Seeing your digital marketing efforts amount to sales or leads is such a good feeling. But as your business grows, you might find that your current website needs a fresh start or a new address. Whether you are moving to a new domain or just updating the look and feel, it is a big step that needs to be handled with care to protect your hard-earned results.
Understanding the Difference
Think about a website migration as being a lot like moving house. You are packing up all of your brilliant content and finding it a new home, perhaps on a fresh URL, with the aim of keeping your search engine rankings nice and steady while you settle into your better space.
A redesign feels a lot more like a major home renovation, where you stay at the same address but update the layout and features to make the experience much more enjoyable for your visitors.
Sometimes businesses decide to do both at once, and that is exactly when having a solid CRM strategy becomes even more helpful to keep track of how your customers are responding to all of the new changes.
Why Protecting Your Traffic Matters
The biggest concern when making a big change is often seeing a sudden drop in the number of people visiting you. Search engines like Google have spent a long time getting to know your old site and where everything lives.
If those pages suddenly disappear without a clear map showing where they have gone, you might notice a little dip in your ROI.
We believe that a bit of thoughtful preparation goes a long way in making sure the search engines can still find you easily. It is all about being careful and ensuring that all your hard work continues to drive traffic to your website even after you have made the move.
Mapping Your Journey with Data
Making your CRM a part of your move can be a real help when you want to see how things are going. It allows you to see how your customers are interacting with the new site compared to how they used the old one.
You can use all of that data to send out a friendly update to your audience, letting them know about your fresh new look. This is a great way to encourage your loyal customers to come and explore the new site, which helps to drive traffic to your website during those first few important days of your launch.
The Technical Essentials
One of the most important parts of a migration is making sure that your redirects are sorted. Think of these as friendly digital signs that tell your visitors and the search engines that a page has moved to a permanent new home. If you don’t have these in place, people might end up on an error page and could get very frustrated.
This isn’t a nice experience for anyone when surfing the web. Mapping out your old pages to the most relevant new pages ensures that the authority you have built up over time stays right where it should be. It is a small detail that keeps your ROI healthy and ensures your users have the best experience.
Keeping the Human Touch
While the technical side is important, your brand’s tone of voice should always be one of the core features of your website. A redesign is a great chance to refresh your content and also the look and feel of your site. Even with a fresh new look, your message should remain clear and welcoming, showing your customers that you still understand exactly what they need.
Testing for Success
Once you have created your website and you are happy with how it looks, the importance of testing your site is one of the most important factors. Make sure that you check your forms are working and that your customer data is flowing correctly into your system.
Testing can help catch any small hiccups before they become a problem for your customers. It gives you the confidence knowing that your customer experience is the best it can be and everything has been double-checked before going live.
Bringing It All Together
A website move or a new design is an exciting chapter for any business. By planning ahead and keeping your customers in mind, you can avoid the common pitfalls and enjoy the benefits of a fresh digital home. We are always here to chat more about how we can support your business goals and help you drive traffic to your website through every stage of your growth.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to contact us.
