A website is essential for any business, no matter how small or large. The domain name is the primary anchor point for all marketing operations, particularly digital marketing initiatives, which normally direct consumers to the website. That is why the website and domain name are the most significant components of a comprehensive marketing and communication plan. Businesses in Dubai and throughout Dubai invest heavily in digital marketing and their websites. The website has many sources of traffic; the more traffic there is, the more leads and conversions the firm can generate. There are various marketing channels that can drive website visitors. One of the most significant digital marketing channels is SEO, or search engine optimization. SEO considerably assists organizations in acquiring significant website traffic from their target demographic; this traffic is completely free and is also known as organic traffic. Organic traffic typically accounts for over 70% of a corporate website's total traffic. This makes it the single largest source of website traffic.
When a business decides to change its domain name for any reason, the first thing that comes to mind is how it will affect your present traffic and, more significantly, how it will affect the business and online leads and conversions. One thing is certain: changing domain names can impact your website traffic and may completely interrupt your online lead generation funnel. A web design company dubai reviews some SEO fundamentals before we begin.
What is SEO, and how does it work?
SEO, or search engine optimization, is a set of methods and techniques that a business or website manager uses to improve traffic to a website. Website traffic has a direct impact on your online leads and conversions. To increase their SEO, businesses typically hire expert SEO professionals or outsource it to a third-party provider, such as RSI Concepts. Search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo analyze websites first and then score them based on their quality, reputation, authenticity, and relevance to a search phrase or topic. A keyword or keyphrase refers to a searchable word or topic. Google is the most dominant search engine, accounting for about 96% of Dubai search market share, and all other search engines adhere to the same set of standards; therefore, we will concentrate on Google. Google and other search engines have automated software programs that continuously monitor the internet and online data repositories to collect data from webpages and measure various criteria.
The search engine then does a thorough review of the website's content, quality, backlink profiles, referrals, and source code. The search engine takes into account user experience, consumer journey, and social media presence, among other factors. Using all of this information, the search engine rates and ranks a web page. When someone searches Google for the product or service you are offering, or even your business, Google pulls out all of the relevant pages and prepares the results (SERP), with the most relevant website with the best quality of content and a solid SEO rating appearing first. The top three to five websites on the SERP (search engine result page) could receive more than 70% of all clicks. That is how search engines work, and this is how a corporate website may produce important website traffic through SEO.
What is SEO, and how does it work?
How will changing your domain name influence your website's traffic and SEO?
The domain name is the website URL that we enter into our browser (Chrome, Safari, Microsoft Edge, etc.) to access the site. For example, to reach the Google search engine page, put www.google.com into your web browser. Three primary components comprise the domain name: the subdomain [www.], the actual name [google], and the TLD (Top Level Domain) or domain extension [.com]. Another critical component is the protocol, which can be http:// or https://. Most people in Dubai and throughout Dubai believe that changing a domain name simply means changing the name, which in our case is Google. However, this is not true; any change in protocol, subdomain, actual name, or TLD is considered a domain name change.
How will changing your domain name influence your website's traffic and SEO?
For example, if we keep google.com but change www to ww2 or anything else, or if we keep the www and google but change.com to.net or else, the search engine will treat it as an entirely other domain. Here are some of the most common examples of domain changes.
Let's say you already have a robust digital profile, which includes social media shares, backlinks, and bookmarks. If you make an incorrect domain name change, you could potentially lose it all. Your prior social media sharing will result in a broken page, which Google will also mark as broken. This means you could lose between 80% and 90% of your organic, referral, and social media traffic. Which might be disastrous. Therefore, professional domain name changes are necessary to prevent harm to website traffic and SEO.
Here are the steps to change domain names without affecting SEO
We've already examined the domain name and how search engines perceive domain name changes. We also discussed the potentially disastrous effects on website traffic and rankings if the domain name change is not handled appropriately. Here are some actions you should take to change your domain name without harming your SEO or losing vital website traffic:
- Carefully choose a new domain name
It is fairly typical for digital marketing managers and business owners to obtain an older domain name and link it to their website in order to gain additional SEO benefits due to the domain age. In some situations, this may be quite useful, but it is critical to thoroughly investigate the history of that domain name and do a full-scale audit before purchasing it. Several internet tools and SEO analytical platforms can supply you with the domain name's history, DA (domain authority), PA (page authority), and spam score. A backlink investigation is also critical. If you purchase a domain name that is four years old, has a respectable DA and PA, and an acceptable spam score, but the backlinks originate from dubious or spammy websites, it could significantly damage your existing SEO. If you choose a brand new domain name, there is no need to be concerned about history or anything else.
- Moving the website to the new domain
There are various options for migrating your website to the new domain. Because we're dealing with corporate and business websites, we want to keep downtime to a minimum. The best option is to upload and configure your website on a new server or hosting, then bring down the old domain and point the new domain name to the new server. This could reduce the downtime to nearly nothing. Pointing a domain involves amending the domain registry and other information in the domain registrar's control panel. Domain registrars or the technical staff should complete the process. A qualified web designer or developer should be able to do it. Alternatively, you can maintain the website in its current hosting location and redirect it to the new domain name. This can take anywhere from a few hours to three days, depending on your service provider.
- Setting up redirects from your old domain and URLs to the new domain and URLs
One of the most crucial things that most organizations miss is adding redirects to all URLs. Typically, organizations redirect the main domain name, leaving internal pages and links unaltered. This not only negatively impacts SEO, but also prompts visitors to click on outdated URLs, resulting in broken or unavailable pages, thereby negatively impacting the user experience. Here are some examples of effective redirection strategies:
We have changed oldname.com/about and oldname.com/services to www.newname.com/about and services, respectively.
Apply the same method to each internal page individually. You can contact your domain registrar or hosting service provider about this. They'll help you with the task. Alternatively, you can employ a professional web designer or developer to handle the redirects for you. It is also critical that your new website only has one version, with or without www.newname.com. Nowadays, HTTPS is almost an industry norm. Make sure your new site uses HTTPS like your old one. If the prior site did not have HTTPS, we recommend that you obtain an SSL certificate to enable HTTPS for your new domain name.
We are redirecting your old domain and URLs to the new ones
Make sure the redirects also apply to your blog or other publication section. Websites typically include numerous references to other pages. Mentioning is the process of inserting a URL in plain text and making it clickable. Due to the manual nature of this process, there is a high likelihood of overlooking redirects at these URLs. All of these types of URLs should also be double-checked. You can update other URLs from the source code, using programming tools, or from a database, but you typically manually update anchor texts (embedded links). That is why you should double-check them. Broken links are harmful for both SEO and the user experience. That is why the redirection process is essential for domain name changes. It is also critical to update any off-site mentions of URLs, such as those in your social media profiles, emails, brochures, and other digital media.
- Use Google Analytics to verify your website
As previously stated, Google is the most popular search engine and accounts for nearly all of your search traffic. As a result, you must first validate your new domain name with Google. The Google Search Console is the primary analytical tool for obtaining site performance data and other SEO-related information. The Google Search Console is the only direct communication channel between you and Google regarding SEO actions. So, make sure you've adjusted your new domain name in Google Analytics and Google Search Console. The Google Search Console also has a control panel that allows you to submit a change of address request. Google will receive notification that you have changed your old domain name to the new one once you submit the domain address change form.
Conclusion
There could be various reasons why a business would desire to alter its domain name. For example, your current domain name does not successfully communicate your brand image or value. Your domain name isn't very useful for your SEO approach. You may want to target additional markets and locations. For example, if a business operates in Dubai, the.ae TLD is the ideal way to win visitors' trust and demonstrate that the business is based in Dubai. However, if you want to reach the entire GCC or perhaps foreign markets,.com and similar domains are a better alternative. Whatever the cause, if you follow the steps outlined above and examine the recommendations provided in this article, you will be able to transfer the most rankings and credits from the existing website. However, it is critical to regularly monitor your analytical tools for the success of the new domain name for a few months; if you notice significant decreases or a continual decline in rankings and website traffic, you must have made a mistake.
