Website Redesign Tips

Website redesigning may be one of the hardest things that you may be considering as there may be some questions that may arise such as will one loose all their rating in case they happen to redesign the existing SEO? After one has already done the redesign without following the right steps they may have already caused more damage which is irrevocable.

You will need a website redesign checklist to accomplish success for your site.

The best checklist will be able to merge content planning and execution with technical aspects like schema and code. One is not able to have a firm SEO without combining traditional content marketing with a solid process and a very powerful code base.

Before even thinking of starting to redesign the site, listed below are some ways in which you can start off planning with a very strong SEO foundation.

Pre –Design

Redefine/Create Keywords Strategy

The keywords are normally the main foundation of SEO as they are able to lead one to the content which they want. Keyword strategy should always involve the selection of very high searches keywords that are very relevant to your business at the same time.

The simplest way, fastest and most basic way for one is to start organizing their own keywords into software such as Google Keywords Planner which one may need a Google account to actually use.
Repeat This Process With Regard To Each Category of One’s Products.

Jaaxy is an excellent keyword tool that I use, start using for free and if it’s for you then join by the month or yearly.

Once one is finished, they are advised to download the keywords and add them into CSV format and at this point you will be able to have an excel of keywords that will be able to provide one with strategies and guidelines all through the website redesign

New Site Structure And URLs

Make sure to get a summary of the recent metadata, site structure as well as URLs which is key when it comes to identifying exactly what is changing and why based on the previous step of redefining/creating keywords strategy. Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tools has been considered as being the most reliable tool as it allowed a crawl up of approximately 500 pages. As for those with a larger site they also have a paid version of the tools

301 Redirect Map

One of the biggest hustle that one may have when redesigning their website is having a 404 errors, in the event that one had visited the old URLs. In order to be able to curb this tragedy from happening you need to first create a 301 redirect map before starting the designing of one’s website.

If you have already done the previous steps well then there should be a list of both old and new pages URLs and now it’s all a matter of matching them all up.

During Re-Design.

Block GoogleBot

This is a very important step that one should never forget because you may have to Google index their new content and once one launches the new site, the new content may have close to no value as it will be considered as a duplicate. Add the following codes to every page of the staging site i.e. <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”/>

Unique Meta Tagging:

A Meta tag tells Goggle what the page is all about. Hence, during re-description one needs to make a unique Meta tagging from each page

Site Speed:

A fast site is efficient for both the customer and the site provider. Consider having unnecessary scripts that are not needed during redesign.

Image Optimization:

In order to have fast Site Speed, image optimization is the key. Images tend to account for most of the downloaded content on the web and in order to reduce some bytes one needs to ensure that the images are saved to the actual size needed.

Mobile Friendly:

One needs also to consider how the site will appear on mobile phones which are very essential. After you are done you may use Google Mobile Friendly Test in order to ensure its fine.

Pre-launch:

The Installation On New Or Existing Google Analytics

The lack of the existing Google Analytic code is a huge mistake and if one doesn’t have it they then need to create one. If one has it they need to go over to Admin>Tracking info>tracking code and copy it making sure it’s on every site.

404 Page Creation:

While one is planning on launching a site they should have an optimized 404 in place just in case the error is found.

Sitemap Creation:

This is a listing place for the Google bot that may help in locating one’s site. It should have an update sitemap both XML and HTML format.

Robots.Txt Creation:

This is a file at the root of the site that tends to show which parts of the site that one doesn’t want accessed by the search engine. In addition, one may also define the location of the Sitemap.xml for the Google bot.
301s Redirect From Old URLs To The New URLs
This is basically just telling Google that one has shifted to new URLs and in case of anything they should redirect it to the new ones.

Unblock Googlebot:

Remember to unblock Google bot by removing the following code from each page <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex,follow”/>

Post launch

Annotation in Google Analytics:

This tends to help with, the monitoring and bench marking of traffic on the new re-designed website.

301s Redirect Working:

Make sure that this is actually working and confirm multiple times if necessary.

Adjust goals in Google Analytics:

This helps to ensure that the site is functioning fully in accordance to its purpose.
Check Number Of New Pages Indexed
Post launch the number of pages indexed, may drop but will increase over time once the 301s have picked up.

Monitor The Google Search Console Inaccuracies

Keep an eye on the errors to correct accordingly to improve the site.

Monitor Ranking:

The rankings may go down as Google picks up on the new redesign as well as the 301s. This may last roughly 1-3 weeks.
In summary, after checking the above list for few weeks and one is confident enough that all is well then they can now start working on improving the site and allow more growth in the SEO.

Need help with all this? Check out Wealthy Affiliate, you can join for free (no credit card required) try it out and get all the help you need 24/7 from the thousands of members and the owners Kyle and Carson in live chat.

Please leave a comment below if this helped you or not or if you have a question I’ll get back to you. Thanks for reading and hope this all helped.

Wayne