Challenge
We were working with a client who had 5 websites that all sold relatively the same products. They wanted to create a new brand from these 5 websites and maintain the link power and rankings from those domains.
Client Goals:
- Combine incrediblebag.com, ovenhot.com, ultimatepizzabag.com, mealsonwheelsbags.com and aplusbags.com into 1 site
- Double the sales from those 5 sites
- Create a new brand
- Don’t lose any SEO advantages from the 5 sites
Solution
Merging five websites into one is a significant undertaking that requires careful planning and execution to ensure a smooth transition. Here are some of the things that we did:
- We assisted our client in purchasing the domain name: incrediblebags.com
- We identified the target audience for the consolidated website and tailored the content and design to meet their needs.
- We conducted a thorough audit of content on all five websites. Identified high-quality, relevant content that should be retained.
- We implemented 301 redirects from old URLs to the corresponding pages on the new website. This preserves search engine rankings and ensures a seamless user experience.
- Normally, we do this as we transition an old WordPress site to a new one or an old Shopify store to a new domain. One of the hurdles for this project was that two of the sites were Shopify sites and three were Volusion sites, so we had to figure out how to set up the 301 redirects outside of the normal htaccess method.
Our solution ended up being simple. We decided to host all 5 domains on one single account, where each domain would have a script created on that server’s settings to follow the 301 redirects we set up for each domain. That seemed to do the trick! You want to verify through Search Console that you didn’t miss anything.
- Normally, we do this as we transition an old WordPress site to a new one or an old Shopify store to a new domain. One of the hurdles for this project was that two of the sites were Shopify sites and three were Volusion sites, so we had to figure out how to set up the 301 redirects outside of the normal htaccess method.
- Preserve the SEO value of the existing sites by carrying over meta tags, descriptions, and other relevant SEO elements.
- We updated Google Analytics, Google Search Console and other tracking tools with the new website information. We continued to regularly monitor site performance, user behavior, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Note: The new brand was created by a partner branding agency.
Outcome
The new brand, Incredible Bags has been a huge success. The site traffic and keywords ranked for has increased and the sales have been better than the five sites combined.
This was a large undertaking as we had to map out several thousand URL’s to new corresponding pages on the new site. Also, the issue with the domains not being on the same platform was a hurdle we had to overcome.
We were thrilled that this project turned out the way it did, as this is a unique situation that is rare to come across.
