Search Engine Optimization is one of the most important aspects of your brand. To retain that traffic, you will need to redesign a site and ensure search engines can still find it before launching. A complete site overhaul is a difficult task. You’ll have to revamp your site at some time, but you’ll face the danger of losing visitors. Redesigning a website is one of the most difficult SEO tasks a firm can do.
What will happen after the site is fully operational? What happens if there are any 404s? What will the site’s search engine ranking be? What about links to pages that don’t exist?
Here’s what you need to know whether you’re rebuilding your site or planning a complete makeover shortly:
The two most important considerations when revamping a website
I’m not giving any design or development suggestions in this post since it’s all about retaining your current visitors. However, I’d want to introduce two major concepts:
- SEO should be a part of the redesign process — during a site redesign, designers, developers, and SEOs should engage with one another frequently. SEOs typically see aspects that an information architect, developer, or designer may overlook from traffic.
- Don’t hurry the launch — I’ve seen some of the world’s most well-known businesses and websites overlook important SEO measures to reach a deadline. There is something wrong with the deadline if it is more essential than preserving search traffic. When launching a website, don’t set unrealistic timelines.
Let’s get started on the makeover now that it’s out of the way.
What should you do in the midst of the redesign?
It would be best to keep a few things in mind while remodel your website. Some of these items may not seem vital to you, but leaving any of them out might significantly decline visitors.
Never take your website offline.
You should never take your old site down unless you require it to go down for a few minutes while debuting the new design. When visitors see a website that says “sorry, we’re under construction” for many weeks, traffic drops until the new site is launched.
Examine your keyword approach once again.
A site makeover is an excellent opportunity to review your current keyword strategy. Examine your organic keyword traffic to see if any new long-tail keywords drive visitors to your website. If that’s the case, you should include your findings in the new site’s layout. You may wish to create additional categories based on these keywords.
All material should be optimized.
Before your site revamps, you should check the content on each page. Things may alter as a result of the procedure. Titles are changed, meta descriptions are removed, and SEO is pushed to the sidelines. Allowing this to happen to you is not a good idea. Instead, focus on optimizing the content across all pages.
The deoptimization of content is one of the reasons why sites lose a lot of traffic following a makeover. This is exactly the reverse of what should be taking place. Instead, concentrate on optimization – adding content, fine-tuning page names, and doing all you can to improve your website.
As far as feasible, keep the same URL structure.
Maintain the same URL structure as much as possible. Unfortunately, when a website’s URL structure is changed, it loses a lot of traffic from inbound links. You’ll need to launch a large-scale 301 redirect mapping effort to fix this.
The most common site launch blunder I’ve seen is changing the URL structure without 301 redirects.
In many circumstances, you’ll want to adjust the structure of your URLs. For example, if any of the following statements are true, a URL structure adjustment is required:
- You’ve switched to a new platform or CMS that necessitates a fresh structure. Changing to new website management and content development system is often a wise decision. If this is the case, you may need to alter your URL structure.
- You’re entirely overhauling your sales or search strategy. When your company’s strategy changes, you may need to update your website. For example, perhaps you’re launching a new product line, purchasing a new company, or completely rebranding. You’ll need a new URL structure in this situation.
- Your current URL structure is a disaster. The most typical cause for a URL structure change is this. One of the most effective strategies to rearrange your URLs is to use organic query patterns. If your present URL structure is assisting your long-tail traffic, you may need to create a URL structure that is more SEO-friendly.
Make a 301 URL redirect mapping plan that is complete.
Almost every site overhaul will result in some pages being redirected to a new place. It’s critical to have a comprehensive strategy for redirecting each page. A 301 permanent redirect must be included in every rebuilt URL (possible exception below). Here are some pointers for putting your mapping plan into action:
- 302 temporary redirects are not encouraged. Therefore don’t use them. They do not affect SEO and are only a band-aid for what should be a long-term plan.
- Don’t erase pages — it’s not a good idea to delete pages. If you don’t like the content of a page, you may alter it or redirect it to a new page.
- The unusual 404 situation – there are a few circumstances in which you would not wish to 301 a page, such as if a significant number of very poisonous links were directed at that page. If this is the case, and the page isn’t a vital landing page, leave the 404 error alone. When a page is redirected, negative and positive link juice is sent to the parent domain. The hazardous juice will have a minimal influence on the remainder of the site if you leave it at 404.
Create a personalized 404 error page that is effective.
Because you should expect a few 404s on the new site, you should have a well-optimized 404 page in place. Unfortunately, many developers are unaware that a 404 page may be an effective marketing tool and a way to retain people on the site.
Make a new sitemap (HTML and XML)
An up-to-date sitemap is essential at all times, but it’s particularly critical during a site launch or overhaul. For example, if any material has been relocated to new URLs, the sitemap may assist the search engine in finding them.
Place tracking codes in strategic locations.
Place your analytics tracking code in the page source after you’re confident everything is ready. Any conversion landing pages should be coded and monitored as well.
When the site is relaunched, you’ll require data. If you neglect to include your tracking codes, you’ll miss out on the opportunity to evaluate the new site’s performance.
It’s time to go live! Toggle the switch!
Before you open the champagne cork and celebrate the launch of your new site, there are two things you must do. They are as follows:
- Remove any indexing limitations (robots.txt) from the development site and update your robots.txt to enable the crawling of your new site. Make sure your robots.txt file specifies the location of your sitemap.
- Google Webmaster Tools > Crawl > Sitemaps is where you should submit your new sitemap to Google. Allow indexing of the new site to begin by adding your new sitemap.
After the launch, keep an eye on your traffic.
After the launch, you’ll begin a new, crucial phase: tracking your traffic and rankings. During this period, keep a close check on your analytics. You want to look for odd traffic dips, 404 surges, or keyword ranking losses. Three crucial things to keep an eye on are listed below.
Google Webmaster Tools can help you with these tasks.
- Keep an eye on Google’s indexing status.
Keep an eye on how Google indexes your content. You’ll want to double-check that Google has indexed your complete website.
- Observe any crawling issues.
Once your site is up, keep a close eye on this page. Please make a list of pages that are 404ing and repair them.
- Keep an eye on the traffic.
The number of visitors to your new site is an important indicator of its SEO performance. So keep a tight eye on your traffic patterns to see what’s going on. Take a look at the graphs below. They represent two distinct consequences of a site overhaul. At its revamp, one website saw a significant drop in visitors. However, shortly later, it could reclaim the majority of the traffic.
Due to full manipulation of the site’s SEO, another site experienced a complete loss of visitors. As a result, it was unable to reclaim its traffic.
Conclusion
If you follow the steps outlined in this article, your website will avoid the tragedy shown in the graph above. Sure, there will be some swings in your fortunes. But, it’s unavoidable for any site to do so following a revamp.
I’m certain that a thoughtful and deliberate site redesign will enable you to keep 95 percent or more of your current visitors. Therefore, a large drop doesn’t need to occur. Furthermore, if your site redesign is effective and your new design is superior, you will witness increased visitors.
Related Tags
- traffic drop after the redesign
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