eCommerce SEO Migration Checklist: Essential Steps for a Successful Platform Switch

We all understand the importance SEO holds for an eCommerce platform (or in fact, any website). So, here’s a fact! If your online store is enjoying a good reputation on search engines, you would never want to touch it a bit.
However, there’s another fact: every website needs platform migration at least once. This is when you can drop the ball if you’re not careful.
In this post, we’ll discuss the essential SEO migration checklist you need to have a look at while performing your eCommerce migration.

SEO Migration Checklist for eCommerce Migration

When you re-platform your online store by retaining your SEO rankings, it is called SEO migration. Not only does it retain your current SEO score but can also increase your rankings.
Keep this SEO migration checklist with you while performing the migration.

Create a Website Backup

While running codes and executing technical practices such as eCommerce migration, anything can go wrong at any time. So, you must be prepared to ward it off. The best move in this case is to create backups of everything from your old website, including content, database, images, etc.
Similarly, don’t forget to back up historical metrics too. For example, Google Analytics compares the pre- and post-switch performance.

Run Audits on Current Pages

Another crucial point in your SEO migration checklist should be auditing your web pages. It’s useless to carry redundant and outdated pages and content from your old eCommerce website to a more valuably potential new one. There’s another benefit to that too. When you remove dead URLs from your website, it enhances your SEO score on search engines.

Execute Map Redirects

When you re-platform your website, it’s highly likely there will be restructured URLs from the same pages. However, this can increase the chances of broken links and 404 errors. In return, search engines can fail to realize the legitimacy of your new URL.
To prevent your shoppers from experiencing this demotivating scenario, it’s best to set up 301 redirects to your SEO migration checklist. It will help search engines learn about the new location of your pages and preserve its authority and SEO value.

Avoid On-Page Changes

There may be some crucial on-page changes you would want while performing an eCommerce migration. However, avoid doing significant ones such as titles, meta descriptions, and content. The reason is simple. Google is already fond of many of your well-built SEO pages. And it’s mainly due to the on-page content.
So, while following your SEO migration checklist, remember to minimize such changes. It will prevent negatively impacting your SEO rankings.

Manage Duplicate Content

Here’s the truth: eCommerce migration is the best way to eliminate duplicate content. The reason why search engines don’t value duplicate content is they don’t understand which URL to trust for the searched keyword.
Although your site can have duplicates due to HTTP and HTTPS, subdomains versus TLD, or any other reason; removing as many as possible is a good move for better ranking.
So, while following your SEO migration checklist, it’s best to use canonical URLs to convey to search engines which content version you prefer to present.

Focus on Speed and Mobile Responsiveness

A mobile-friendly website is most likely to be on top because Google prefers fast-performing, responsive websites, especially an eCommerce platform. You can do a few practices in this regard:
1. Enabling Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) by Asynchronous JavaScript and optimized resource handling, etc.
2. Organizing tag tracking to condense marketing tags (snippets of code) for fast loading on mobile devices.
3. Restricting mobile pop-ups that unnecessarily slow down the speed and disrupt user experience.
If you want to learn how to perform eCommerce migration successfully, here’s A Comprehensive Guide on eCommerce Migration.

Submit Your Sitemap

The final point on your SEO migration checklist must be submitting your new site map. You can use Google Search Console to perform this. It helps Google index your new platform speedily.
Another benefit is that if there are any SEO errors left, search engine crawlers will let you know during this process.
SEO monitoring is not just a one-time task. You need to stay abreast of the latest algorithm updates. Keep up with the changes, even if your eCommerce migration is successful.