Content Migration Goes SEO

Daniela Matos Campos is Head of SEO at Scout24 and has been with the company since September 2015. The Lisbon native has been living in Munich for more than six years now and travels to Berlin frequently to meet up with her colleagues at ImmobilienScout24. Recently she took part in SearchMetrics Summit as a speaker to share her expertise with the attendants. We sat down with her to talk about how to manage the right move for content migration, the importance of a CMS choice and the next SEO trends.

1. Daniela, what do we have to consider regarding moving contents to another place as in, for example, a website relaunch?

Daniela: There are many aspects to consider. You need to change from “http” to the secured “https” version of your site and conduct a CMS (Content Management System) analysis to find out which one is the most suitable for your wants and needs. For such an activity, you must have the strategy and your business goals in mind. In addition, it’s also important to pay attention to the URLs and the site structure and think how to improve the SEO friendliness of your page.

2. Regardless of which kind of content migration, why is the question of choosing the right CMS so important?

Daniela: In my opinion, there is no perfect CMS because everything depends on your needs and you have to figure out first what you want before opting for a CMS. It will determine the look and feel of your page and help you improve your SEO performance. All these aspects need to be taken into consideration before choosing a CMS. The CMS will also determine how flexible and independent from IT resources the Content and SEO team will be.

3. In other words, the choice of a CMS is therefore not something that a department can decide alone and needs to cover the needs of many teams? What teams should be included in such a decision?

Daniela: Based on my experiences, besides the SEO team, other colleagues working in areas such as Frontend and Backend Development, Product Management, UX Design, Content Management and Marketing Analytics will all play important roles in the content migration. Since this involves multiple stakeholders it’s highly crucial to pay attention to time schedule e.g. avoiding busy times and holiday seasons. You should also align the stakeholders and provide them with a realistic roadmap with clear priorities.

4. How do you imagine a perfect content migration?

Daniela: Like any other projects, the ideal process of such a migration should of course start with planning and end with monitoring, which means that we always have to learn from the current status quo and improve continuously. It’s pretty much a project life cycle.

5. So it’s therefore part of the process to track the performance of the new site and update it regularly based on the statistics?

Daniela: Absolutely, when it comes to content migration, agility, flexibility and adaptability are key elements to reach the best results for your project. Technology evolves, so does the way users search on the internet and therefore we need to react fast.

6. What about the future? As a SEO guru, what do you think are the next big things in this field?

Daniela: Voice search is the next big SEO topic when it comes to content. It is already there but it will make much bigger impacts in the future. You will not type a question on Google anymore, you will ask the assistant. Therefore, our content migration strategy at Scout24 is also being adjusted towards this trend where the “winner takes it all.”