SA-877-ARTICLE-SEO Strategy and Checklist before Shopping Cart Migration (1)

1. SEO Strategy and Checklist before Shopping Cart Migration Shopping cart migration Ecommerce service provider Ecommerce sales and traffic have been on a high roll for a couple of years now, with COVID giving it the ultimate boost. According to eMarketer, the sales of ecommerce have grown by 16.5% in 2021 alone. This means that the ecommerce platform which is currently hosting your site plays a crucial role in the growth and development of your business venture. Slow speed, lack of useful features, no compatibility with mobile phones, poor SEO ranking and redundant software won’t cut it anymore. In order to get the best from the current times, you need to make sure the platform hosting your ecommerce site is up to date in every aspect otherwise, it’s time for a shopping cart migration. Shopping cart migration is a big decision as it’s a very convoluted process that takes a lot of planning, expertise and a team of ecommerce service providers that know their job a little too well. In case of a fumble, the consequences can be destructive and can lead to data mismatch, SEO ranks dropping, customer’s inaccessibility to their accounts and a lot more devastating results. A small, insignificant mistake during the shopping cart migration process can lead to huge losses like drop in organic traffic or even worse, losing SEO rankings on search engines. In this article, my main focus is going to be SEO, the strategies and checklist one should consider before jumping the gun and doing shopping cart migration. SEO Strategy and Checklist before Shopping Cart Migration When it comes to SEO strategy before replatforming or doing shopping cart migration, it's best to understand that there is no “one size fits all”. Each business is unique and has its own structure, preferences, performance and goals. All things alter drastically with each factor. Sometimes only the store design is being changed which hardly bothers the SEO but be careful with the JavaScript elements as this can lead to adverse effects on keywords, it can spam the websites which will bring down the rankings on search engines. The URL structure migration is where things start to get complicated, be mindful of the redirects, make sure to use Google search console. When URLs change while replatforming, it’s next to impossible to have the same URL. The first step that you’d want to take before the D-day is to understand and define the scope. Thoroughly, analyze, evaluate and scrutinize your website SEO performance with different indicators like Google Search Console Analysis, SEO spider tools, SEMrush, DeepCrawl, Moz Pro and Screaming frog. It is very important

2. to have this data in order to compare after the shopping cart migration to truly see the difference in performance. The next step is to choose between 301 redirects for 404 pages. If with God’s grace you can keep the old URL then you have ducked a major obstacle but if you have to change the URL then it means you’ll either have to choose 301 redirects for 404 pages. If you know the organic traffic and external backlinks then carefully curate 301 redirects and your site SEO ranking will not plunge. If the redirects aren’t done properly then there will be more 404 pages which will eventually frustrate the customer and rankings will fall. 301 redirects can also move your inbound links which are very important for your SEO performance. Oftentimes merchants want to change everything when in the process of replatforming. But that is the worst mistake one can make and if you have a good ecommerce service provider he/she will never be in favor of that. Google and other search engines are on your back looking for any huge changes, which can cause a huge dip in your traffic. Keeping in mind the SEO impact, you’d want to keep your website just like before to maintain the ranking. Another very important thing to consider when replatforming is the mobile optimization approach. Make sure your new platform is mobile friendly and also has voice search because these two are the present and the future of SEO. Most of the SaaS platforms offer SSL which defaults to HTTPS, but if you don’t have SSL then make sure to redirect to HTTP{ to HTTPS otherwise you’ll have duplicated data and a drop in SEO rankings. Conclusion When everything above this done, tested and rechecked, it’s time to do the shopping cart migration. But the worries are far from over! You’ll now need to keep a close eye on the new platform and its performance in order to compare it with the old one and only then will you be able to find if the SEO ranking has dropped to sustained or even increased. But mind it, initially the ranking will drop but they should come right up if everything is done perfectly.