SEO: Master Your Website Migration with Montserrat Cano (episode 147)
by April Buencamino-dyMontserrat Cano is an International SEO and Digital Marketing consultant whose core skill set is Technical SEO – so an awesome guest to help you make sure your next site move doesn’t screw up any of your SEO power.
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Be Involved and Plan Well
Montserrat says the first thing you need to do is become involved in the process right from the very beginning. Website migrations may be technical in nature and are usually relegated to the IT department, but everyone in the business must get on board with the project.
Second, plan the project well. A website migration needs to be executed correctly, which requires planning because there are plenty of moving parts.
Additionally, it’s one of the riskiest activities in SEO for any business, so a site migration really must be done correctly.
Are you sure you want to migrate?
For Montserrat, website migration is so risky and tricky to execute that she advises not to do it unless necessary.
Think about why you need to do it and whether your business is going to benefit from it or not.
Get Your URLs, Tags, and Redirects Right
From an SEO perspective, it’s imperative that you get every single URL correct, and this is where good planning and good processes come into play. Do a content audit and decide what stays and what can do without. And because there are so many details, make sure to plug what you have into a tool so you can map out everything correctly.
You’ll also need someone to lead the whole migration; otherwise, it just won’t work.
More Work After Going Live
Montserrat doesn’t consider a website migration finished after its rollout because there’s still so much to be done afterward.
For her, it will take about five to six months before you get everything working correctly and back to the state it was in before migration. You have to continue testing to find out if everything is just right.
Post-live Optimisation
After you roll out your website, leave it for a few weeks before looking into what you need to optimise.
Ask your team to list anything they notice, then compile everything and begin the process of optimisation. Audit the new site and compare what you find with what your team has noted, then start your optimisation process.
Website Migration for Better SEO Performance
While website migrations are risky and tricky, there are also reasons why businesses have to change platforms.
Just remember that rankings will not be exactly the same as they were previously. SEO can improve, but it will take time.
Insider Tips
If we’ve inspired someone to take their first step with SEO – what do they need to know to give themselves the best chance of success?
Montserrat has two tips:
- Have a website you can play with and test things.
- Read, stay informed, and think strategically about your own career. Get a mentor to help you with the different aspects of SEO and find out what your strengths and weaknesses are.
Once you’ve started of course you’ve got to ‘keep optimising’! So what’s your favourite way to improve SEO performance?
Audit what you already have, find out what you need to improve on, and prioritize.
If someone listening wants to learn more about SEO is there one cheap/free resource you’d recommend?
Montserrat has three recommendations:
- Tom Critchlow’s SEO MBA Newsletter
- Aleyda Solis’ Learning SEO resource
- Adam Gent’s SEO Sprint
Crystal ball time – what’s coming up in the next 6-12 months that we should be getting ready for in SEO?
Get ready for AI because it’s going to get bigger. Master prompting, too, because making good prompts for AI tools will be a very big thing as well.
Interview Links
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