Editor’s note: Most startup stores prefer the Magento community edition because of zero investment, but as they grow and seek expansion, they need a robust platform. This gives them better security, improved scalability, and several other features. Recently, we helped this automotive accessory manufacturer move to the Magento Enterprise version. Not only was the transition smooth and quick, traffic and revenue remained unaffected. Connect with our team for Magento migration or Magento 2 upgrade service.
Our client manufactures and sells the world’s smartest gear for vehicle-based adventures. Their roof racks, water tanks, tents, awnings, drawer systems, and camping accessories are enjoyed, and used around the world by casual campers, the U.N., overlanders, NGOs, outdoor enthusiasts, and extreme athletes.
Their goal has always been to keep their site up to date with the latest technology while continually achieving a consistent growth in online sales.
Their earlier Magento 1 website was incrementally developed adding feature by feature over several years. That’s what made it a little complex.
1. They had presence in 8 locations (US, UK, Germany, France, Australia, South Africa, Eastern Europe and Rest of the World)
2. The site was built-in 3 different languages (French, German and English) and
3. They were experiencing a huge number of visitors (monthly traffic of 2,50,000)
For such a Magento deployment, an upgrade from Magento 1 to Magento 2.24 Enterprise Edition seemed to be a daunting task.
Given the fact that Outdoor gear industry is a mature e-commerce sector where distributors compete to grab the top positions in search results, going for an upgrade bore the risk of drop in SEO rankings, and traffic.
CHALLENGE
A website upgrade is necessary, not only to keep it up-to-date with latest technology, but also to provide its visitors with better features and experience.Â
That said, it takes years to build on search rankings, website authority, and online presence.
If correct measures are not taken while going for an upgrade, a site may even be completely wiped off by Google.
Our team was posed with a challenge to move the website to a new Magento version, while keeping its SEO profile intact.
We had the following objectives to meet –
- Upgrade to Magento 2.24 Enterprise version
- Retain domain authority and rankings
- Retain traffic and sales
- Preserve backlinks and referring domains
- Retain the count of organic keywords
APPROACH
In order to retain SEO while transitioning from Magento 1 to Magento 2.24, we carried out activities in three phases (pre, during and post-upgrade).
We started off by benchmarking the pre-launch SEO metric to ensure that the rankings, traffic, and authority remain unaffected.
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1.Pre-launch activities:
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2. During launch activities:
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3.Post-launch activities:
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RESULTS
The transit wasn’t easy. The site could lose SEO juice and its visibility in search results.
Our careful and well-defined approach ensured that the transit was smooth. Not only the traffic but organic keywords, domain authority, backlinks, referring domains and other SEO metrics remained untouched.
- Successful traffic retention
The site gained momentum within one month of its upgrade and thus was able to drive a consistent traffic to the site.
- Ranking on different SEO parameters
The website’s SEO profile along with other parameters were perfectly retained. Nothing was lost during the process.
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Final Word –Â
“Quite often the reason behind an upgrade is to give customers a better experience and thus improve conversion rates. If correct steps are not taken to ensure a smooth transition, the upgrade can prove to be a disaster.
Since this can destroy your SEO rankings that you took years to build, it is highly recommended to go for SEO retention prior to any migration or upgrade. This way you would be able to preserve your rankings in search results without having an impact on your business.”
*Planning to go for an upgrade or migrating to a new platform? We’ll be happy to assist you. For a free consultation or any other question, contact [email protected].