Cragun’s Resort, a leading lake resort in Brainerd, Minnesota was planning to undergo a website redesign and migration. The resort relies heavily on their website as a primary driver of reservations, weddings and conferences.
When proper steps are not taken during a this sort of transition, companies have seen a loss of up to 70% in organic search traffic post-migration.
With organic traffic accounting for a significant portion of Cragun’s total website traffic, it was vital that organic rankings were maintained during and after the migration.
TopRank Marketing built a plan focused on two objectives:
- Mitigate keyword ranking and organic traffic loss post-migration
- Guide design and navigation of new website for optimal user experience and SEO best practices
Action Plan
TopRank Marketing developed a pre- and post-migration plan designed to ensure a successful transition.
Pre-migration actions
- Developed and guided critical-to-launch steps & best practices
- Identified the most important external and internal links
- Identified on-page corrections and indicated recommendations
Post-migration actions
- Closely monitored technical health and organic ranking to ensure proper indexing of new site
- Immediately identified risk points including server errors and site speed performance of new site
- Provided on-page optimization of newly added pages
- Guided the correction of duplicated content and 404/page not found errors
Results
Due to team diligence in immediately addressing pre- and post-launch migration recommendations, the site saw a 46% increase in organic traffic year-over-year.
When a migration initiative is properly implemented, a typical site can experience an average decrease in organic traffic of about 5-10% during the first few months post-launch. Cragun’s Resort experienced traffic increases on numerous priority pages.
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