SEO when changing e-commerce platform

​​Search engine optimisation (SEO) often plays a crucial role in driving traffic to online stores. When businesses consider switching e-commerce platform, there is often concern about how the migration might affect organic traffic and existing rankings for important keywords. Without a well-planned SEO strategy, a migration can lead to issues that affect search rankings, traffic and, ultimately, sales.

With extensive experience of platform migrations, we at Viskan have deep knowledge of the most common SEO-related pitfalls and how you can avoid them. In this article, we look at how SEO can be affected when moving to a new platform and what steps you should take to ensure a smooth migration without losing organic traffic. 

How SEO can be affected by a platform migration

There is a good reason why e-commerce businesses worry about their SEO rankings when changing platform. Building a strong presence in search engines is an important and time-consuming process, and organic traffic can account for around 40% of traffic to online stores. A migration can involve major changes to your site structure and, without careful planning, that can weaken the SEO value you have built up in several ways.

A successful migration requires control over all the factors that affect SEO. One of the biggest risks is poor handling of redirects and URL structures. If existing URLs are not correctly matched to the new ones, it can lead to broken links, which negatively affects both user experience and search rankings. That is why it is so important to implement the right redirects to avoid broken links. It is also crucial to make sure important technical settings such as meta tags, canonicals, structured data and robots.txt files are correctly configured so that pages can be indexed by search engines. In addition, relevant SEO content, including metadata, product descriptions and breadcrumbs, must be transferred correctly to the new platform in order to preserve current rankings.

The technical details are therefore critical if you want to protect your SEO work. But there are several other aspects worth considering too. According to Oskar Nilsson, Online Growth Specialist at Viskan, it is also important not to lose sight of the bigger picture.

"A platform change is a great opportunity to make a fresh start," says Oskar. "It is important to focus on technical aspects such as redirects and basic on-page SEO attributes, but you must not lose sight of the website’s overall purpose: to attract and convert customers. A successful SEO strategy requires a balance between handling the technical details and making sure the whole site performs as it should. It is also worth remembering that SEO has changed compared with a few years ago. Back then, the focus was heavily on meta descriptions, page titles and keywords at a very granular level. That still matters, of course, but today the focus is largely on giving your visitors as much value as possible. What Google calls E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness. That means your website needs to contain up-to-date and relevant content. That is why it is important for SEO to remove content that no longer serves a purpose. Think about how you can position yourself as the expert in what you sell and the place customers turn to when they want answers to their questions.”

Oskar Nilsson, Online Growth Specialist, Viskan.

How to ensure a smooth migration without losing SEO rankings

1. Carry out an SEO audit

We start by carefully analysing your current website. By reviewing traffic, keywords, rankings, category structure and on-page content, we gain valuable insight into what should be preserved and what needs to change ahead of the migration. This ensures that your SEO foundations are retained and further developed on the new platform.

2. Transfer structure and content

We transfer the structure, content and all product data to the new platform. If you are happy with your current structure, we can often keep it. If not, we are happy to help adapt it to your new needs. For categories, product pages and other parts of the site, we set up correct 301 redirects so every page retains its link equity and broken links are avoided. We also review the content to make sure it is relevant and up to date, which benefits both SEO and user experience.

3. Focus on the technical details

We review the technical parts of the migration, such as sitemaps, robots.txt, canonical URLs and structured data. Viskan E-commerce Platform has built-in support for important SEO elements, such as redirect imports, which is a clear advantage during migration. We can also automatically generate, for example, alt text and metadata based on product data.

4. Make the most of Viskan’s flexible CMS

If you are a customer of ours, you can use Viskan CMS, making it easy to optimise content for SEO. Thanks to the platform’s flexibility, you can quickly and efficiently build a stronger presence in search engines.

5. Test before launch

Before launch, we test the website thoroughly using different SEO tools to check redirects, broken links and other technical issues. That allows us to fix any problems that could affect both SEO and user experience before the site goes live.

6. Follow up after launch

After launch, we closely monitor the indexing of new pages, whether redirects are working as expected, how quickly old pages are phased out, keyword rankings and whether Google Search Console flags any issues. We do this using tools such as Search Console, Semrush, Screaming Frog and PageSpeed Insights to make sure everything performs as expected. By continuously monitoring and optimising, we make sure your SEO work is protected and the user experience stays strong.

By following this structured process, we can guarantee a smooth migration that both preserves and improves your SEO when changing e-commerce platform.

Key takeaways when changing platform

As mentioned above, there are many aspects to consider if you want to avoid losing organic traffic during a platform migration. Here are Oskar’s top tips on what you should focus on first:

• Analyse your current position – review your current SEO, how much organic traffic you drive today, and which pages and keywords are generating it.

• Choose the right platform – make sure it offers strong SEO support and is easy to migrate to.

• Test thoroughly – carry out extensive testing before launch to identify and fix any issues.

• Update your content – make sure all material is relevant and up to date. A platform change is a good opportunity to optimise your content and plan for the future development of your e-commerce business.

Do you have questions about migration, SEO or anything else related to your e-commerce business?