Many reasons trigger the need to redesign a website.
For instance, a website redesign is essential when rebranding your business. Moreover, redesigning can also be
done to change a site's appearance, make it more user-friendly, or switch to a different CMS.
Whatever the reason, your website needs to evolve with changing times to stay competitive and continue to
appeal to a revolving door of online visitors.
However, modifying a site comes with its caveat. A site redesign will almost certainly affect its SEO. People
often forget that a website serves two major purposes) attracting the target audience and converting them into
customers once they are on your site.
A website redesign that doesn't consider SEO defeats both of these purposes.
Not paying heed to SEO is a surefire way of erasing all the progress your site has made to get ahead in search
engine rankings, eventually resulting in your site losing traffic and your business losing profits.
That being said, some measures ensure your SEO remains unaffected while your site undergoes a major overhaul.
So, without much further ado, let us walk you through all the steps necessary to redesign a website without
losing its SEO.
The first thing you need to do, even before you begin changing the website, is download its complete URL
structure. Next, you must gather a list of your website's existing pages. There are multiple ways to collect
this information.
For example, if you have a smaller website, a simple Google search would yield results for all unique pages on
the site that Google already knows of.
Alternatively, you can use a web crawler like Screaming Frog to crawl your website. Furthermore, you can also
collect the list of pages using a sitemap.
The best way to generate a sitemap is by using plug-ins like Yoast SEO, which can crawl your site and
generate a comprehensive XML file that contains all the URLs.
It is recommended to initially implement the changes on a 'test site' to ensure the ensuing redesign does not
affect the site's SEO.
You do not want search engines to index a version of your site that is still a work in progress. It will also
hurt your site's reputation if users find it in an incomplete state.
Instead, opting to conduct the modifications on a temporary URL will prevent this from ever happening.
If you aren't technically proficient, it would be best to seek the aid of your hosting provider. They will
guide you through the entire process and sometimes even undertake the setup on your behalf.
You can fully audit your new site when you finish all the changes. Partial redesigns may not need auditing as
they rarely lose SEO value.
However, extensive overhauls are a different story altogether. As such, test the new site completely to find
broken links, missing features, etc.
You will likely find issues like broken links in the site's Javascript or CSS. Finding and fixing them
immediately before your site goes live is necessary. You can use tools like XENU to check for broken links and
help you with the audit.
There is a good chance that some of your old URLs have changed during the site redesign. Let's say your page,
which had this particular URL - 'yoursite.com/privacypolicy.html' has changed slightly to
'yoursite.com/privacy-policy.html.'
Your search engine will consider both as two pages if you don't do something about it.
This is where 301 redirects come into play. Three hundred-one redirects help you preserve the SEO value of the
old URL when the transition to a new one is complete. Three hundred-one redirects are also a good way of
ensuring that all social media links and bookmarks featured on the site are still working.
Once you're happy with all the changes you've made, it is time to make the jump to a new website. It is also
time to restart site indexing, which you had disabled in the testing stage, so search engines can start
crawling and indexing the pages again.
There are two ways to launch the new website. You can either do it all at once or in stages. Google recommends
you jump to the new website simultaneously, as this will expedite the crawling.
Now that you're 'life,' it would be a good time to do a quick check to ensure everything is working smoothly
and issues like broken links are nowhere to be found.
Once live, it's time to sign up for the Google Search Console, previously known as Google Search Console. Make sure your new
site is verified here. If not, verify it again.
Also, submit the full sitemap URL to Search Console. This will allow Google to crawl through all indexable
pages on your newly refurbished site without a hassle. Search Console can also help you find broken links on
the site.
While still in the search console, it is recommended to use its URL inspection tool to verify whether Google
is indexing the new site properly. You will find the URL Inspection tab at the top of its interface.
Use it to ensure Google is reading the new site accurately. You can also select the 'Request Indexing Button'
in this section to expedite the indexing process.
The robot is a file found in the Search console that allows or denies search engines like Google and Bing
access to certain pages or the entire website. You must check your site's robots file using the ROBOTS.TXT
option in the search console.
An improperly configured robots.txt file can prevent search engine crawlers from accessing the new site.
Ensure the new sitemap is included in the robots.txt file to make crawling and indexing for search engines
easier.
Once you've verified your site with the search console, you must optimize and resubmit your site's XML sitemap to Google and Bing.
There is a good chance your URLs have changed during the redesign; the new sitemap will possess this new URL
structure, thus making it easier for search engines to start indexing the newly modified website in a quick
and hassle-free manner.
Finally, it is wise to implement a robust monitoring system after the redesign is complete. We recommend using
a ranking tool like SEMRUSH to keep track of your rankings about different keywords.
Pay extra attention to huge changes in the ranking, either negative or positive, and take the necessary
remedial actions immediately.
Monitor your Bounce rates both before and after the redesign. Keep note of increases in bounce rates, as this can be a sign that your visitors are not happy or are dropping with the new look of your site.
Make sure your redesign does not compromise the user experience it offered before. The UI should be user-friendly. Collect feedback from friends and colleagues to learn how they react to the site's redesign.
It is perfectly normal for social media counts such as pins, tweets, shares, and likes to plummet as soon as URLs are changed. So, do not panic; sooner or later, social media platforms will identify the 301 redirections and the social media counts of your old page will be transferred to all your new pages.
It is recommended not to change a site's content drastically during a site redesign, as this will result in the site losing SEO. So, try not to make any content changes; changes more focused on the site's aesthetics will suffice.
A website redesign can be daunting, especially if you consider the effect it can have on its SEO. However, it
is an essential exercise for the long-term growth of your website and business.
You must practice caution during a site redesign to ensure no SEO value is lost.
If followed diligently, all the steps mentioned above can help you make changes to a site while preserving its
SEO and functionality.
With the help of the above measures, you will be able to introduce a fresh website that is considerably faster
and user-friendly, thus improving your website's traffic and boosting your rankings.