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In this insightful session, we explore why SEO should be a core part of any website migration project from the very beginning.
From planning and redirects to stakeholder buy-in and post-launch recovery, the video covers:
Key takeaway: Getting SEO involved early isn’t just good practice. It’s critical. Early collaboration leads to better performance, fewer issues, and a smoother migration process that drives long-term growth.
Video Transcript
Hi everyone, every website will have to undergo migration at some point, and how it’s managed can make or break its success. Today I want to talk about why SEO should be involved from day one in website migrations.
Having worked on many migrations, I’ve seen firsthand what can go wrong when SEO is treated as an afterthought, and trust me, the consequences can be costly. I’m Kelly-Anne, and I work at a digital marketing agency called Koozai that’s been around for over 19 years.
Koozai is a multi-award-winning digital marketing agency and has been offering a full host of digital marketing services that are trusted and recommended by hundreds of businesses, both big and small. I am the Head of Operations at Koozai, have over 16 years of marketing and SEO experience, and I’m also a mentor for Women in Tech SEO.
In this session, I will explain what a website migration is, why SEO matters in migrations, why SEO needs to be involved early. The benefits of involving SEO from the start, problems caused by involving SEO too late, practical steps for SEOs and web teams to collaborate effectively, and tips for changing stakeholder perception. By the end, you’ll have a clear idea of how to approach migrations the right way and avoid the usual headaches.
So when we talk about a website migration, we’re really referring to any major change to your website that affects its structure or URL setup. There are a few different types of migrations. Domain changes, this is when you’re moving your website from one domain to another. It’s a pretty big move and it requires careful planning to make sure your SEO doesn’t take a hit. Then there’s HTTP to HTTPS, this is about switching to a secure protocol for your site. Not only does it make your site safer, but it also helps with SEO since Google gives priority to secure sites.
Then we have platform redesigns, this is when you switch your CMS or totally change the structure and layout of your website. It’s a big deal because it can affect both user experience and SEO, so it’s important to plan everything out carefully. Finally, there’s content overhauls, this is when you’re making significant changes to your site’s content or navigation structure.
Basically all of these migrations need a lot of thought and attention to ensure things go smoothly and your site’s SEO doesn’t suffer.
A successful migration involves careful attention to technical details such as domain names, redirects, meta tags, and content. Without SEO input from the start, sites are facing issues like broken links, ranking drops, and traffic loss.
In my 16 years in marketing, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when SEO is treated as an afterthought. One client came to us after launching their revamped website without any SEO support, and when I reviewed the new setup it was a mess, hundreds of broken internal links, no redirects for high-traffic pages, a poorly structured URL hierarchy, and the impact? Their organic traffic dropped by 40% in just two weeks.
Now, I managed to recover rankings over the next few months, but during that time the business suffered huge losses in both visibility and revenue. And here’s the frustrating part, it was completely preventable. If SEO had been involved from the start, they wouldn’t have had to scramble to fix costly mistakes after launch. That experience reinforced what I already knew, early SEO involvement doesn’t just smooth the process, it saves businesses from unnecessary loss in traffic, revenue, and rankings.
So why does SEO matter when it comes to migrations? There’s a couple of key reasons. First, avoiding ranking drops is a huge one. A website migration without proper SEO planning can result in losing rankings, which means you can see a drop in traffic and visibility. This can happen if redirects aren’t set up correctly or if search engines have trouble crawling a new site structure. Then there’s avoiding technical issues, migrations can introduce all kinds of technical challenges like broken links, slow page load times, or even missing metadata.
If SEO isn’t involved early, these issues can go unnoticed until it’s too late, impacting both user experience and rankings. So involving SEO early helps make sure the migration goes smoothly and avoids these major traffic losses. There’s a lot to cover when it comes to why SEO needs to be involved early, so I’ll go through it over the next couple of slides.
If SEO isn’t involved early in a migration, things can go wrong fast. Rankings drop, traffic tanks, and fixing it later is way harder than getting it right from the start. When SEO is part of the process from day one, we can avoid all these little headaches.
First, let’s talk about site structure planning. Getting us involved from the start helps ensure the site is structured in a way that’s search-friendly. This avoids issues like content duplication and keyword cannibalisation. Using tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console can flag potential issues and help shape the site’s design based on data rather than guesswork. I wanted a client who migrated the e-commerce site without any SEO input. They missed key opportunities to optimise product pages, which ended up hurting their rankings.
Next, let’s talk about preserving link equity. Redirects are a big deal in any migration, and SEO ensures they’re handled correctly. Without them, you risk losing valuable traffic and rankings. Google advises keeping 301 redirects in place for at least 180 days, so getting this right from the start is crucial.
Next up, benchmark your rankings. Before making any major changes, it’s important to back up your data and record your baseline rankings. This way you can track the impact of the migration and spot any issues early. One often-overlooked aspect of migration is documenting the internal linking structure. Internal link equity can easily be lost during the migration, which can negatively affect rankings. For one client, I performed a thorough audit of their internal linking and replicated the structure on the new site. This straightforward but vital step helped preserve their organic traffic and avoid ranking drops. Internal linking is a key factor in maintaining traffic and rankings throughout the migration process.
So we’ve covered how early SEO involvement helps with site structure, redirects, and benchmarking rankings, but that’s not the whole picture. There’s also some critical technical aspects we need to get right before launch. Let’s take a look at those.
Technical optimisation; early SEO input ensures that critical technical elements like meta tags, canonical tags, and proper handling of 404 pages are in place before the site goes live.
This prevents broken links and ranking drops that happen when these elements are overlooked. Make sure your 404 pages are not only user-friendly but also guide users to the most relevant content, helping them stay engaged.
This is another area where early SEO input ensures that 404 pages are optimised for both user experience and crawling. Customising 404 pages with links to popular categories or a search bar can reduce bounce rates. Another key reason to involve SEO early is risk mitigation. Early SEO involvement helps spot potential risks before they turn into problems. Addressing technical issues like misconfigured redirects or slow-loading pages before the site goes live saves time and money post-launch.
Finally, SEO helps guide recovery after migration. Fluctuations in rankings are normal, but SEO should monitor and guide the recovery process. A calm, data-driven approach ensures that issues are dealt with methodically, allowing for a smooth recovery and traffic rebound.
Avoid making knee-jerk reactions to minor ranking drops. Instead, address issues as they arise with a long-term focus. It’s crucial not to make quick changes to title tags or other optimisations based on early ranking fluctuations. Instead, take a calm and measured approach, address issues as they arise while closely monitoring progress over time.
When it comes to a website migration, getting SEO involved from the very beginning can make a huge difference in the success of the project. There are three key benefits to bringing SEO in early.
First, optimised URL structures and preserving link equity, the URL structure is often overlooked, but it plays a big role in SEO. By involving SEO from the start, you can ensure URLs are search-engine-friendly, avoiding broken links and complicated redirects. This is key for preserving link equity, which helps maintain your rankings and visibility during the migration.
Second, improved navigation and user flow, SEO isn’t just about search engines, it’s about the user experience. By aligning SEO with user behaviour and business goals, you can improve navigation, ensuring that users can easily find high-conversion pages. This makes sure the site not only works well for search engines but also provides an intuitive experience for visitors, leading to higher engagements and long-term growth.
Finally, proper technical setup and avoiding future SEO mistakes, getting SEO involved early means avoiding common migration issues like duplicate content and 404 errors. This proactive approach helps ensure your site is technically sound from day one and avoids SEO mistakes down the line.
When SEO is brought in too late in the migration process, it can create several problems that are time-consuming and costly to fix. Let’s take a look at these four key issues.
First, missed optimisation opportunities, SEO has a huge impact on things like site structure, content, and user experience. If SEO isn’t involved early, opportunities to optimise things like URLs, meta titles, descriptions, and internal links are missed.
Next, ranking drops and slow recovery, without early SEO input, technical issues like broken redirects, slow-loading pages, and improper content indexing can cause rankings to drop. Migrations can take months to fully settle, with ranking fluctuations happening during this time. It can be devastating for a business that hoped the migration would boost performance. Addressing these issues post-launch is both costly and time-consuming, and recovery can take months.
Then there’s content duplication and cannibalisation — without SEO involvement early on, problems like content duplication and keyword cannibalisation can happen, especially when multiple pages target the same keyword. It can also lead to issues with site navigation or missing H1 tags, affecting how search engines crawl and index the site. Fixing these mistakes after launch uses up valuable time and resources that could have been avoided with SEO involvement early.
Finally, strained relationships and frustration, migration often involves multiple teams, including marketing, development, and design. When SEO is added late, it causes friction. Changes might be made that contradict earlier decisions, which can frustrate developers and marketers. This kind of tension can damage trust and make future collaboration more difficult. Involving SEO from the start is essential to avoid these issues and ensure the migration process goes as smoothly as possible.
Practical steps for SEOs and web teams to collaborate effectively.
Before the migration begins, the focus should be on preparation and communication. Start by setting clear goals, whether that’s maintaining traffic, keeping rankings steady, or improving the user experience. Everyone needs to be on the same page. Communication is key. Regular updates help avoid issues later.
This is also the time for SEOs to do a full audit, you need to know what’s working on the site and where the potential risks are. At the same time, work with the web team to make sure the CMS can handle things like redirects and metadata.
Finally, redirects are crucial, map them out together and test thoroughly to avoid losing traffic once the migration happens.
During the migration, it’s all about testing and staying flexible. Make sure you’re working in a staging environment first so any issues like broken redirects or metadata errors are caught before launch. Close collaboration is essential here, no matter how much you plan, something unexpected can always pop up. Working together in real time ensures you can handle issues quickly and minimise disruption.
Once the migration is complete, it’s time to monitor and adjust. Look at things like redirects, rankings, and traffic, make sure everything is working as expected. Any problems should be addressed promptly.
It’s also important to take a moment to acknowledge the team’s success, whether you’ve preserved rankings, improved site speed, or enhanced user experience, celebrate the wins.
Finally, document everything. What’s worked, what didn’t, and what could be done differently next time. This ensures each migration becomes smoother than the last.
Over the years, I’ve learned that working closely with developers is one of the most important parts of SEO, especially when it comes to website migrations, because here’s the thing: SEOs bring data, developers bring technical expertise, and when we actually collaborate, what could feel like a huge challenge turns into an opportunity for real growth.
It’s not just about getting a site live, it’s about making sure it thrives. A big part of that comes down to communication.
I found that when we take the time to explain why something matters, things like structured data, redirects, or site architecture, developers are more likely to see the bigger picture and actually get invested in making it work, and that changes everything. Suddenly, it’s not just an SEO task to check off, it’s a shared goal.
From my experience, collaboration is so much smoother when the foundation is trust. And trust doesn’t just happen, it’s built. That’s why I always make the effort to be proactive. I get involved early, I join planning meetings, I make sure SEO is baked into the process from day one. I listen first instead of just jumping in with recommendations. I take time to understand the team’s goals and challenges, so my suggestions actually feel relevant and useful.
I bridge the gaps. SEO sits between marketing, development, and project management, so I act as that go-between, making sure that we’re all aligned and moving in the same direction. Because here’s the thing, prioritising relationships over processes transforms team dynamics and success. When teams trust each other, work together, and actually understand the why behind what they’re doing, everything runs smoother, less friction, fewer misunderstandings, and ultimately better results for everyone. And when SEOs and developers work as a team, the whole site benefits.
As SEOs, we’ve all been there, trying to explain again why SEO isn’t something you do after launch. It can feel like an uphill battle, but here’s the reality: changing minds takes more than technical knowledge. It takes empathy, education, and a deep understanding of what really matters to stakeholders, especially when it comes to revenue.
Too many clients, project managers, and developers still see SEO as a post-launch task, something to bolt on later. They don’t realise the risks, the missed opportunities; but we do.
So how do we shift their perception?
How do we get buy-in before launch instead of fighting for fixes afterwards?
Here’s a few tips that have worked for me when it comes to changing minds and getting buy-in for early SEO involvement.
Number one; speak their language. The key is to align SEO with what matters most to them. For example, when I’m talking to project managers, I highlight how early SEO can save time and money by preventing delays and rework. For clients, I always bring it back to revenue, how SEO can maintain traffic and sales post-migration. The idea is to show them how SEO supports their goals, not just mine.
Number two; share stories. Stories can be way more effective than stats alone. I like to share real examples, like a migration where missing redirects caused users to hit 404 pages, tanking traffic and costing thousands in revenue. On the flip side, I talk about wins, like when we handled redirects properly and rankings and traffic recovered almost immediately. These examples make SEO feel real and relatable, not just theoretical.
Number three; risk versus reward. I frame SEO in terms of what they stand to lose and gain. For instance, I’ll say without SEO traffic dropped by 40% and the business lost £35,000 in revenue, but with SEO, we not only avoided a drop, we increased revenue by £10,000 thanks to proper planning. Tying it to financial outcomes gets their attention every time.
Number four; be patient and persistent. Changing minds doesn’t happen overnight. If someone doesn’t get it right away, I don’t push. Instead, I stay calm and keep focusing on solutions. If something goes wrong because SEO wasn’t involved early, I don’t say “I told you so,” I just step in and fix it, and then I show them what could have been avoided. Over time, that patience builds trust.
Number five; the human touch. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships. When you meet people where they are, speak their language, and tie SEO to their success, it stops being a technical checkbox and starts being a shared goal. I’ve seen plenty of sceptics turn into advocates just by using these simple approaches.
Ultimately, SEO isn’t just about rankings, it’s about results. And when stakeholders see how it connects to their goals, especially revenue, they’re a lot more likely to get on board.
So to wrap things up, here are the key takeaways.
First, SEO is not optional, it’s essential at every stage of a migration. When SEO is involved early, businesses don’t just avoid headaches, they actually unlock opportunities for smoother, more successful projects.
Second, the earlier you start, the better. SEO isn’t something you tack on right before launch, it’s about being part of the conversation from day one, during planning and scoping.
Third, effective communication is key. If you face pushback from developers or stakeholders, take the time to understand their concerns, then respond with clear facts and examples to guide things in the right direction.
Finally, forward planning and early involvement reduces risks and sets the entire project up for success. It’s not just about avoiding problems, it’s about driving real results for the business.
By involving SEO from the beginning, businesses not only avoid challenges but also unlock opportunities for a smoother, more successful migration. Starting right ensures teams can focus on growth and innovation rather than damage control. The takeaway is clear, when SEO is prioritised from the start, everyone wins.