New website? Don’t forget this!

Yes! You’re getting a new website! What next? Whether you’re getting a completely new site or a redesign of your existing one, there’s a lot involved. Particularly when the website’s URL structure changes, there are many aspects to take into account, such as redirects, robots.txt, the sitemap, and the SSL certificate. And what about all the data tools such as Analytics and Tag Manager? Everything needs to be migrated to your new site so that all your data is measured correctly. A lot can go wrong when going live, but it doesn’t have to. In this blog, we’ll cover key points you need to bear in mind when launching a new site.

A launch with or without a changing URL structure?

With most website launches, the URL structure changes, and that makes a world of difference for SEO work. If the URL structure remains the same and it is merely a website redesign, little can go wrong and launches usually proceed without a hitch. However, if the URL structure does change, this involves all sorts of important additional work. It is sometimes said that a launch is one of the few moments when an SEO marketer can ruin a website in one fell swoop. Setting up redirects correctly is particularly crucial here.

So make sure you’ve double-checked your URL structure before going live with your new website.

Redirects upon going live

Whenever a page is updated and replaced by a new page with a different URL, a redirect must be created. For some site launches, this involves just a handful of pages, but for larger websites it can involve thousands of pages. The larger the website, the more precise and sensitive the launch process is.

Redirects are crucial. An old landing page has built up authority in search engines simply because it has been in existence for some time. The page has gained this authority through internal and external links, visitors to the page, high-quality content and many other factors. A permanent (301) redirect ensures that much of this authority is passed on to the new page. This gives the new page a kick-start, as it were. If you forget to set up the redirect, you’ll lose this valuable authority from the page in question.

Without a redirect, it can take an extremely long time for the new URL to rank as well as the old one. Sometimes this doesn’t happen at all. If you extrapolate this scenario to an entire website, you can imagine that going live without redirects – or with incorrect ones – could spell disaster.

Depending on the complexity of both the new and the old URL structure, writing redirects is usually a manual process, which can be very time-consuming. However, setting up the redirects correctly is so crucial when migrating a website that it is difficult to skip this step.

Robots.txt

The robots.txt is a small file that ensures Google cannot crawl pages defined within it. The robots.txt is used to prevent Google from crawling pages you do not want indexed, such as the search function and admin pages. When going live, it is important to check whether the robots.txt file is still correct and whether any rules need to be added or removed.

Update your sitemap.xml

The sitemap.xml is a list of all the URLs you want to have indexed. It is important to keep this list up to date at all times, whether your website is live or not. The sitemap.xml acts as a sort of user guide for crawlers and exists to make it easier for crawlers such as Googlebot to crawl your website.

When a URL structure changes, it is obviously important that the sitemap.xml is also updated and that there are no incorrect URLs in the sitemap.

SSL Certificate

When you switch to a completely new website on a new domain name, it is important to re-register your SSL certificate. This is because it is tied to a single domain. With a new domain, it is therefore important that this is updated, as otherwise visitors will receive a privacy warning when accessing your website. This is because the visitor clicks on an HTTPS link, but your website’s HTTPS environment is invalid. As a result, your website will be virtually inaccessible. This doesn’t take much effort, but it is very important!

Take the trial version offline

Before a website goes live, there is always a test version. This test version serves to add the final touches to the site, identify errors and, if necessary, add any last-minute features. This test version is usually accessible to the public but is not indexed. Nevertheless, it is very important that this test version is taken offline as soon as the website goes live. It happens more often than you might think that a test version suddenly appears in the Google index! So do be careful.

Google Analytics

To measure is to know! Naturally, you’ll want to keep a close eye on exactly how the new website is performing. How does it compare to the previous website? To avoid any gaps in your data, this process must run smoothly. So make sure the Google Analytics tracking code has already been integrated into the new website and that it is present on every page. This way, you’ll receive data on the new website’s usage straight away. Did you set up goals on the previous website to measure conversions? If so, ensure these are also up and running on the new website straight away. Finally, create a note in Google Analytics at the exact moment the site goes live, so that you can compare your data properly in the future.

Advertising adapt

Don’t forget your adverts! These will, of course, still be directed to the old URLs. It would be a shame if you only realised later that your campaign is pointing to the wrong URLs. That’s a waste of money. Although… if you’ve set up your redirects properly, visitors will still be directed to the correct pages. Nevertheless, it’s advisable to enter the correct URLs as soon as possible. If, for example, you use tracking templates, these often won’t work properly with redirects.

Customising Search Console

Search Console is the way to communicate with Google about your website. It’s very important to go through the whole process and check whether any adjustments need to be made after going live. Have you changed your domain? If so, you’ll need to add a new website and reconfigure everything from scratch. Same domain? Check that your XML sitemap address is still correct. Search Console is also the tool to use to check whether Google can crawl the new website properly. Do you have parameters in your URLs? If so, tell Google how to interpret them so that it can index them correctly.

Customise Tag Manager

Make sure the Tag Manager code is also active on the new website. Nothing is more frustrating than realising later on that many goals were being tracked via Tag Manager and you hadn’t noticed. Have you checked everything? Are there any tags that are no longer needed, or elements being loaded that are no longer in use? You can, of course, remove these.

On-page SEO

We assume that, when building your new website, you have taken into account the factors that influence your search engine visibility. Nevertheless, we’d like to mention this briefly in this blog post as a reminder. No duplicate H1 tags and no empty page titles or meta descriptions? Check everything thoroughly and ensure it’s an improvement on the current website. This is the ideal time to take a close look at everything, check it all over and, of course, optimise it!

Bugs and usability

Almost live! We’ve focused heavily on all the technical SEO aspects, but do you also take a moment to check the things that are often overlooked? After going live, it often turns out that contact or quotation forms aren’t being received. There are also regularly pages still online that were intended for testing and contain no content. Another common mistake is that the ‘thank you’ pages, which are intended to measure conversions, are simply indexable by Google. To keep your data clean, these pages mustn’t, of course, be accessible via the search engine.

Website live!

Yes, we’re finally live. After all that hard work, it’s naturally a bit nerve-wracking. But rest assured, if you’ve properly understood and applied the points above, it’s almost impossible to go wrong. Although…

Final check! Just make sure you haven’t forgotten to set the Meta Robots to ‘Index, follow’ after going live. It’s a classic mistake. You’d naturally excluded the test version and set it to ‘noindex’, so that Google couldn’t find it yet. Now let Google come!

Need help with your new website?

Do you need help building a new website, or would you like a professional to take a critical look at your newly built website? We’re here to help. Website or SEO migration projects can be daunting, but they can always run smoothly if the right steps are taken. We’d be happy to help you with this!