Nothing kills a brand’s momentum like a web migration gone wrong. It’s not uncommon for traffic and rankings to plummet following a website redesign or migration.
In avoiding this, it’s best to migrate the site piece by piece and take time to test everything along the way. It will help keep everyone involved happy and your search engine rankings intact.
Make a Backup
When you are ready to migrate your site, the first thing that should be done is to back up the data. It will help ensure no information is lost during the migration process. You can use the cPanel Backup Manager to create a full website backup. It will include files, directories and databases. In addition to this, there will also be a backup file for each of your subdomains. These are useful if you have multiple website versions or the new site uses a different WordPress version.
Once the backup is complete, you can proceed with the migration. This time will depend on how much data is being migrated and how large the website is. You can check the progress of the migration by visiting the web console. It is where you can see the migration status, including any errors.
Remembering that the website may go down during the migration process is essential. There are many reasons, including cyber-attacks, hardware and software problems, and slow servers. It is best to be prepared for this and ensure the entire team knows what to expect.
It is also important to warn your users and clients about a possible drop in traffic and search engine rankings. It is a normal part of the migration process, and it can take 6-8 weeks for everything to return to normal. Setting realistic expectations for your customers and providing them with a timeline of when the site will be back up is a good idea.
Create a Staging Site
A staging site is a clone or duplicate of your website that allows you to make changes without impacting your live site. Whether changing the content, testing a new theme or plugin, or redesigning your entire site, testing everything before committing to the changes is essential. Staging sites are the perfect solution because they allow you to change as much or as little of your web migration as you want and then “push” those changes to the live site when you are ready.
There are several ways to set up a staging site, but the most common method involves using a WordPress plugin to clone the site from the cPanel or dashboard. This plugin will automatically create a separate database and folder for your new staging site, so you won’t have to worry about making them yourself. It will also ensure the staging site is password protected, which is essential for SEO purposes.
This plugin is straightforward: click the “Create Staging Site” button and select your site. From there, you can enter a name for the new staging site and choose if you would like to password-protect it. Next, you can select which files and databases to clone (by default, all the databases with the same prefix are fixed, but you can clone just the database tables or only specific files). The plugin will then begin copying your staging site to the production server. Once the process is complete, you will be shown a success message and a link to your new staging site.
If you are dissatisfied with your results or prefer another method to deploy the changes from your staging site to your live web migration, you can do so by following the steps below. Before doing so, it is always a good idea to back up your live site in case something goes wrong.
Create 301 Redirects
Three hundred-one redirects ensure that users and search engines are correctly guided through content changes. Whether moving to a new domain or simply updating old content, it’s essential to ensure that all the relevant inbound links are correctly redirected to the new pages. It gives users the correct information and prevents lost SEO rankings from broken links.
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