SEO checklist for Magento 2 migration

The world runs on the basic formula of up-gradation. Whenever we are upgrading to something, there is a massive list of tasks to be accomplished so that that shift is smooth and pleasant.

The same goes when it comes to the migration from Magento 1 to Magento 2. The time witnessed the upgradation of one of the most prominent eCommerce platforms, and it is essential to ensure that the migration is done with utter professionalism that it may not leave any negative impact on the modern numerology of the business.

Here, we are sharing a checklist to ensure for Magento 2 migration. Make sure you have these tasks ticked off from your to-do list.

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• Straighten out your migration scope

The first and the foremost thing to do is to define the migration scope of your task. This may be a lengthy task but believe me when I say that it is highly necessary unless you are okay with the last minute discrepancies. 

Write down all the third-party extensions, categorize your data and move the data in the packets so that no information is lost on the way. 

Go through each customization ever done on your page, note that down. Make sure you have stated each detail of the page which needs to be migrated to an upgraded version.

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• Understand where your site stands

Analyze the current performance of your website. You can do this both manually and through an automated process. For manual analysis, go with Google Analytics and Google Search Console, and for the automatic method, one can go with various crawling tools. 

Also, make a sheet of all the URLs one has for the website. If all the information is stored in a particular way, nothing is lost, and everything is embed-able at one or the other step.

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• Prioritize your catalogue data

The most important thing is to maintain what you communicate to the public. You need to prioritize your catalogue data. If all the demands are not met, you might reach a dead-end leading to the utter failure of the business.

This is the high time you fix the problems being faced. Review each part of your workings, category by category. Change the details as and when required. 

Make sure that every detail is taken care of while the migration. The details may range from images to attributes, descriptions, and metadata. Make a fool-proof check on each migrated thing. 

If your catalogue is too big, there are the chances that people are not even going through the whole catalogue. Use the Google tools to find out which pages attract the least traffic and uproot it from the catalogue so that your attention is employed to the task where necessary.

Invest most of your time in optimizing the data for it is the only thing which is going to get you the returns, organic results and enhance the PPC Performance. It is indeed an investment that gives good returns in the future.

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• Lay-out your indexing strategy

One of the most essential and head-scratching tasks is to define the indexing strategy. If you have a large site with multiple pages, you might need to give more attention to this step as each page may affect your rankings on the web. 

You need to prioritize your content wherever necessary and apply crawler blocks wherever required. 

After deciding the indexing strategy, it is of high importance to prepare a robots.txt file. Once the robots.txt is there in mind, there is nothing to worry about. Just make sure that you apply crawler block only to those pages which are of no or very less importance. For instance, the search result pages.

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• Review your tags

After the indexing is done, the next thing to care for is the adequate implementation of the tags. 

Magento has an arsenal full of features; all you need is a proper knowledge of them. Sort option is suitable for user experience, but if the canonical tags are not adequately implemented, it can cause severe damage to the SEO.

The conventional method should be used when it comes to pagination as it can be picked up by any search engine; not just Google. The products are always suggested to have the canonical tags that point to themselves along with pointing other CMS pages. Images are always recommended to have the ALT tags to make their clear understandings to the search engines. 

Remember, all the stuff you do should be in-sync with your SEM strategy.

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• XML sitemap

The review of sitemap is another essential step. There will arise a need for adding or removing some pages from the sitemap. Discussions with the developers at this stage are much appreciated.

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• Implementing structured data markup

One needs to understand that an adequately implemented structured data markup not just helps google for the better understanding of the content. Still, such rich snippets can also favor the upward rise of CTR.

Magento 2 does come with product structured data, but it is spread across its platform. One can use third-party applications to get all the data in one place and use the customization’s. 

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• Perfection in 301 redirects

301 Redirection is one of the ways to tip off Google to preserve the rankings while maintaining the authority of inbound links.

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• Testings

Testing is one of the most crucial tasks to do before launching the application. Make sure you test every function individually and with the combination of other services to make sure that the website is crash-proof. Make sure you have examined the site in all the possible circumstances.

Don’t just rush to the launch as it might take your website down to the un-restorable conditions.

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• After-launch tasks

If you think your work is complete, then you are wrong. Your jobs go beyond the launch of the application as well. Here are some of the things you need to concentrate on once the app is launched.

• Uploading of new robots.txt file
• Uploading of new sitemap to Google Search Console
• Rechecking the discrepancies in tracking
• Checking of indexed pages, keywords, average positions, traffic, and 404 reports. 

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Closing comments

Migration to Magento 2 isn’t an easy task. It needs professionalism and is a sheer work of art. The layman might get dazed upon the routes to work on, whereas a professional Magento developer can act as a guide to lead the path of success.

Allow us, the experts at MagnoStack to help you out with your migration and unveil the global experience on your computer screens.