An SEO website migration is the work that protects your organic performance when a website changes. That could be a new design, a new CMS, a domain change, a rebrand, a URL restructure, an eCommerce replatform or a move from one website setup to another.
The risky bit is not just launching a new website. The risk comes from changing the things Google already understands about your site. URLs, internal links, content, redirects, canonicals, tracking, templates and page structure can all affect how search engines crawl and rank the site after launch.
My approach is to get involved before the migration happens, benchmark what matters, map the important URLs, work with your developer or agency and check the site properly after launch. The aim is simple: reduce the risk of traffic loss and make sure the new site has the best chance of performing well.
Most migration problems happen because SEO is brought in too late. By the time the new site is ready to go live, the URL structure may already be built, important content may have been removed and redirects may be treated as a quick launch task rather than a core part of the project.
A website can look better after a redesign and still lose traffic if the SEO details are missed. Important pages can disappear, redirect chains can be created, high performing content can be rewritten too heavily and Google can suddenly see a site that looks very different from the one it previously trusted.
As an SEO website migration consultant, my role is to help prevent technical, structural, content or design changes from confusing Google, reducing organic visibility or causing important pages to drop out of the index altogether.
By working with me, you have someone involved whose focus throughout the migration is to think SEO first. Not every decision needs to be made purely for SEO, but I can flag risky changes early so you can make informed decisions before they become expensive problems.
This is why I treat migration work as a risk management project. I look at what already drives traffic and enquiries, what must be protected, what can be improved and what needs to be checked before anything goes live.
I have been working in SEO for over 10 years, and I first got into the industry while developing and designing websites, which is something I started doing back in 2016.
More recently, in my full-time role with Best Western, I helped launch a new website with more than 100,000 URLs in 2025. That project involved all the usual migration essentials, including redirect mapping, technical checks, indexation signals, tracking, canonicals and making sure the key pages were carried across properly.
I help businesses make successful website migrations and I also help recover sites when a migration has gone wrong. If rankings drop, important pages disappear or the technical setup has not carried across cleanly, I can help diagnose what has happened and work on a recovery plan to get the site moving in the right direction again.
Choose the type of SEO website migration support that best fits your business, whether you have already migrated a site and it has gone wrong, need help recovering it or are planning to build a new site and want me to lead the SEO side of that.
This option is ideal if you are building a new site and want a SEO specialist to support you from an SEO perspective. I will review the site plan, keep an eye on the search risks and make sure the technical, content and structural decisions support visibility once the site goes live.
Find out moreFor sites that have already moved and seen a drop in organic traffic, I can review what changed, identify the problems and put together a clear recovery plan that gets the site moving in the right direction again.
Find out moreI keep the process practical and easy to follow. You do not need a 100 page document that nobody uses. You need clear checks, clear ownership and a migration plan that your developer, designer or internal team can actually work with.
I start with a benchmarking review of organic traffic, rankings, key landing pages, conversions and priority pages so we know what needs protecting before anything changes.
I can also give your designers and developers practical SEO migration recommendations before the project starts, so technical and design decisions are made with search performance in mind.
I compare the old and new sitemap to spot structural changes that could weaken important pages, internal links or crawl paths.
Before build work goes too far, I can review the proposed web design and page layouts to make sure they are SEO friendly and flag recommendations where needed.
I crawl and analyse the demo or staging site before launch, checking indexation, canonicals, robots rules, sitemaps, metadata, headings, internal links, page speed, mobile issues and crawl problems.
I use Screaming Frog to crawl your site and analyse the data manually, so I can get a proper understanding of issues that could cause a loss in organic visibility. I use it to check things like broken URLs, redirect chains, missing or duplicated metadata, canonical tags, indexability, internal links, page titles, headings, response codes and sitemap issues.
I also review the 301 redirect list and test it in staging where possible, making sure important old URLs are mapped to the most relevant new URLs.
After launch I crawl using Screaming Frog and review the live site to check redirects, indexing, crawl errors, forms, tracking, key pages and whether the technical SEO setup has carried across properly.
I can stay on hand for two weeks to one month after the migration to answer questions, review early data and help catch issues quickly.
Migration Benefits
A migration will always carry some risk, but planning it properly gives you a far better chance of keeping the performance you have already earned.
Keep important landing pages, redirects and search signals in mind before the new site goes live.
Map old URLs to the right new pages so users and search engines are not sent to dead ends.
Catch crawl, indexation, canonical, sitemap and tracking issues before they become live problems.
Make sure analytics, forms, calls and Search Console are ready to monitor the site after launch.
Reduce the chance of avoidable ranking drops caused by missed technical or content changes.
Use the migration as a chance to clean up structure, content and technical issues, not just move them over.
Once your website has been successfully migrated, I am on hand to assess the initial impact. The first step is to crawl the live site and make sure everything has carried across properly from the staging environment, including redirects, key pages, indexation signals, tracking and technical SEO settings.
From there, I review Google Search Console to keep an eye out for errors as Google gradually crawls and indexes the new site. I also check how quickly Google starts to process the new XML sitemap and report on any changes to organic traffic, rankings and the areas of the site that have seen the biggest impact.
Migrations are often a good time to move straight into monthly SEO support, because the foundations are fresh and the next step is usually to strengthen and build on the organic visibility of the new site over time.
Post-Migration Services
Once the new site is live, the work often moves from protecting performance to improving it. These are the SEO services I can help with after a migration, depending on what the new site needs most.
I look for the right keywords that can drive relevant, high-converting traffic, using tools such as Google Keyword Planner, Semrush and Search Console data.
Once we know which keywords to target, I review existing landing pages and recommend new pages where needed so the site is properly aligned with search demand.
I make sure Google can crawl, index and understand the new site properly, with clear signals around structure, redirects, canonicals, speed and indexation.
If you want a clearer view of what is holding the new site back, I can audit keyword targeting, content, technical SEO, competitors, backlinks and more.
For businesses targeting a town, city or county, I can help build a structured local SEO approach across service pages, local landing pages and local search signals.
I can help identify opportunities to earn relevant links and improve authority, often alongside content marketing so outreach has something genuinely useful behind it.
I can plan content around what your business is trying to achieve and what your audience is searching for, from blog content to landing pages and wider resources.
If your site has been affected by a Google update or a difficult migration, I can help shape a recovery plan to regain rankings, traffic and conversions over time.
Common questions about protecting SEO performance during a website migration.
An SEO website migration is the process of moving, redesigning, replatforming or restructuring a website while protecting organic rankings, traffic and key landing pages as much as possible.
A migration usually makes sense when your current website can no longer do what you need it to do. That might be because your CMS is slow, outdated or insecure, or because your business has grown and you now need a larger, more flexible site that can handle more products, services and traffic.
I can help with smaller brochure-style site migrations through to larger, more complex projects with lots of pages, templates, redirects and content to manage. If there is SEO value to protect, I can usually support it.
In most cases, leaving content or metadata behind weakens the migration. Your SEO performance is built from your site structure, authority, content and metadata, so removing key parts can hurt rankings and reduce the visibility the old site had earned.
The main way to protect backlinks is to make sure old URLs are redirected properly to the most relevant new pages. That way, external links still point users and search engines to the right destination and the authority they pass is not lost.
They are extremely important. 301 redirects are the permanent redirects that pass page equity from old URLs to new ones, so they are one of the most important parts of any migration.
SEO migration is never completely risk free, but the right planning can reduce the chance of major losses. I can help you prepare properly, monitor the launch and work to recover anything that does slip afterwards.
It depends on the size and complexity of the site. Redirect uploads can be quick, but mapping pages, checking content and planning a careful migration for a larger website can take weeks or even months.
The most important step is usually the redirect plan, because that protects authority and helps search engines understand where the old pages have moved. Alongside that, content, metadata, internal links and pre-launch checks all matter.
The cost depends on the size of the site and how much SEO support is needed. A small website with only a handful of pages will usually take less time and cost less than a large site with hundreds or thousands of URLs, backlinks and metadata items to move.
If you want to chat about an SEO website migration, send over a few details and I will get back to you. You do not need to know exactly what you need yet, we can work that out together.
Use the form and tell me a little bit about your website, your goals and the kind of support you are looking for.
I will review your message and come back to you within 48 hours of receiving your message.
