As you develop as a website owner you may find out that the domain name you have chosen in the past might not really fit your needs anymore. Either you have switched to a different business, chosen a different niche, or if there is a more profitable domain out there that you want. These are all factors that make you want to change your domain name. And it is normal.

Although changing your domain name can affect you negatively in search engine optimization if your site is already successful. If your site is going through a downfall then maybe a domain name change is the solution.

If your site is going great and is successful but you really need to change your domain name it doesn’t mean that changing it is impossible. Thankfully there are some ways to change your domain name without having any negative impacts on your website.

What this means is that you will still continue to have high results on your ranking on search engines. In this guide, we will show you how you can change your domain without affecting your website’s ranking and overall optimization.

Having strong SEO is crucial

SEO comes in many forms. Although it revolves mainly on finding and using the right keywords on your page. It also includes knowledge for finding and placing backlinks in your content. These are the two most crucial SEO forms a website owner needs to focus on. Without these two your chances of a higher ranking will decrease.

Having a strong SEO strategy that works out for your website is really important. The reason behind this is because SEO increases the chances of your site being visible to a larger audience. Without the use of it, your site will likely get lost in the last pages of a search engine. Using a good SEO strategy can be the best method for promoting your website and also the content you put out there.

If you are a first-time website owner or a small business owner then using SEO the right way and learning about it, cannot only be cost-effective but help your website gain popularity and ranking. Although you need to always keep in mind that ranking in the first place is never a 100% guarantee, even though you are trying and being careful to use SEO the best way possible.

What happens if you change your domain name?

Regardless of the reason you want to change your domain name you need to understand the consequences or the benefits that come with it. The small changes in your domain can affect your website in the long run.

The reason why this happens is that all of the links you have used in the previous domain will no longer be relevant for the new one. This makes search engines not able to detect links from a dead domain. That will leave your previous content to not being ranked at all.

This means that your previous content will have low page ranking leading your website’s site traffic and rates to go downhill. But it is not always that bad when changing your domain name. There is a solution to avoid this kind of problem and prevent your website from falling down. 

How to change your domain name without affecting your website negatively?

Changing your domain name usually leads to a drop when it comes to your website getting ranked. In most cases these results are temporary. If you change your domain name the right way you can avoid your website being damaged for the long term.

1. Make sure to do site back up

Before changing your domain name, the first thing you want to do is to backup all of the content that exists on your website. You can use this with the help of content backup tools. Find one that best works for you and you will just make the process of backing up your site easier.

The thing that will help you a lot during this process is the duplicator plug-in. After you have downloaded it, you will find that it appears in your WordPress dashboard. You click on it and go to create a new option. This initiates a backup of your content. If everything on your website is in order then the tool will let you know and you can continue with the backing up process by selecting the build button. 

The duplicator tool will then create a group of content backup that you have on your word press. After this part has finished you will come through some download options. What do you want to do next is to go to ‘one-click download’ to save your backup content in a secure device. Now that you have backed up your content you can be relocated to your new domain name.

2. Relocate your website to the new domain

Before you can take any steps you need to make a database of the domain name you are choosing. With the help of FTP clients, you need to upload the backed up files you saved earlier. Upload all your archived Files when the root folder is empty. After the files are done uploading you are going to go back on word press. Open a browser tab and enter the URL.

The tool you installed will locate your files where they now belong and then it will ask you to add additional information about your WordPress database. You also need to add information about your new domain names database.

The tool then will complete the relocation process for you. To see if everything has gone correctly you can enter the new URL on a browser and visit your site. After you see that everything is OK you need to set up 301 redirects.  This will make it possible to send search engines to the new domain you have chosen.

3. Let Google know about the change

After you have finished both steps the final thing you need to do is to notify Google of your domain change. This helps Google locate your website and continue ranking it in the search results. You can make this possible by simply going to Google search console and adding your new domain name. 

Conclusion

Sometimes changing your domain name is a must. But to make sure everything runs smoothly and the change won’t affect your website negatively you need to take the right steps. Otherwise, your website’s SEO will have a long term downfall.

 You want to make sure that you are visible to search engines and you want to prevent anything that makes it hard for search engines to locate your content. Following the above steps will make sure that your website does not lose the search engine optimization strategy it had.