92 Ways to Get (and Maximize) Press Coverage

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 02:08 PM PST

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

Boiler Room Quote

I love Ben Affleck's first scene in the movie "Boiler Room." I always felt that the quote above perfectly relates to companies and press coverage. The ones who don’t get coverage will quickly dismiss it as useless and a waste of time and money to pursue, while the ones who regularly get coverage just smile and hope that you keep thinking that way...

Over the last 12 years, I have been featured in hundreds of major newspapers, magazines, websites and blogs (everything ranging from the NY Times, USA Today and CNN to TechCrunch, Entrepreneur and so on), and I can tell you first-hand that it has helped me and my companies in an enormous way. It's brought me:

Publicity (well duh, Chris!)
Clients
Partnerships
Links
Traffic
Improved Employee Morale
Credibility
Money

Even more importantly, I have helped hundreds of businesses and friends get coverage. In many cases, the coverage they received was the tipping point for their career or business. A couple of weeks ago, someone who I met at a conference and became a friend of mine told me:

"Incidentally, your advice on PR in the past has been invaluable with [their domain] - PR is our biggest source of traffic by miles."

I had no idea this was the case. Their site has been extremely successful, and it got me thinking that I had never really laid everything out in one place. See, PR isn't the core of my business. I'm not a PR genius or even a PR flack. BlueGlass doesn't offer traditional PR services; we do it as part of an overall Internet marketing campaign.

I've worked with a bunch of different PR people in my career. Some were amazing, some were terrible. I've done lots of things on my own (some were amazing and some were terrible). With all of that, I have learned a lot and I want to share it with you.

So without further adieu, here are 91 ways/tips/thoughts/things that have helped me get and maximize press coverage over the last 12 years. This is the stuff that's worked for me and with a little bit of tenacity, I am positive it can work for you, as well!

Know WHO You Are and WHAT You Want

Yogi Berra Quote

Determine your message by answering the following questions:
* What’s different about you or your company?

* What are you the expert of?

* What makes you better than your competitors?

* What’s your “Unique Selling Proposition” (USP)?
Determine if you want national or local coverage (or both!).
What can you use (beyond your company or expertise) to help you stand out? I’ve used my hair. This guy used yellow shoes.
Create a list of everywhere you want to be covered: newspapers, sites, blogs, trade journals, etc.

Build Your Media List

Jay-Z Quote

Identify the reporters at each publication who write about the specific topic for which you want to be covered.
Find their contact info. This will usually be included with their stories, but if it's not, search LinkedIn, Google, or on the publication’s site. If you’re still stuck, call the publication.
Create a spreadsheet with all of the publications, corresponding reporters, and their contact info. Include a column for notes where you can keep track of preferred contact methods, pitching preferences, best time to contact, and any other relevant info you learn after you’ve gotten to know each reporter.
Or, use a tool like Bulldog Reporter (pay as you go) or MEDIAtlas (yearly $$$ subscription).

Research (And Then Research Some More)

GI Joe Quote

Read a reporter’s work before you reach out to him or her. Write down your thoughts on some of his or her recent stories.
Is the reporter’s email at the end of his or her articles? This is a good sign they’re open to contact. Tip: Most journalists have (at least) two email addresses. One for the public (the catch-all) and one that they actually use. This is why your email subject line and the email itself are SO important. You have to be the ‘"signal" in all the ‘"noise" they have to get through.
Do the reporters respond to comments on the site or blog that they write on? Do they respond only to certain types of comments or to all of them? Make notes of particular comments that they react most favorably to.
Is he Mr. Twitter 2012? Is she a Google + Gal? Start following them to feel out their personalities and observe how responsive they are to other people online.
Many of the list building services will tell you how the reporter likes to be contacted. Follow those directions.

The Art of the Email

David Ogilvy Quote

Make contact with the reporter via email, telling them how much you enjoyed their latest piece and which parts you enjoyed the most. You’ll be shocked by how many reporters will respond to a quick congratulatory note. Tip: Don’t half-ass this step. If you didn’t really read it and aren’t familiar with their work at all, don’t do this.
Follow best email marketing practices (especially with your subject line). Your subject line will most likely mean the difference between making contact with the journalist. Make it count. You’ll need to catch the reporter’s attention in an overflowing inbox.
Keep the email short. Remove at least one sentence from whatever you wrote...
NEVER include attachments.
When they respond, tell them what you do and let them know you’d love to help with any stories they have coming up if they relate to what you do.
Try to get quoted on timely topics. Once you’ve made initial contact, email them when breaking news happens and give your own unique perspective. Keep it short and sweet.
Include a short bio (& a link to your longer one with a picture of you) in the message. This will save them from having to get more information from you if they’re on a tight deadline to get a story out.
Stay on top of "What’s Hot" in your industry so that you can proactively pitch. Pitch yourself as an expert source or figure out a way to work your company into the pitch. There are a bunch of good sites that can help you with this:

Google Trends or Trendistic to see what’s hot right now
Google Alerts (free) or Giga Alert (small subscription fee but a bit more comprehensive) to monitor activity based on specific topics (i.e. “content marketing” or “Facebook advertising”).
And for our industry: Hacker News and Pinboard’s Popular section help me to find stories that might not have hit the mainstream yet. It’s important to not forget to step outside of your bubble on a daily basis.

Working the Phones

Don Draper Quote

If you’re not a phone person, you’ll need to learn how to muscle through it or at least “fake it until you make it." Some reporters prefer email communication, while others prefer the phone (especially if they’re in a hurry to gather a lot of information).
Know what you’re talking about. I can’t stress the importance of this one enough. You won’t be able to look things up while you’re on the phone (at least, not discreetly). Prepare before any calls to ensure you really know the topic inside and out.
Be energetic and positive. Tip: It might sound corny, but smiling while you’re on the phone automatically makes you sound friendlier. Being likeable can make a reporter more comfortable reaching out to you for help on future stories. If you had a choice between talking to a miserable person or a happy one (all things being equal), who would you choose? I thought so...
Always tell the reporter something unusual or unexpected that will make you stick out and guarantee you end up in their story. We live in a 140-character, sound-bite driven world. Remember this...
Be definitive. Have a clear opinion on the subject. This is going to help them get that quote they need.

Growing Your Relationships

Dale Carnegie Quote

A strong relationship with just one reporter can be invaluable. Treat each of these relationships like gold, and you can count on coverage for years. I have been in more than 30 stories in USA Today, mostly in the same reporter’s articles (and the others were from people he introduced me to at the paper). This one relationship that I cultivated was one of the most valuable assets early in my career.
Be adaptable. Some opportunities may not be exactly what you’re after, but being flexible and able to accommodate a reporter’s story in spite of this (and still work your message in somehow!) will position you as a dependable source.
Always go above and beyond. After a call or interview, send follow up info such as links, supporting materials, etc. Few things will make you stand out in a reporter’s mind more than making his or her job easier.
Pitch ideas. As journalism moves into a purely online form, journalists are competing more than ever for original stories. Again, making a reporter’s work easier will make you stand out. Come up with story ideas for them in which you can also offer your expertise (and work your message in).
Send a thank you note after an interview reminding the reporter you’re eager to help with anything in the future.

Social media makes all of the above much easier and effective...

Use LinkedIn

Reid Hoffman Quote

Once you’ve established contact, add the reporters you’re targeting as connections on LinkedIn.
Use the import tool to find reporters with whom you’ve already emailed back and forth.
Always send a personalized message when adding a new contact. Make it original; don’t use the default greetings supplied by LinkedIn. ;Tip: DON’T select that you were colleagues at your company (this is the quickest way to make sure someone won’t add you as a connection - journalist or not).
Understand how journalists use LinkedIn.
Optimize your profile so you can be found by reporters looking for a source: use keywords in your title, summary, and throughout your past job descriptions.
Be approachable. Make it clear in your summary you’re open to press contacts or mention publications you’ve appeared in.
Include all of your contact information in your profile: phone numbers, email, social profiles, office location, etc.
Make your profile public so you’ll show up in search results even if you’re not someone’s 2nd- or 3rd- degree connection.
Additionally, a public profile allows non-connections to see your contact info. This allows direct access to contacting you without being in your network.
Add your Skills & Expertise to your profile. These are easily searchable and are a quick way for reporters to find possible sources.
Influencers can “rank” on the Skills & Expertise page. Some of the best ways to rank for a certain skill include joining (and participating in) groups around that skill and following related companies for that skill.
Be active on LinkedIn Answers to position yourself as an expert on a given topic. Experts are featured on each topic’s Answers page. You can also display your Expert topics on your profile.
Subscribe to the RSS feed for the Answers topics you want to become an “expert” in; this will save you from checking back for new questions.
Customize your LinkedIn Today page. This news aggregator features the most popular content being shared on LinkedIn and Twitter, grouped by industry. It automatically shows you headlines based on your profession, but you can select which topics you want to see headlines from and even follow specific publications.
By studying what’s popular on LinkedIn Today, you can get a good idea of which publications are highly shareable among certain professional crowds. Consider targeting some these publications if people in your company’s target industry are sharing from them often.

Use Twitter

Biz Stone Quote

Follow all of the reporters you’re targeting. Here’s a good list of journalists on Twitter.
For help finding journalists on Twitter from a specific publication, use the Muckrack directory.
Create a Twitter list of these reporters so you can easily keep up with them in a separate stream. Remember, lists can be made private, so only you can see them and the people listed don’t know they’re listed.
Share their stuff. Don’t just hit the retweet button, but add a few words of your thoughts on their piece when you share a link to their story. This will help you stand out to really popular reporters who get hundreds of tweets.
Attribute a reporter with an @mention anytime you share a link to his or her story.
Don’t forget to make local connections. Use LocalTweeps to find reporters in your area.
Track (and participate in) journalism-related hashtags. A few include: #journchat (weekly chat among journalists, Mondays at 8 p.m. EST), #haro (“help a reporter out," used by journalists looking for sources), and #ddj (data-driven journalism topics)
Be there when a reporter needs help right away. Follow @profnet to see reporter needs based on deadline times, and @helpareporter specifies immediate needs by placing “URGHARO” at the beginning of tweets.

Use Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg Quote

Understand why journalists use Facebook: to share their stories, interact with their readers, curate content and find sources.
Many journalists now allow you to subscribe to their Facebook updates, so their posts show up in your newsfeed without being their friend. Search the reporters you’re trying to connect with by name, and if they‘ve enabled the subscription option, subscribe to their posts.
Interact with them and become visible by liking and commenting on their posts.
When sharing a link to a story from a journalist you’re forming a relationship with, but you’re not yet Facebook friends, set these updates as public so anyone can see them. When a journalist views how many “shares” their story has, your post will be visible.
“Like” the pages of the publications you’re targeting. If you can’t find a publication by searching directly on Facebook, their site will most definitely have a link to their page.
Liking a page allows you to share content directly from the page. If a reporter doesn’t allow subscriptions like I mentioned above, this is the next best method for sharing their stories on Facebook.
Using Facebook Ads, you can make your company visible to reporters. Facebook Ads can target users based on where they work (like a publication you’re trying to target!).
In regards to the above, use these ads strictly for branding purposes and have them lead to more info about your company (a compelling landing page with recent news, press releases and media coverage is ideal).

Make Them Come to You (Inbound Coverage)

Seth Godin Quote

Create kick-ass content! Among many other reasons, extraordinary content can lead reporters TO you. There’s a big reason why content marketing is so hot right now (and always has been and will be). It's also one of the reasons why you constantly see people like Danny Sullivan show up in so many articles about search engines.
Conduct market research on current trends in your industry. Publish the full results, but also consider making these into easily digestible forms, like a blog post of the most interesting findings.
Also conduct surveys and opinion polls around hot (or emerging) topics in your industry.
Publish your most compelling case studies. These can be used as examples by the press when reporting on your industry.
Make all of the above into visual formats such as videos, infographics, kinectic typography. Because so many publications are online, they also need visual and/or interactive content to include in stories.
Set up your Google authorship profile to appear as a credible source and help your content stand out in the SERPs.

The Importance of Social Proof

Donald Trump Quote

Add relevant social sharing buttons to your blog that also display the number of tweets, likes, shares, etc., a post has gotten (check out this post from Kristi Hines for more about displaying social proof).
Enable comments on your blog, but also make participation easy to see by placing the number of comments at the top of each post. An added bonus of responding to all of your blog comments: it doubles the number of comments on each post.
Create a “Featured In” section on your site listing some of the publications you’ve appeared in.
List your most impressive past and upcoming speaking engagements on your site. An event inviting you to speak is proof you know your stuff.
Actively grow your following on social networks. Your Twitter followers are by no means a direct reflection of your knowledge, but a down-to-the-wire reporter who needs an authority on a topic immediately may use this to help gauge your level of expertise. Do this by following other people, sharing great content and engaging in conversations daily.
If you have a large number of email subscribers, put this number next to your sign-up section (this will also help to attract even more new subscribers!).

What to Do Once You Get Coverage

John Wooden Quote

Share it on all of your social networks.
Treat the article or post like it’s your own. Build links to it. Encourage sharing. Drive traffic to it!
Include the link in your email newsletter and/or in your signature.
Put it on your site. Start an “As Seen In” section... you’ll need it once you keep getting a ton of coverage!
Let the reporter know you’ve been driving traffic to the story. If you contribute to the success of a piece, the reporter will be more willing to talk to you again.
Most media websites have a most popular/most emailed/most shared/etc. widget on their site. Many also do round-up posts, email, Tweet, share on Facebook, etc. about the most popular stories of the day/week/month. If you help to promote your story and get in one of these spots, you will get the extra coverage.

A. B. C. (Always Be Connecting)

Zig Ziglar Quote

Actively introduce reporters, bloggers, and journalists to people who can help them out. Keep them up-to-date on the latest trends and things that you see happening. Don’t expect anything in return immediately.
Seek out guest blogging opportunities in your industry. This not only helps build your authority and gains visibility for you and your company, but also presents a chance for link building. Most blogs will allow at least a branded link within your guest post or author bio.
When you can’t actually help a reporter with a story (either you don’t have time or it’s completely outside of your expertise) refer them to someone who can. This saves the reporter time, and helps your friend. Win-win.

Measure Results

Tony Robbins Quote

Start a spreadsheet with the link to the story and columns for key metrics like: social shares, links, referral traffic, and lead generation.
Track metrics like social shares and comments. If the publications makes these number visible, this will be easy....
If they don't, you will need to track down the shares yourself. A basic search on Twitter with the link to the story will pull up all instances of shares, regardless of a link shortener being used. Plugging the URL into Topsy will show the number of tweets shared as well as the level of influence of those who shared.
Keep track of the number of links to your coverage. Using something like Open Site Explorer is the easiest way to go about it, but you can also track these by setting up a Google Alert for “link:<the story URL>”.
You can also count the number of times stories linking to your coverage were shared and commented on.
Monitor your analytics for referral traffic. Note all instances of traffic from the original story and the sites that linked to the story.
Pay attention to your organic traffic for searches leading to your site that relate to the topic discussed in your coverage.
Use tools such as Topsy (free) Trackur ($), Sprout Social ($) or Radian6 ($$) to monitor buzz across the social web.
Did you get a lot of new leads/sales after coverage? Many times, new customers will tell you themselves where they heard about you (keep track of this!). Also include a “how did you hear about us” option in your contact forms and allow space to include a source. KISSinsights is a great tool to help with this.

Steve Jobs Quote

At the end of the day, it comes down to tenacity and not being afraid to ask for something. Don't get caught up in thinking that you aren't worthy of press coverage or that a reporter doesn't want to hear from you. Just ask. The worst that someone can do is ignore you or say no. Simply by asking and actively pitching, you are ahead of the vast majority of your competitors.

With that thought in mind, if you liked this post, would you mind thumbing it up and/or leaving a comment below? I want to know, what has worked for you? Where have you found success or hit roadblocks?

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Web Site Migration Guide - Tips For SEOs

Posted: 27 Feb 2012 02:00 AM PST

Posted by Modesto Siotos

Site migrations occur now and again for a various reasons but arguably are one of those areas many SEOs and site owners alike do not feel very comfortable with. Typically, site owners want to know in advance what the impact would be, often asking for information like potential traffic loss, or even revenue loss. On the other hand, SEOs need to make sure they follow best practice and avoid common pitfalls in order to make sure traffic loss will be kept to a minimum.

Disclaimer: The suggested site migration process isn't exhaustive and certainly there are several alternative or complimentary activities, depending on the size of the web site as well as the nature of the undertaken migration. I hope that despite its length, the post will be useful to SEOs and web masters alike.

Phase 1: Establishing Objectives, Effort & Process

This is where the whole migration plan will be established taking into account the main objectives, time constrains, effort, and available resources. This phase is fundamental because if essential business objectives or required resources fail to get appropriately defined, problems may arise in the following phases. Therefore, a considerable amount of time and effort needs to be allocated in this stage.

1.1 Agree on the objectives

This is necessary because it will allow for success to be measured at a later stage on the agreed objectives. Typical objectives include:

Minimum traffic loss
Minimum ranking drops
Key rankings maintenance
Head traffic maintenance
All the above

1.2 Estimate time and effort

It is really important to have enough time in your hands, otherwise you may have to work day and night to recover those great rankings that have plummeted. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the site owners understand the challenges and the risks. Once they understand that they, it is more likely they will happily allocate the necessary time for a thorough migration.

1.3 Be honest (...and confident)

Every site migration is different. Hence previous success does not guarantee that the forthcoming migration will also be successful. It is important to make your client aware that search engines do not provide any detailed or step-by-step documentation on this topic, as otherwise they would expose their algorithms. Therefore, best practice is followed based on own and other people’s experiences. Being confident is important because clients tend to respect more an expert's authoritative opinion. This is also important because it can impact on how much the client will trust and follow the SEO's suggestions and recommendations. Be careful not to overdo it though, because if things later go wrong there will be no excuses.

1.4 Devise a thorough migration process

Although there are some general guidelines, the cornerstone is to devise a flawless process. That needs to take into consideration:

Legacy site architecture
New Site architecture
Technical limitations of both platforms

1.5 Communicate the migration plan

Once the migration process has been established it needs to be communicated to the site owner as well as to those that will implement the recommendations, usually a web development team. Each part needs to understand what they are expected to do as there is no space for mistakes, and misunderstandings could be catastrophic.

Most development agencies tend to underestimate site migrations simpl because they focus almost exclusively on getting the new site up and running. Often, they do not allocate the necessary resources required to implement and test the URL redirects from the old to the new site. It is the SEO’s responsibility to make them realise the amount of work involved, as well as strongly request the new site to move first on a test server (staging environment) so implementation can be tested in advance. No matter how well you may have planned the migration steps, some extra allocated time would always be useful as things do not always go as planned.

In order for a website migration to be successful, all involved parts need to collaborate in a timely manner merely because certain actions need to be taken at certain times. If things do not seem to go the desired way, just explain the risks ranging from ranking drops to potential revenue loss. This is certainly something no site owner wants to hear about, therefore play it as your last card and things are very likely to turn around.

1.6 Find the ideal time

No matter how proactive and organised you are, things can always go wrong. Therefore, the migration shouldn't take place during busy times for the business or when time or resources are too tight. If you're migrating a retail site, you shouldn't be taking any risks a couple of months before Christmas. Wait until January when things get really quiet. If the site falls into the travel sector, you should avoid the spring and summer months as this is when most traffic and revenue is being generated. All that needs to be communicated to the client so they make an ideal business decision. A rushed migration is not a good idea, thus if there isn't enough time to fit everything in, better (try to) postpone it for a later time.

Phase 2: Actions On The Legacy Site

There are several types of site migrations depending on what exactly changes, which usually falls under one or more of the following elements:

Hosting / IP Address
Domain name
URL structure
Site Architecture
Content
Design

The most challenging site migrations involve changes in most (or all) the above elements. However, for the purposes of this post we will only look at one of the most common and complicated cases, where a web site has undergone a radical redesign resulting in URL, site architecture and content changes. In case the hosting environment is going to change the new hosting location needs to be checked for potential issues. Whoishostingthis and Spy On Web can provide some really useful information. Attention needs to be paid also on the geographic location of the host. If that is going to change, you may need to assess the advantages/disadvantages and decide whether there is a real need for that. Moving a .co.uk web site from a UK-based server to a US one wouldn't make much sense from a performance point of view.

In case the domain name is changing you may need to consider:

Does the previous/new domain contain more/less keywords?
Are both domains on the same ccTLD? Would changing that affect rankings?

2.1: Crawl the legacy site

Using a crawler application (e.g. Xenu Link Sleuth, Screaming Frog, Integrity for Mac) crawl the legacy site making sure that redirects are being identified and reported. This is important in order to avoid redirect chains later. My favourite crawling app is Xenu Link Sleuth because it is very simple to set up and does a seamless job. All crawled URLs need to be exported because they will be processed in Excel later. The following Xenu configuration is recommended because:

The number of parallel threads is very low to avoid time outs
The high maximum depth value allows for a deep crawl of the site
Existing redirections will be captured and reported

Custom settings for site crawling with Xenu Link Sleuth

2.2 Export top pages

Exporting all URLs that have received inbound links is more than vital. This is where the largest part of the site’s link juice is to be found, or in other words, the site’s ability to rank well in the SERPs. What you do with the link juice is another question, but you certainly need to keep it into one place (file).

Open site explorer

Open Site Explorer offers a great deal of information about a site’s top pages such as:

Page Authority (PA)
Linking Root Domains
Social Signals (Facebook likes, Tweets etc.)

In the following screenshot, a few, powerful 404 pages have been detected which ideally should be 301 redirected to a relevant page on the site.

Majestic SEO

Because Open Site Explorer may haven’t crawled/discovered some recent pages, it is always worth carrying out the same exercise using Majestic SEO, either on the whole domain or the www subdomain, depending on what exactly is being migrated. Pay attention to ACRank values, pages with higher ACRank values are the most juiciest ones. Downloading a CSV file with all that data is strongly recommended.

Webmaster tools

In case you don’t have a subscription to Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO you could use Google’s Web Master Tools. Under Your Site on the Web -> Links to your site you will find Your Most Linked Content. Click on 'More' and Download the whole table into a CSV file. In terms of volume, WMT data aren’t anywhere near OSE or Majestic SEO but it is better than nothing. There are several other paid or free backlinks information services that could be used to add more depth into this activity.

Google analytics

Exporting all URLs that received at least one visit over the last 12 months through Google Analytics is an alternative way to pick up a big set of valuable indexed pages. If not 100% sure about how to do that, read this post Rand wrote a while ago.

Indexed pages in Google

Scrapping the top 500 or top 1000 indexed pages in Google for the legacy site may seem like an odd task but it does have its benefits. Using Scrapebox or the scraper extension for Chrome perform a Google search for site:www.yoursite.com and scrape the top indexed URLs. This step may seem odd but it can identify:

404 pages that are still indexed by Google
URLs that weren’t harvested in the previous steps

Again, save all these URLs in another spreadsheet.

2.3 Export 404 pages

Site migrations are great opportunities to tide things up and do some good housekeeping work. Especially with big sites, there is enormous potential to put things in order again; otherwise hundreds or even thousands of 404 pages will be reported again once the new site goes live. Some of those 404 pages may have quality links pointing to them.

These can be exported directly from Webmaster Tools under Diagnostics->Crawl Errors. Simply download the entire table as a CSV file. OSE also reports 404 pages, so exporting them may also be worthwhile. Using the SEO Moz Free API with Excel, we can figure out which of those 404 pages are worth redirecting based on metrics such as high PA, DA, mozRank and number of external links/root domains. Figuring out where to redirect each of these 404 pages can be tricky, as ideally each URL should be redirected to the most relevant page. Sometimes, this is can be "guessed" by looking for keywords in the URL. In cases that it is not possible, it is worth sending an email to the development team or the web master of the site, as they may be able to assist further.

2.4 Measure site performance

This step is necessary when there is an environment or platform change. It is often the case, that a new CMS although does a great job in terms of managing the site’s content, it does affect site performance in a negative way. Therefore, it is crucial to make some measurements before the legacy site gets switched off. If site performance deteriorates, crawling may get affected which could then affect indexation. With some evidence in place, it will be much easier building up a case later, if necessary. Although there are several tools, Pingdom seems to be a reliable one.

The most interesting stuff appears on the summary info box as well as on the Page Analysis Tab. Exporting the data, or even just getting a screenshot of the page could be valuable later. It would be worth running a performance test on some of the most typical pages e.g. a category page, a product page as well as the homepage.

Pingdom Tools Summary

Keep a record of typical loading times as well as the page size. If loading times increase whilst the size of the page remains is the same, something must have gone wrong.

Pingdom Page Analysis Tab

Running a Web Page Test would also be wise so site performance data are cross-referenced across two services just to make sure the results are consistent.

The same exercises should be repeated once the new site is on the test server as well as when it finally goes live. Any serious performance issues need to be reported back to the client so they get resolved.

2.5 Measure rankings

This step should ideally take place just before the new site goes live. Saving a detailed rankings report, which contains as many keywords as possible, is very important so it can be used as a benchmark for later comparisons. Apart from current positions it would be wise to keep a record of the ranking URLs too. Measuring rankings can be tricky though, and a reliable method needs to be followed. Chrome's Google Global extension and SEO SERP are two handy extensions for checking a few core keywords. With the former, you can see how rankings appear in different countries and cities, whilst the latter is quicker and does keep historical records. For a large number of keywords, proprietary or paid automated services should be used in order to save time. Some of the most popular commercial rank checkers include Advanced Web Ranking, Web CEO and SEO Powersuite to name a few.

With Google Global extension for Chrome you can monitor how results appear in different countries, regions and cities.

Phase 3: URL Redirect Mapping

During this phase, pages (URLs) of the legacy site need to be mapped to pages (URLs) on the new site. For those pages where the URL remains the same there is nothing to worry about, provided that the amount of content on the new page hasn’t been significantly changed or reduced. This activity requires a great deal of attention, otherwise things can go terribly wrong. Depending on the size of the site, the URL mapping process can be done manually, which can be very time consuming, or automation can often be introduced to speed things up. However, saving up on time should not affect the quality of the work.

Even though there isn't any magic recipe, the main principle is that ALL unique, useful or authoritative pages (URLs) of the legacy site should redirect to pages with the same or very relevant content on the new site, using 301 redirects. Always make sure that redirects are implemented using 301 redirects (permanent ) that pass most link equity from the old to the new page (site). The use of 302 (temporary) redirects IS NOT recommended because search engines treat them inconsistently and in most cases do not pass link equity, often resulting in drastic ranking drops.

It’s worth stressing that pages with high traffic need extra attention but the bottom line is that every URL matters. By redirecting only a percentage of the URLs of the legacy site you may jeopardise the new domain’s authority as a whole, because it may appear to search engines as a weaker domain in terms of link equity.

URL Mapping Process (Step-by-step)

Drop all legacy URLs, which were identified and saved in the CSV files earlier (during phase 2), into a new spreadsheet (let's call it SpreadSheet1).
Remove all duplicate URLs using Excel.
Populate the page titles using the SEO for excel tool.
Using SEO for Excel, check the server response headers. All 404 pages should be kept into a different tab so all remaining URLs are those with a 200 server response.
In a new Excel spreadsheet (let's call it SpreadSheet2) drop all URLs of the new site (using a crawler application).
Pull in the page titles for all these URLs as in step 3.
Using the VLOOKUP Excel function, match URLs between the two spreadsheets
Matched URLs (if any) should be removed from SpreadSheet1 as they already exist on the new site and do not need to be redirected.
The 404 pages which were moved into a separate worksheet in step 4, need to be evaluated for potential link juice. There are several ways to make this assessment but the most reliable ones are:
- SEO Moz API (e.g. using the handy Excel extension SEO Moz Free API)
- Majestic SEO API
Depending on how many “juicy” URLs were identified in the previous step, a reasonable part of them needs to be added into Spreadsheet1.
Ideally, all remaining URLs in SpreadSheet1 need to be 301 redirected. A new column (e.g. Destination URLs) needs to be added in SpreadSheet 1 and populated with URLs from the new site. Depending on the number of URLs to be mapped this can be done:
- Manually – By looking at the content of the old URL, the equivalent page on the new site needs to be found so the URL gets added in the Destination URLs column.
  1. If no identical page can be found, just chose the most relevant one (e.g. similar product page, parent page etc.)
  2. If the page has no content pay attention to its page title (if known or still cached by Google) or/and URL for keywords which should give you a clue about its previous content. Then, try to find a relevant page on the new site; that would be the mapping URL.
  3. If there is no content, no keywords in the URL and no descriptive page title, try to find out from the site owners what those URLs used to be about.
- Automatically - By writing a script that maps URLs based on page titles, meta description or URL patterns matching.
Search for duplicate entries again in the ‘old URLs’ row and remove the entire row.
Where patterns can be identified, pattern matching rules using regular expressions are always more preferable because that would reduce the web server's load. Ending up with thousands one-to-one redirects is not ideal and should be avoided, especially if there is a better solution.

Phase 4: New Site On Test Server

Because human errors do occur, testing that everything has gone as planned is extremely important. Unfortunately, because the migration responsibility falls mainly on the shoulders of the SEO, several checks need to be carried out.

4.1 Block crawler access

The first and foremost thing to do is to make sure that the test environment is not accessible to any search engine crawler. There are several ways to achieve that but some are better than others.

Block access in robots.txt (not recommended)

This is not recommended because Google would still crawl the site and possibly index the URLs (but not the content). This implementation also runs the risk of going live if all files on the test server are going to be mirrored on the live one. The following two lines of code will restrict search engines access to the website:

_{User-Agent: *
Disallow: /}

Add a meta robots noindex to all pages (not recommended)

This is recommended by Google as a way to entirely prevent a page's contents from being indexed.

^{<html>
<head>
<title>...</title>
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
</head>}

The main reason this is not recommended is because it runs the risk to be pushed to the live environment and remove all pages out of the search engines' index. Unfortunately, web developers' focus is on other things when a new site goes live and by the time you notice such a mistake, it may be a bit late. In many cases, removing the noindex after the site has gone live can take several days, or even weeks depending on how quickly technical issues are being resolved within an organisation. Usually, the bigger the business, the longer it takes as several people would be involved.

Password-protect the test environment (recommended)

This is a very efficient solution but it may cause some issues. Trying to crawl a password protected website is a challenge and not many crawler applications have the ability to achieve this. Xenu Links Sleuth can crawl password-protected sites.

Allow access to certain IP addresses (recommended)

This way, the web server allows access to specific external IP addresses e.g. that of the SEO agency. Access to search engine crawlers is restricted and there are no indexation risks.

4.2 Prepare a Robots.txt file

That could be a fairly basic one, allowing access to all crawlers and indicating the path to the XML sitemap such as:

_{User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml}

However, certain parts of the site could be excluded, particularly if the legacy site has duplicate content issues. For instance, internal search, pagination, or faceted navigation are often generating multiple URLs with the same content. This is a great opportunity to deal with legacy issues, so search engine crawling of the website can become more efficient. Saving up on crawl bandwidth will allow search engine to crawl only those URLs which are worthy of being indexed. That means that deep pages would stand a better chance to be found and rank quicker.

4.3 Prepare XML sitemap(s)

Using your favourite tool, generate an XML sitemap, ideally containing HTML pages only. Xenu again does a great job because it easily generate XML sitemaps containing only HTML pages. For large web sites, generating multiple XML sitemaps for the different parts of the site would be a much better option so indexation issues could be easier identified later. The XML sitemap(s) should then be tested again for broken links before the site goes live.

_{Source: blogstorm.co.uk}

Google Webmaster Tools allow users to test XML sitemaps before they get submitted. This is something worth doing in order to identify errors.

4.4 Prepare HTML sitemap

Even though the XML sitemap alone should be enough to let search engines know about the URLs on the new site, implementing an HTML sitemap could help search engine spiders make a deep crawl of the site. The sooner the new URLs get crawled, the better. Again, check the HTML sitemap for broken links using Check My Links (Chrome) or Simple Links Counter (Firefox).

4.5 Fix broken links

Run the crawler application again as more internal/external broken links, (never trust a) 302 redirects, or other issues may get detected.

4.6 Check 301 redirects

This is the most important step of this phase and it may need to be repeated more than once. All URLs to be redirected should be checked. If you do not have direct access to the server one way to check the 301 redirects is by using Xenu's Check URL List feature. Alternatively, Screaming Frog's list view can be used in a similar manner. These applications will report whether 301s are in place or not, but not if the destination URL is the correct one. That could only be done in Excel using the VLOOKUP function.

4.7 Optimise redirects

If time allows, the list of redirects needs to be optimised for optimal performance. Because the redirects are loaded into the web server's memory when the server starts, a high number of redirects can have a negative impact on performance. Similarly, each time a page request is being made, the web server will compare that against the redirects list. Thus, the shorter the list, the quicker the web server will respond. Even though such performance issues can be compensated by increasing the web server's resources, it is always best practice to work out pattern matching rules using regular expressions, which can cover hundreds or even thousands of possible requests.

4.8 Resolve duplicate content issues

Duplicate content issues should be identified and resolved as early as possible. A few common cases of duplicate content may occur, regardless of what was happening previously on the legacy web site. URL normalisation at this stage will allow for optimal site crawling, as search engines will come across as many unique pages as possible. Such cases include:

Directories with and without a trailing slash (e.g. this URL should redirect to that).
Default directory indexes (e.g. this URL should redirect to that).
Case in URLs. (e.g. this URL should redirect to that, or just return the 404 error page like this as opposed to that, which is the canonical one).
Different protocols. The most typical example is when a website is accessible via http and https. (e.g. this URL should redirect to that). However, this type of redirect needs attention as some URLs may need to exist only on https. Added Feb 26
Accessible IP addresses. Being able to access a website by requesting its IP address can cause duplicate content issues. (e.g. this URL should redirect to that). Added Feb 26
URLs on different host domains e.g. www.examplesite.com and examplesite.com (e.g. this URL should redirect to that).
Internal search generating duplicate pages under different URLs.
URLs with added parameters after the ? character.

In all the above examples, poor URL normalisation results in duplicate pages that will have a negative impact on:

Crawl bandwidth (search engine crawlers will be crawling redundant pages).
Indexation (as search engines try to remove duplicate pages from their indexes).
Link equity (as it will be diluted amongst the duplicate pages).

4.9 Site & Robots.txt monitoring

Make sure the URL of the new site is monitored using a service like Uptime Robot. Each time the site is down for whatever reason, Uptime Robot will be notified by email, Twitter DM, or even SMS. Another useful service to set up a robots.txt monitoring service such as Robotto. Each time the robots.txt file gets updated you get notified, which is really handy.

Uptime Robot logs all server up/down time events

Phase 5: New Site Goes Live

Finally the new site has gone live. Depending on the authority, link equity and size of the site Google should start crawling the site fairly quickly. However, do not expect the SERPs to be updated instantly. The new pages and URLs will be updated in the SERPs over a period of time, which typically can take from two to four weeks. For pages that seem to take ages to get indexed it may be worth using a ping service like Pingler.

5.1 Notify Google via Webmaster Tools

If the domain name changes, you need to notify Google via the Webmaster Tools account of the old site, as soon as the new site goes live. In order to do that, the new domain needs to be added and verified. If the domain name remains the same, Google will find its way to the new URLs sooner or later. That mainly depends on the domain authority of the site and how frequently Google visits it. It would also be a very good idea to upload the XML sitemap via Webmaster Tools so the indexation process can be monitored (see phase 6).

5.2 Manual checks

No matter how well everything appeared on the test server, several checks need to be carried out and running the crawler application again is the first thing to do. Pay attention for:

Anomalies in the robots.txt file
Meta robots noindex tags in the <head> section of the HTML source code
Meta robots nofollow tags in the source code
302 redirects. 301 redirects should be used instead as 302s are treated inconsistently by search engines and do not pass link equity
Check Webmaster Tools for errors messages
Check XML sitemap for errors (e.g. broken links, internal 301s)
Check HTML sitemap for similar errors (e.g. using Simple Links Counter or Check My Links)
Missing or not properly migrated page titles
Missing or not properly migrated meta descriptions
Make sure that the 404 page returns a 404 server response
Make sure the analytics tracking code is present on all pages and is tracking correctly
Measure new site performance and compare it with that of the previous site

Using Httpfox, a 302 redirect has been detected

5.3 Monitor crawl errors

Google Webmaster tools, Bing Webmaster Tools and Yandex Webmaster all report crawl errors and is certainly worth checking often during the first days or even weeks. Pay attention to reported errors and dates and always try figure out what has been caused by the new site or the legacy one.

5.4 Update most valuable inbound links

From the CSV files created in step 3.2, figure out which are the most valuable inbound links (using Majestic or OSE data) and then try to contact the web masters of those sites, requesting a URL update. Direct links pass more value than 301 redirects and this time-consuming task will eventually pay back. On the new site, check the inbound links and top pages tabs of OSE and try to identify new opportunities such as:

Links from high authority sites which are being redirected.
High authority 404 pages which should be redirected so the link juice flows to the site.

In the following example, followed and 301 external links have been downloaded in a CSV file.

Pay attention to the '301' columns for cells with the Yes value. Trying to update as many of these URLs as possible so the point directly to the site would pass more link equity to the site:

Identify the most authoritative links and contact website owners to update them so they point to the new URL

5.5 Build fresh links

Generating new, fresh links to the homepage, category and sub-category pages is a good idea because:

With 301 redirects some link juice may get lost, thus new links can compensate for that.
They can act as extra paths for search engine spiders to crawl the site.

5.6 Eliminate internal 301 redirects

Although Web masters are quite keen on implementing 301 redirects, they often do not show the same interest updating the onsite URLs so internal redirects do not occur. Depending on the volume and frequency of internal 301 redirects, some link juice may evaporate, whilst the redirects will unnecessarily add an extra load to the web server. Again, in order to detect internal 301 redirects, crawling the site would be handy.

Phase 6: Measure Impact/Success

Once the new site gas finally gone live, the impact of all the previous hard work needs to be monitored. It may be a good idea monitoring rankings and indexation on a weekly basis but in general no conclusions should be made earlier than 3-4 weeks. No matter how good or bad rankings and traffic appear to be, you need to be patient. A deep crawl can take time, depending on the site's size, architecture and internal linking. Things to be looking at:

Indexation. Submitted and indexed number of URLs reported by Webmaster Tools (see below)
Rankings. They usually fluxuate for 1-3 weeks and initially they may drop. Eventually, they should recover around the same positions they were previously (or just about).
Open site explorer metrics. Although they do not get updated daily, it is worth keeping an eye on reported figures for Domain Authority, Page Authority and MozRank on a monthly basis. Ideally, the figures should be as close as possible to those of the old site within a couple of months. If not, that is not a very good indication and you may have lost some link equity along the way.
Google cache. Check the timestamps of cached pages for different page types e.g. homepage, category pages, product pages.
Site performance in Webmaster Tools. This one may take a few weeks until it gets updated but it is very useful to know how Google perceives site performance before and after the migration. Any spikes that stand out need should alarm the web master and several suggestions can be made e.g. using Yslow and Page Speed in Firefox or Page Speed and Speed Tracer in Chrome.

Check site performance in Webmaster Tools for unusual post migration anomalies

Indexation of web pages, images and videos can be monitored in Google Webmaster Tools

Appendix: Site Migration & SEO Useful Tools

Some of the following tools would be very handy during the migration process, for different reasons.

Crawler applications

Xenu Link Sleuth (free)
Analog X Link Examiner (free)
Screaming Frog (paid)
Integrity (For MAC - free)

Scraper applications

Scraper Extension for Chrome
Scrapebox (paid)

Link Intelligence software

Open Site Explorer (free & paid)
Majestic SEO (free & paid)

HTTP Analysers

HTTP Fox (Firefox)
Live HTTP Headers (Firefox)

IP checkers

Show IP (Firefox)
WorldIP (Firefox)
Website IP (Chrome)

Link checkers

Simple Links Counter (Firefox)
Check My Links (Chrome)

Monitoring tools

Uptime Robot (monitors domains for downtime)
Robotto (monitors robots.txt)

Rank checkers

Google Global (Chrome)
SEO SERP (Chrome)
SEO Book Rank Checker (Firefox)

Site performance analysis

Yslow (Firefox)
Page Speed (for Firefox)
Page Speed (for Chrome)
|Speed Tracer (Chrome)

About the author

Modesto Siotos (@macmodi) works as a Senior Natural Search Analyst for iCrossing UK, where he focuses on technical SEO issues, link tactics and content strategy. His move from web development into SEO was a trip with no return, and he is grateful to have worked with some SEO legends. Modesto is happy to share his experiences with others and writes regularly for a digital marketing blog.This is his first post for SEOmoz.

Your Daily Snapshot for
Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Stepping Up When Duty Called

President Obama invited six special senior citizens to visit the White House to honor as unsung heroes, in recognition of Black History Month. These individuals strengthen their communities through extraordinary everyday acts of service -- reliably committed, but seldom recognized.

Watch our interviews with these six amazing Americans in "Honoring Unsung Heroes":