April 29, 2024
For a lot of e-commerce brands SEO and Google Shopping are two of the core channels that really drive profitable revenue. Thus meaning you should be looking to maintain not only your rankings but your Google ads and shopping performance. The migration process can be daunting, but it doesn’t have to be complex.
With the help of our friends at Amore Digital we’ve created a guide that highlights the process we undertake when it comes to ensuring your SEO performance and e-commerce PPC campaigns are still flying post-platform migration.
When it comes to doing an e-commerce migration the last thing you want to do is rush it. If your current website is driving considerable traffic via SEO and you have shopping & PMax campaigns firing then it would be wise to strategise the planning process.
Your migration plan should begin with a comprehensive Migration Strategy Development Plan. You’ll need to understand the scope of your project and its implications. Start by defining:
When tackling SEO Considerations Pre-Migration, your focus should be on retaining your website’s current search engine rankings, and protect key pages. Detailed planning in this stage will prevent loss of traffic.
Conduct a thorough SEO audit to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current site. Tools like Ahrefs are extremely useful as they will highlight your most powerful backlinks, meaning you’ll want to ensure they still stay relevant for the new site.
Looking at keyword-level stats is useful, but a lot of the value will come from page level analysis. The best tool for this is Google Search Console. GSC will show you your top pages, the impressions, clicks and average positions for all the queries you rank for. This ensures you can secure keyword rankings by mapping the relevant pages to the new page URLs, retaining their SEO value.
Plan to maintain or improve your current URL structure where possible. For example petstore.com/dog/food/organic is better than petstore.com/dog4362894 or another url which doesn’t describe the category properly. It would also be advised to use 301 redirects for any changing URLs to preserve link equity and tell Google it’s a permanent move.
Categories generally carry more SEO value for e-commerce stores versus individual products, so in most cases it’s best to focus there. It’s also a great time to assess whether there is a good opportunity for new categories and increase visibility for the site.
Anticipate technical SEO needs such as updating the robots.txt file and creating an XML sitemap for the new site.
The core element of the Google Shopping migration is no doubt the Google shopping feed. This is where all the attributes for your products and category structure lie. In most cases, your campaigns will have a lot of data tied to these individual product groups.
Each ecommerce platform has different ways to connect your feed to merchant centre. Most utilise plugins, especially across Shopify and Magento. This means before you undertake the migration you have an idea of what the best plugin is to fit your needs.
Product categories are important when it comes to the shopping feed. You want to ensure that if you have already split out your product categories you maintain this. For example if you sell dresses then you’ll want to ensure that you have all the different types such as maxi dresses, evening dresses, spring dresses and day dresses so you can assess the performance on the new site.
Google uses your product titles to assess which keywords to show your Google Shopping Ads for. This means if you’re getting good performance from your shopping campaigns then it’s likely you’re showing for some high-performing keywords. Either ensure you keep your product titles similar or use this time to improve them and be more descriptive.
Before migrating take stock of how you’re collecting conversion data, if you’re using the Google tag, complex tracking on tag manager or event tracking on GA4, factor this in before you migrate and have a plan.
When you're ready to migrate your e-commerce site over to a new platform your execution is critical. Both the technical SEO aspects and the transfer of data and content require careful management to maintain search engine rankings and offer a seamless transition for customers.
Handle URLs with care - Ensure you implement 301 redirects appropriately to maintain link equity. Audit your current site's URL structure and map it to the new site, making certain that any changes in URL structure don't lose the valuable search history and organic traffic you've built up. This is especially true for pages that have a lot of strong backlinks.
Update internal linking - A new platform can mean changes in your website's navigation. Reassess and update your internal links to guarantee they are pointing to the correct pages on the new site. Category pages and older blog content are key places you should look. Broken links are non-starters for SEO and user experience, so use a crawler tool to identify and fix these issues promptly. We recommend a tool such as ScreamingFrog or Ahrefs broken link checker.
Migrate critical metadata - Meta titles and descriptions play a key role in SEO. Meta titles in particular tell Google exactly what your page is about. Transfer all meta titles and structured data (Schema) to ensure search engines understand the content of each page.
Preserve content quality - The quality of your content should remain consistent before and after migration. Ensure all product descriptions, category, and informational content are transferred without loss of formatting or detail.
Check Diagnostics - Once you implement the redirect check the merchant centre diagnostics and ensure that you have a high product approval rate. You want this above 90%.
Check Product Data - Go and check all of the product titles, descriptions and images. Ensure everything looks okay.
Google ads link - In most cases with a new feed you may need to double check that Google ads is picking up the new feed okay. If you have a current structure for your campaigns, check that the correct products are pulling through otherwise it could mess with your data.
After successfully migrating to a new e-commerce platform, your focus should shift to post-migration optimisation. This is critical to ensure your store continues to rank well in search results and your Google Shopping listings stay accurate and effective.
Post-migration, it's imperative that you closely monitor your SEO performance. Key metrics to track include your website's visibility in search engines, organic traffic, keyword rankings and revenue. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are indispensable in this aspect. Look for any significant changes in bounce rates, click-through rates (CTR), and the average position of your web pages in search results.
Maintaining an e-commerce platform is not a set-and-forget task. It requires continuous improvement and updates. You should also stay updated with the latest SEO trends and algorithm changes by Google, which can affect your site's ranking. With the latest being the HCU update rolled out in September 23’.
If you’re looking for expert PPC & SEO management for your e-commerce store speak to Ted at Amoredigital.co.uk who will be happy to assist and provide advice.
Likewise, if you need general advice or you’re looking for new ways to grow your online business, book a free workshop with our team today!
