A website redesign should be dealt as a great opportunity for improving search engine optimization, online marketing, and conversion rates. Although a website redesign can bolster the site’s SEO, it can also hamper your ongoing SEO campaign if the right steps are not taken at the time of redesign.
In this write-up, you will find all the knowledge and information you need before considering a website redesign and employing effective tactics that can help you in the betterment of your current search engine rankings.
Understanding Website Redesign and SEO
First and foremost, it is good that you have decided to remodel your site in order to rank well in the search engine rankings and offer a better user experience to the consumers. Maintaining your website traffic and its rankings on SERPs during a redesign consists of mainly three elements:
- A basic understanding of the features that sits well with your ongoing SEO program.
- An idea regarding the common problems that pops up with a redesign.
- A comprehensive plan of the changes you want on your site.
When your redesign plan revolves around these elements, not only you make certain of your SEO maintenance on the site, but also find ways to possibly improve it with your remodeled site.
- Analysis
When you are running SEO campaigns on your website, you should have an absolute idea of the features that are currently working for your site. From keywords to the content that is generating the most traffic, you analyze all the components that are currently working on your website. Performing this analysis will help you design your site in compliance with these SEO factors.
- Typical Issues during a Redesign
There are many reasons why webmasters opt for a site redesign, and according to reports, it has much to do with personal branding, as well as, technology for engaging more traffic and lead generation. However, there are some issues that might crop up while redesigning your site:
- Content can be altered.
- Content can be deleted.
- URLs might get modified.
- New content can be included.
- The name of the domain might change along with the internal link structure, sub-domain name, protocol, etc.
- New technical issues can take place.
The above-stated causes can affect your site’s rankings and organic traffic. Moreover, if your website experiences multiple issues, such as the change in the content and being switched to a new URL, then it becomes problematic to find out the actual cause of issues.
If the domain name gets changed at the time of the website renovation, it can lead to a whole new set of problems. It is recommended to introduce the variables one by one and allow the website’s SEO to adjust to these changes. Imagine running a new website with content modifications on a new domain that has a different URL; it can definitely affect your entire SEO campaign.
- What Should You Change with the Redesign?
Geared up with an understanding of what works and what can possibly go wrong during your website redesign, you can take your time to revise the goals for your exclusively new website. Regardless of your online business goals, you should focus on:
- Preserving the current rankings and traffic
- Improving the rankings and bolstering the traffic
Usually, you will have the access to the complete sitemap of your redesigned site that you can utilize for comparing against the current site and build strategies for URL moves.
Tips for Ensuring an Effective SEO Friendly Website Redesign
Thankfully, with a brief knowledge of the things that can possibly go wrong while redesigning your site, you can plan your website design avoiding all the likely issues. Take a look at the following steps that will help you make sure that you save your existing rankings during the launch of your new site.
- Keep the current site live: If possible, keep your old site live on a temporary web address. Make sure that the site cannot be accessed by a web crawler. While HTTPS credibility is great, keeping the existing site to refer to when you encounter a setback can be a blessing.
- Work on the required changes only: It is not surprising that you are excited about your brand new website and will do anything to make sure that it looks afresh; but keeping some things steady will ensure its better functionality. One such thing, in particular, is the URL structure, which should be left untouched.
- Content: When your present content is performing well on the search engines and defining the authority of your business, you should make as minimal changes as possible. You will receive a lot of opportunities to modify your content on your new site after it is indexed, but for time being, try to reduce the variables of change.
- On-site optimization: For exporting your important on-page elements to the new site, it is required to scan your existing website and try to keep them unchanged, especially the Meta descriptions, page titles, headers, and so on.
- Upgrade your backlinks: Review websites that send you backlinks in Google Analytics. Once you have successfully compiled a list, get in touch with these third-party website owners to update the inbound links wherever needed. Use 301 redirects to retain the link juice.
- Internal link structure: Think carefully while making any changes to the current internal link structure. In case you discover an absolute benefit, you may make changes to your link structure for experiencing a positive impact on the rankings.
- XML sitemap: Update your XML sitemap and send it to the major search engines. You will want your XML sitemap, page structure, and navigation to align well and demonstrate the new site structure to assist the search engines in acknowledging the changes as soon as possible.
- Manage rankings and traffic: Although it is impossible to track all the phrases and keywords that engage traffic to the site, you can control the key pages while redesigning your site. Be mindful of the fact that with a new website, it may take some time to re-crawl before you can identify your rankings on the search engines.
Conclusion
Finally, you must consider the task of redesigning your site as a bright opportunity to enhance your ongoing SEO campaign. Adhere to the guidelines mentioned above and make certain that you only experience positive results.
