SEO Best Practices For Migration to Shopify Platform

Shopify is one of the biggest eCommerce platforms, allowing eCommerce businesses to set-up an online store in a breeze and sell their products. No matter whether you are selling on social media, in-store, online, or from the trunk of your car, Shopify is the best solution to meet your needs.

Moreover, the platform has great bandwidth, additional features, and round-the-clock support. It provides everything you need to boost website traffic and sales.

Talking about migrating to Shopify platform, it is quite risky as there is a possibility of losing your search engine rankings. However, you can follow the best SEO practices for migrating to Shopify and make the transition smooth. Herein, you will explore SEO best practices from our SEO expert and professional.

Reasons to Migrate to Shopify Platform

Shopify is an e-commerce platform built for maximum scalability and functionality. With more than 1M businesses trusting this platform to sell their products online, Shopify is a great eCommerce platform to rely on. Although, it's not immune to the risks regarding website migration.

The existing website must have a good SEO, like having good rankings on Google and attracting backlinks. So, it's best to take extra precautions during migration; otherwise, everything can get wiped out.

It's preventable by considering SEO before you start the migration process. Here, we have shared what you need to know before, during, and after your Shopify SEO migration.

Preparing Your Website For SEO Site Migration

Consult Shopify SEO experts before you begin migrating your website. You will need good expertise to maintain your SEO throughout the process. Here are the essential steps you should take to prepare for the website migration:

• Confirm that Shopify is the right platform for your requirements
• Find a proficient website developer
• Consult e-commerce SEO specialist

Once this is done, it's time to prepare for SEO site migration.

Essential Steps To Take Before Your Shopify Migration

Ensure that all your data, content, links, and other website elements are accounted for before you begin the process of migration. Please take note of all the details, even the smallest one of the old site, and record them before switching to a new platform.

Here are all the elements that you should take into account:

• Google Analytics code: Make a record of what type of implementation is getting used and what the correct code is.
• Backlinks: Record all backlinks to the site. You can find it on tools like Ahrefs.
• Analytics data: Save your analytics data worth an entire year. It should include URLs generating traffic. You will get a record of URLs and comparison data in case analytics to encounter a problem during migration.
• Google Search Console Data: It should have years full of data. You will get ranking and crawl data for comparing and matching up before and after moving your website.
• Keyword rankings: Determine all past and existing ranking keywords through tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs.
• URLs: Record all URLs on the old website and confirm which will get moved over to the new one. Check your analytics/backlinks data to ensure all URLs are accounted for, especially those that generate organic traffic. Look for any odd URLs in the analytics data, like search results and parameters, and ensure they get appropriately redirected.
• Redirects: Odd parameter URLs can be accounted for through wildcard redirects. It combs the old site URLs for the query strings and redirects to one static link, usually the new homepage. Create a redirect map by considering the above points.
• Site Audit: Perform an audit of your old website. Look for 404 errors, 301 redirect chains, duplicate content pages, and short/missing/long metatags and H1s. Fix these on the new site to ensure you stabilize and boost traffic post-migration.
• XML Sitemap: Ensure the old XML sitemap is submitted to Google Search Console, has the URLs you want to move, and shortens any redirect chains.

SEO During Shopify Migration

Create a test site that shows how the new one will look to identify any issues before making the switch.

Here is what you should do on the test site:

• Fix site audit issues: Ensure that all the problems detected during the site audit of the old one are fixed. Conduct a new audit of the test site after that.
• Follow SEO best practices: Ensure that the new website features, layout, and design reflect the best SEO practices. Optimize the URL keywords; the text should not get buried in unreadable code, images need to be appropriately sized and tagged, implement breadcrumbs, etc.

A test site will allow you to preview it before you make the final transition. It will enable you to fix all the issues and build a solid SEO foundation.

What To Do After Shopify Migration?

The work isn't done yet! There is still some SEO work left. First, confirm that nothing broke during the migration. After that, you will need to make a few SEO tweaks to ensure your website is ready for organic traffic. Here is a free post-migration SEO checklist:

• Check Google Analytics: Ensure Google Analytics is configured perfectly and picks up on website traffic. Have someone with an un-blocked IP address go to the new site to ensure the tags are firing correctly.
• Establish domain in Google Search Console: Establish a new domain in GSC and submit the XML sitemap if you move to an entirely new URL.
• Crawl old URLs: Perform a crawl of the old URLs in your redirect map to ensure everything is redirecting correctly.
• Crawl the new website: Perform a crawl of the new site to check if all the problems from the old one are resolved.
• Check Google Search Console: Check weekly for crawl stats, issues with your sitemap submission, or other errors.
• Compare Analytics data: Analyze data after migration to compare and contrast organic traffic and revenue numbers.

Conclusion

You are taking a giant leap towards scaling up your business by transitioning to Shopify. This platform will help you generate more traffic and revenue for your business. But, don't put your SEO at risk during migration. Preserve your rankings and traffic by working with skilled e-commerce SEO specialists.

At Icecube Digital, we've helped countless eCommerce business owners migrate their websites smoothly and without issues. See what our experts have to say about the process. We can even help with our post-migration SEO recovery services.