Webmaster Column - Office News - No 5: Websites transfer
The Webmaster Serie
Hello
How was the first quarter of 2024? For the W+M office, the month of April involved administrative operations for the company that took place gradually within the month. Like the implementation of the new W+M Raspberry Branding, the programming of the information web pages (policies and confidentiality, subscription and membership process, addition of an About page) as well as the necessary operations of updating information in the corporate paperwork.
Since all that remained was to write a final article on the transfer of a website to a new hosting, I decided to dedicate this May Webmaster column to this. Here's this Office News topic: websites transfer.
I don't know about you, I'm a super tennis fan and this image of the office with a tennis racket during the month of Roland-Garros is my favorite of the year!
The webmaster column on the daily management of websites, Office News, presents: 2024-05, websites transfer.
Prepare the reception of the site on the new hosting provider
Here, I'm using the transfer of a website to the Squarespace hosting creation system. No matter which hosting system you receive, such as Wix, WordPress or others, the steps to follow once your site has arrived on the hosting system are pretty much the same and beginners' information is easily found in the hosts' information and FAQ databases.
Like an apartment…
Cleaning before you leave
Before I do the site transfer, if it's a transfer I need to make, I always go through the image libraries, downloaded PDFs, and other documents to clean up. I don't like to drag material that is no longer online and lying around libraries, for example, to the new platform. I do the same if there are databases of customers, blog posts, and store inventory that have only been one color size left for 11 months. I'm also thinking of checking the groupings, tags and categories to revise, update and rename what is overdue.
Check-in rounds on arrival
Once the back-end portion of the site has been transferred to the new location, I go around again to make sure that everything on the front-end side is compliant. For the past few years, it is mainly the SEO content in articles that are more than 4 to 5 years old that I check a lot, since some hosting packages we’re not including SEO function at that time; some portions of SEO settings don't transfer correctly, or simply don't. It is then necessary to redo partial transfers or question the importance of referencing aged content on the new site.
Digital Marketing strategies to know
And there you have it, we have a www.domainesomething.com domain, and we have a hosting package purchased on a website platform. Whether you're starting from blank pages to edit, or you've just transferred an existing website to a new platform, there are other details to check before putting the new site online, or as soon as the site is released, but not yet announced.
To strengthen your virtual presence, I invite you to ensure the following actions have been carried out on the programming and representation side of your new site. Let me make a list:
Checking the general SEO tools of your website and filling in definitions, company name and contact details. Also, take the time to fill out the SEO sections of each of your pages. Over time, you will be able to optimize your SEO by adding content to a blog, for example, an item gallery or a catalog.
Put your images and logos in the visual ID settings, Favicons and social sharing sections.
Link your social accounts to your website and use social display icons. Position them at the top of the page, in the Header or Footer section depending on the need to transfer your visitors to your social networks to increase the number of your followers, or at the bottom of the page if your goal is to highlight visits to other sections on your website and promote your own email subscription, for example.
Register your business in Google for Business tools (the new Yellow Pages in Quebec) and your new website on the Google Search Console. There is also the Bing Webmaster Tools.
Make sure the weight of your images is not too heavy. Resize the large images, you know the one of the sizes of a cinema screen if they were printed. Usually for the web, it's rare to really need an image of more than 2500 pixels wide. For weight, we are looking for an image of less than 700 KB.
Limit heavy setups to one per page, like rotating image galleries, article suggestion sections, etc. The number of programmable blocks is also limited to less than 60-70 blocks per page. Regarding the Infinite scrolling option, I just want to add there is a certain limit to scroll down a page before seeing the footer, which many visitors want to see. Let’s say after 4 or 5 scroll downs, it’s pretty much enough. Don’t need to go down to Japan to see the Index.
Ideally, we don't want a page download time of more than 3 seconds or even 3 seconds, it's very slow for Internet users, especially on mobile; Half of them have already closed the window after 1.5 seconds or gone back to the next search result. It is possible to check the size of your pages and the download speed with PingDom.com by entering the URL: https://tools.pingdom.com/. There are also other website verification tools.
Remember to test and visit your site on all devices - laptop, tablet and mobile
Once the site has been well edited, tested and verified, I then plan the announcement of the launch via all communication distribution channels: social media, emails to members and customers, writing a blog post, press release and a paid marketing campaign, if necessary.
Have a great launch and here is an article to give ideas for announcing your new site: Annonce du lancement d’un site Internet : Faites-le dans le cadre de votre lancement, (in French for Announcing a Website Launch: Do it as part of your launch).
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Hey Marketers,
Did you find this Peach Guy in the head picture of the article?
Yep! Look carefully to find all Color Fruit Family members in the Office News Chronicles.
Conclusion
You know, sometimes I feel like I'm just composing conclusions... Yes, there are parts of texts in digital writing that are often repetitive, due to sales and SEO techniques.
This question of homogeneity on the web has been raised for several years and Google, for example, via new tools for studying the overall and general content of web pages rather than prioritizing certain elements and techniques of referencing, will be a good way to allow a return to personalized display without penalizing the indexation on Search tools. It could be a next topic of a webmaster column, isn't it? I'm putting this on the agenda!
See you
Jeff
Sources:
Annonce du lancement d’un site Internet : Faites-le dans le cadre de votre lancement, French article from Ruben Rogers for SEOptimer. (Announcing a Website Launch: Do it as part of your launch).
PingDom.com page weight and download speed checking tools: https://tools.pingdom.com/.
Business registering tools: Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Cr Images: W+M Services
Music Theme: Florinda by JM Musique
Production: W+M Services
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Websites - creation, management and design
I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I'm Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
Although I know programming for website building, I delegate programming tasks to a senior level by intermediary internal department to ensure a better price for my clients.
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