Introduction to SEO Migration Issues
After migrating to a new platform, many ecommerce businesses face a common frustration: a significant drop in organic traffic. Despite following best practices, a 30% decrease in organic traffic can be alarming. To address this issue, it’s essential to understand the possible causes and implement effective recovery strategies.
Why Organic Traffic Drops After Migration
Understanding the reasons behind the drop in organic traffic is crucial to finding a solution. There are several possible causes, including tracking issues, technical problems, and changes to on-page content.
Tracking Issues
A minor mistake in the analytics setup can lead to incorrect traffic data. This might include a misconfigured Google Analytics 4 tag or an unverified Google Search Console property. These issues are usually easy to spot and fix, making them a good starting point for troubleshooting.
Technical Issues
Technical SEO problems can also cause a drop in organic traffic. Redirects are a common issue during migration, especially if URLs have changed. Missing or incorrect 301 redirects can break the connection between old and new pages, leading to a loss of rankings and traffic. Other technical pitfalls include broken internal links, staging URLs in canonical tags, and no-index rules carried over from development.
On-Page Content
Changes to page content can also impact rankings. Small changes, such as missing H1s, altered metadata, or content rendered in JavaScript, can have a significant impact. It’s essential to review the content on your pages to identify any changes that might be affecting your rankings.
Recovery Strategies for Lost Organic Traffic
To recover lost organic traffic, it’s essential to prioritize the right strategies. This includes crawling your site, fixing redirect problems, tackling on-page issues, and updating your XML sitemap and Google Search Console.
Crawl Your Site
Crawling your site helps identify technical issues, such as broken redirects and orphaned pages. Tools like Screaming Frog or Sitebulb can be used for this purpose. Crawling your site is crucial to spotting issues that might be affecting your traffic and rankings.
Fix Redirect Problems
Redirects are crucial for preserving SEO value during a migration. It’s essential to ensure that all old URLs are properly redirected to their new counterparts using 301 redirects. Missing or incorrect redirects can lead to a loss of rankings and traffic.
Tackle On-Page Issues
Reviewing your on-page content is essential to identifying any changes that might be affecting your rankings. Compare your post-migration content with the version you had before the migration, and ensure that all pages are optimized for target keywords.
Update Your XML Sitemap and Google Search Console
Updating your XML sitemap and submitting it to Google Search Console helps Google understand the changes to your site’s structure. This allows Google to index your new pages more quickly and can help improve your rankings.
How Long Does SEO Recovery Take?
Recovery from an SEO drop after migration can take time. Typically, sites begin to see improvements within four to 12 weeks, but several factors can influence the recovery timeline. The complexity of the migration, the number of pages on your site, and the content on your site can all impact the recovery time.
Long-Term Lessons and Preventative Measures
A smooth migration doesn’t start on launch day; it starts way before. SEO needs to be integrated into your QA and development process from the beginning. This includes ensuring that redirects, content structure, and crawlability are all working before you go live.
Conclusion
Recovering from an SEO drop after a migration can be frustrating, but it’s often part of the process. By focusing on the right technical checks, reviewing your on-page content, and giving search engines time to recrawl and reindex your site, you can get things back on track. Keep a close eye on your data, be patient, and use this as an opportunity to strengthen your site’s overall SEO health.