Your client has decided they want a new website, something that’s going to bring them in line with their competitors and give them a fresh new look. They’re all excited but you as their SEO start to panic, you’ve spent months or even years getting their existing site to rank, making changes and updates and you’re suddenly faced with the prospect of losing all that work if the migration isn’t planned down to the last detail.
Do Check : The First Steps on the Road to Web Success
Talk To The Client
The first thing you need to do is sit down with your client and explain to the in very simple English the potential this project has to go very wrong. After all they’ve been paying you a lot of money to get the results you’ve been getting and no one wants all that to go down the drain. Make sure the developer runs as much as possible through with you and the SEO is sighed off throughout the project.
Map Your 301’s
If the URLs are going to change you need a complete list of all your existing URL’s (Xenu is often the best place to find this). Start with your primary URL’s you’re actively optimising and then move on to all the top level URL’s and sub categories, check with Analytics to make sure you haven’t missed any big money pages you weren’t aware of and make sure you’ve handpicked the page they’re going to 301 through to (and make sure the developer understands the difference between a 301 and a 302).
Find Your Nagging List
This could be a great opportunity to get all those niggly little jobs done and all those lose ends cleared up. Every client has a few onsite bits and pieces that never get auctioned and you might even have a few things you’d like to see implemented that you knew they’d never go for. Now would be a great time to build the site from scratch with some SEO in mind.
Grab Your Metrics
Take a snap shot of as many metrics as possible of your main optimised pages, note the current keyword density, inbound link count, outbound link count, moz rank & trust – absolutely everything you might want just in case the new site switches on and you start falling. You need a copy of all your links pointing to your site too with the anchor text.
Do Check : How to Obtain Backlinks in a Natural Way
Protect Your Golden Links
If you’ve got some particularly lucrative links you might want to try contacting them personally and asking if they wouldn’t mind changing the link to the new URL. Even if you can’t get through or they don’t agree to this you at least need to know where you most valuable links are coming from and make sure they still 301 through to the new site once it’s live.
Update Your 404
This one is more for your users than your SEO but it’s always worth adding a simple line to the 404 page letting anyone who finds a broken link know it’s a new site and you’re still working out any little kinks.
Once the new site is live you need to go through it with a fine tooth comb, run any and every tool you can get your little SEO hands on, run through the new site until you know every heart off by word. If there are any mistakes it’s the clients job to spot them but it’s your responsibility if those mistakes result in a loss in positions.
Do Check : SEO Your Site : Top 5 SEO Tips for Start-ups
Jesscia work’s for Regus virtual offices who offer everything from renting office space to virtual addresses to keep your business running smoothly.
More From Rahul Tilloo
- 3 Key Ways To Improve Your Site’s Revenue
- How to Obtain Backlinks in a Natural Way
- How to Create and Index Web Site Backlinks
Rahul Tilloo Recommends
- How to produce & market a video in 2 hours (Chad Nicely)
- SEO Link Building, you just got to have the right tools! (Chad Nicely)
Random Posts :
Related posts:
Hello I am Rahul and I am co-owner of 
