This document outlines a 7-step process for successfully transitioning an enterprise website: 1) Set objectives by agreeing on targets and key questions; 2) Establish a performance baseline; 3) Map URL redirects to preserve high-value pages; 4) Audit the current site and prioritize content; 5) Launch the new site and immediately test functionality; 6) Closely monitor post-launch traffic and rankings; 7) Track performance and provide ongoing maintenance. The steps are designed to minimize traffic disruptions during the transition and ensure the new site meets business goals.

1. 7 STEPS TO A SUCCESSFUL
ENTERPRISE SITE TRANSITION
A BrightEdge Webinar

2. OVERVIEW
2
• 7 Steps to a Successful Site Transition
1. Take Aim!
2. Know your Baseline
3. Know your URLs  Keep the Good, Dump the Bad
4. Pre-Work Makes the Dream Work
5. Making the Transition
6. Factors to Post-Launch Success
- Measure
- Monitor
- What’s the new Baseline?
7. Track performance (and maintenance): Ongoing!
• Questions?
Are we
there yet?

3. 3
FIRST THINGS!
1. A realistic plan is the most important
component!
2. Mistakes in Redirect logic can cost
millions!
3. Understanding the Old Site is just and
important as launching the New Site
4. Know who owns Analytics for each
region
5. Get your tags straight from the beginning
(sounds 101 I know)

4. 4
READY. AIM…
PHASE 1: SET OBJECTIVES

5. 5
ONE VISION
1. Agree on the target
1. Countries?
2. Languages?
2. The Three BIG Questions
- How much time?
- How much money?
- Who will be involved?
3. Create a detailed map of every foot of
the process
4. Communicate and confirm!
5. Put it in writing

6. 6
WHERE ARE YOU?
PHASE 2: KNOW YOUR BASELINE

7. 7
ON YOUR MARK…
• Know what success looks like – see the
finish line
• Plan for it: a new site sees a short-term
drop in organic search performance
• Don’t worry, it’s completely normal
• When done well, a transition creates
greater site performance
• To understand performance and success
of the new site, create a pre-transition
baseline report
Get Set…

8. BASELINE REPORT
Create your project tracking to monitor,
manage, and assess performance
• Leverage the platform to establish
baselines and dashboards!
• Create a report before the site launch to
ensure accurate data
• If possible, include 12+ months of prior
organic search data to account for
naturally occurring ups and downs
8

9. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW
Reports should contain:
• Organic traffic
• Keyword rankings
• Crawl levels (found in Google Search Console)
• Indexation levels (do a “site:” search)
For sites that do online sales or lead gen,
include these results for Organic search:
• Revenue
• Number of transactions
• Conversion rate of search to sales (%)
• How many leads/e-mail addresses collected
• Total number of downloads
9

10. 10
KEEP THE PLAYS THAT
WORK
PHASE 3: URL REDIRECT MAPPING

11. 11
KEEP YOUR PRODUCERS
PRODUCING
REDIRECT VALUABLE URLS
Two Parts:
1. Keep the pages that produce —
ID High Value Pages (HVPs) and retain
them where possible
2. Redirect Mapping — One to one, one
to many…doesn’t matter – create the
map to preserve equity

12. BEST PRACTICES FOR SEO-FRIENDLY URLS
• On international & multi-lingual sites, use sub-
directories instead of sub-domains. This
increases the value of links at the domain level
• Keep URLs short and friendly
• Directory and Page Names should be search and
keyword-friendly
• Avoid dynamic parameters and characters (if
possible). Otherwise make sure canonicals are
implemented.
12

13. 13
AUDIT+PLANNING=SUCCE
SS
YES, IT’S PHASE 4
Not that kind of audit.

14. 14
WHAT HAVE I GOT?
1. Crawl the site, inventory the site, check
out backlinks, know what works and
what doesn’t
2. Are my HVPs also my most important
content? The 80/20 HVP rule
3. Talk to stakeholders about important ‘in
country” pages
4. Develop prioritized approach to evaluate
& tag the new site

15. 15
GET TO WORK
Don’t forget the easy stuff:
• Page Titles & H1s
• Crawlable HTML copy and links (content
should not render as JavaScript or Flash)
• Images with friendly names & ALT tags
• Pages with multipage results should include
pagination tags
• Schema.org markup (where applicable)
• Create formulaic meta data
recommendations
• Create a user-friendly 404/Error Page

16. 16
THINK ABOUT THIS
STUFF
• HREF LANG tags for international sites
• XML Sitemaps for each language & country
• “Master Keyword List” including localizations.
• Build master translation tables
• Build groups for each country/language
• Create keyword to HVP relationships so you
can track in BE when the time comes
• Establish webmaster accounts in country and
early

17. 17
FLIP THE SWITCH
PHASE 5: TRANSITION TIME

18. 18
HOUSTON, WE’RE (ALMOST)
READY FOR LIFT-OFF
LAUNCH CHECKLIST
1. Prepare robots.txt file
2. Test crawler access
3. Prepare XML sitemap(s)
4. Identify/Correct broken links
5. Check 301 redirects
6. Crawl key meta tags
1. Language
2. Canonical

19. It’s Alive!
19
WHEN YOUR NEW SITE GOES
LIVE
Immediately start testing. Here’s what to do:
• Manual checks
• Monitor crawl errors
• Check error page delivers a 404 code
• Check all templates to validate changes were
implemented (do this before launch too)
• Confirm the updated XML sitemap(s) is/are in
place
• Make sure you’re found!
• Upload new XML sitemap(s) to Google
Search Console & Bing Webmaster Tools

20. 20
WE’RE ALMOST THERE
PHASE 6: POST-LAUNCH REVIEW

21. 21
IT’S ALL IN THE
PERFORMANCE
Ensure success:
• Measure impact the new site on all
aspects of your business
• Monitor traffic closely
• Create new baseline reports to track
progress
• Weekly updates to baselines for 90 days or
more
What to watch for:
A post-launch drop in traffic/rankings could last
3-6 months
Even the best site transitions will see some
drops in performance
To help buffer this temporary loss in traffic,
consider spending more on paid search

22. 22
TRACK AND MAINTAIN
PHASE 7: POST-LAUNCH SUPPORT
Now it get’s
easy, right?

23. 23
NOW THAT’S DONE
At this point, return to normal operations of
ongoing support (yeah right!)
• Continue to track site performance
• Find and address common problems
• Fix and maintain!
Hey, that wasn’t so hard…

24. 24

25. 25
Hey, that wasn’t so hard…
Steve Krull
CEO – Be Found Online
773.904.1182
steve@befoundonline.com
@SteveKrull
www.linkedin.com/in/stevekrull
THANKS