialists during a migration, crucial aspects like 301 redirects and internal linking can be easily overlooked.

Prior to becoming an SEO specialist, as a web designer, I too focused more on the visual aspects of a website without considering all of the SEO impacts a redesign would have. Now that I'm an SEO specialist, I understand the value of redesigning and building websites that will lead to better results post-migration, instead of solely focusing on design.

Due to this, I always design websites with SEO impact in mind, ensuring that the websites I build for clients on Webflow have minimal negative SEO impact during migrations.

Tips For Collaboration with an SEO Specialist during migrations

After being involved in many migration processes over the years (as a SEO specialist, and at other times as a web designer on a project), here are my website migration tips:

Involve SEO Specialists early and often in the process

they can help you prioritize important pages for your website redesign, help you with writing copy, meta descriptions, providing suggestions for URLs, and more. Providing these details to web designers early can also lead to reduced friction and a more collaborative environment.

Set a date for migration (and stick to it!)

Don't move your migration dates around! Stick to a timeline and keep it, to make sure everyone is always on the same page about the migration.

Get everyone on board for migration success
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‍SEOs often encounter pushback from designers and developers, largely due to differing priorities and a lack of shared understanding. For this, it's essential for the lead on the project to make sure everyone's on the same page, working toward the same goal: a successful website migration.

With these small tips, my hope is that all web designers, developers & SEO specialists can work collaboratively together to ensure their clients' site launch is the best it can be.

Why SEO Should Be Part of Your Migration Strategy

Involving an SEO specialist from the very beginning is essential for a smooth site migration and to protect the SEO value you’ve worked hard to build over time.

When SEO Specialists work collaboratively with web designers and web development teams, you can ensure that the newly designed website not only looks great, but mitigates any SEO damage post launch as a result of migration.

If you need a web designer who also understands the SEO impact of a website migration, get in touch about your project! I'm a web designer & SEO specialist who creates websites built to perform for long term SEO success.