Have you ever thought about changing your web address? You can certainly do this anytime you want, but it costs a fair amount of time and money to do so. As far as technical SEO goes, it’s not one of the easier processes and your SEO value is not necessarily transferred (though it is to a certain degree).

When does transferring domains make sense? Here are a few appropriate circumstances:

1. You’re rebranding. Your name is absolutely critical to the success of your business; thus, in this case, transferring domains is crucial.
2. You’ve been penalized several times. This is sometimes nearly impossible to recover from if you’ve been slapped with a bunch of penalties (and so costly from a time and financial perspective) that you may be better off simply moving to a new domain.

How Do You Move to a New Domain?

First and foremost, don’t try to do this work yourself. As a small business owner, you have much more valuable skills to offer your company than SEO.

However, you might find this helpful as a method used to affirm the skills and honesty of your SEO service. They should share that the domain-changing process resembles this:

1. A full site backup. Whenever you make any coding or developmental changes, this is where you should begin. It’s common to see crazy—or even disastrous—things happen when you make what should be simple, straightforward changes and is wise to have a working website backup just in case.
2. New website setup. This simply involves registering the new domain.
3. Old site upload. This can include dozens of files and databases. In some cases, hosting providers may handle this portion of the process for you.
4. Broken link and error checks. Transfers—especially if you use WordPress— can sometimes result in lost plugin settings. So, you may want to double check your SEO’s work to ensure everything is working as it should. Don’t get upset if something is off, as some finagling is normal and acceptable.
5. URLs with the new domain’s address. WordPress features plenty of plugins that do this automatically in just a few clicks. However, if you have a traditional HTML website, you’ll need to do this manually.
6. Design review. A move to a new domain is a good time to consider design changes. Don’t obsess over the small stuff, like the color of your CTA button. Instead, assess bigger items such as your logo and the location of your contact information.
7. 301 old-to-new page redirects. As what preserves SEO value, your hosting service’s .htaccess file must tell Google that your old website pages are now present on your new one.
8. Google Webmaster tool addition. Google Webmaster tools must feature your new site. You also need to perform a “Change of Address” to speed up the Google indexing process for your new pages.

Wrapping Up

In sum, you don’t want to transfer domains unless it’s absolutely necessary: given the reasons mentioned at the beginning of this post. And, if you do, make sure your SEO recommends a process similar to the one discussed in this article.