Magento is a robust eCommerce platform, but you need to use the updated version of Magento to get the most from it, which is Magento 2. Magento 1 is no longer supported now; thus, you need to Migrate Magento 1 to Magento 2.
When there is an updated version with more benefits, why would you use the outdated version, right? The same goes with Magento – Magento 2 provides much higher functionalities than Magento 1. Thus, you need to migrate to Magento 2.
Migrating to Magento 2 is important, but we have seen the ranking of brands getting affected due to migrating from Magento 1 to Magento 2, which is not at all good. Web rankings are very crucial for companies, and thus, compromising on rankings means affecting the business.
SEO ranking is one thing that should never be compromised. Thus, one should take care of the ranking while performing the migration process.
In this content post, we will give you tips that will help you to maintain your rankings while migrating from one version of Magento to another.
Table of Contents
5 Major tips for maintaining your SEO rankings while migrating to Magento 2
- Build a mobile-friendly theme
When you are migrating to the Magento 2 platform, you can’t transfer your old theme; you need to create a new theme. When you make or find the new theme, your focus would be on the theme’s usability and look, and it is absolutely fine. However, you should prioritize a theme that is both speedy and mobile-friendly.
Today, most people surf the internet on mobile and thus, it is important to have a mobile-friendly theme. For instance, if your page loads slowly on the mobile and doesn’t load properly on the website, then the mobile users will leave your website in the middle and may visit your competitor’s website.
Seeing the wide number of people using mobile for surfing websites, having a mobile-friendly website becomes important. So, if you don’t want to compromise your website’s SEO ranking, make sure to create a mobile-optimized theme.
- Create SEO-friendly URLs
When you migrate to Magento 2, you need to optimize your URLs. You need to add targeted keywords in the URL so that you can improve your ranking. Also, customers will be able to grasp the website content more easily if the URL contains keywords. You won’t face any problems in SEO ranking if you optimize your URL.
The number of the website pages doesn’t matter while you migrate to Magento 2; you need to ensure the site’s URL is optimized. Also, make sure to keep the record of each URL because you can easily redirect the URL at the time of Migration.
- Include structured data markup and rich snippets
By adding structured data markup and rich snippets during the Magento 1 to 2 Migration process, you can boost the click-through rates.
Google uses structured data markup to know which type of content you have on your website, and on that basis, it will rank your website in the search results.
If you sell electronic appliances on your website, then you can use structured data markup to show the ratings, reviews, pricing, etc. So, it will be easy for Google to rank your website. The information can be displayed under ‘rich snippets’ by Google in the search results.
The structured data markup can boost your web rankings, and the Migration process can be taken as an opportunity to add structured data markup to your website pages.
- Use 301 redirects and fix the 404 errors.
Improper 303 redirects and 404 errors are one of the major problems that affect the SEO rankings. You may witness a dip if you are unable to fix the 404 errors.
If you transfer your website and a few of your most important page break, Google and other search engines will consider this a major issue. You may even face penalties due to this problem.
One of the best practices is to migrate the best-performing pages of your website and maintain the URL structure. You can also hire a good Magento company for successful migration while maintaining the SEO rankings.
- Make sure to improve your page loading speed.
This step comes once you complete the migration process. After you complete the migration process, check the loading speed of your web pages, especially your top pages, and if they are loading slowly, you need to work on them.
The ideal web page loading time is less than 1 second. Anything beyond can harm your website traffic because people don’t want to wait longer, they need quick results, and it goes for your website also. So, make sure your web pages load quickly and much faster than your previous websites. It will also avoid any harm to the SEO rankings.
Read More: 6 Amazing Reasons That will Make you Migrate from Magento 1 to Magento 2
Conclusion
At last, we would say that migrating to Magento 2 is important to enjoy the platform’s functionalities. However, you also need to protect your SEO rankings while migrating to Magento 2. You can use the tips mentioned above to accomplish this purpose.