Planning Your Website Redesign? Make Sure to do This

Over the course of the past several years, I've been called upon to consult many organizations regarding their website being redesigned. Also, with Covid-19 many offices were changing things up by being either online-only, hybrid, or only office... efforts for organizations to have a new website have been pushed to the limit.

So, I thought I'd share a tidbit of information that is an absolute MUST whenever you are planning to redesign an existing website: SEO Preservation.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is what we do to ensure that when someone searches for a topic, a page or post ends up preferably on the first page of search engine results.

The algorithm of search engines takes a lot into account where your site's page/pages or posts end up in search engine results. This algorithm includes everything from the content on a page, to how many pages are linking to it - and what type of pages are linking to your site. The more reputable your site, and the more sites with a stronger reputation linking to your site - the greater the PageRank.... and ultimately the goal being a first-page search result for that keyword/phrase.

The challenge is an absolute must, in that it needs to be planned out and done page by page, and post by post. Let's just say there are NO SHORTCUTS when dealing with addressing this issue.

Here is a common standard situation that I typically come across in any site redesign...

Often website designers will create a fantastic new design and want to deliver it immediately. The content on each page is now flawless and updated to current practices. It appears that the on-site SEO has been taken care of for each redesigned page, and the site operates as designed.

Everything you designed about the site is optimized, and relevant to your audience. You've followed all of the guidelines provided by search engines and professionals...

Then, the time comes to launch the site and you flip the switch...

and all of a sudden, the traffic drops dramatically. Looking over the metrics you discover your organic traffic dropped like a rock.

You went from 1st-page search results to hunting down your site in search engine results and end up on page 20... or worse.

You're told to wait a few weeks or even months, but still...your site struggles to regain traction in terms of search engine results. You used to be in the top 3 pages in search engine results, but now your site is lost somewhere around page 40...

All that time, all that effort, months in the making... and often thousands of dollars expensed to make a site more functional, readable, and SEO friendly... and the ROI on the effort appears to be in the red... deep red. Not good.

So, what happened?

Off-site SEO was not preserved. In short, you lost all of your backlinks. Backlinks in SEO are a rank multiplier, especially from relevant sites in your niche. It elevates relevancy and provides credibility - increasing your site's PageRank exponentially.

This situation happens more often than one would think, and in these moments the site owner is often being told that their new site's SEO will automatically update within the next few weeks.

Now, if you have a new site or one that doesn't have a lot of organic traffic, there really isn't anything to worry about and what the site owner is told may be true.

However, if you have a site that is several years, or even a decade old... your site may have garnered dozens, if not thousands of backlinks from reputable and high PR websites. It's those established backlinks that are extremely important, as those links are what established your site as an authority. We now have to preserve those links by directing those old backlinks to the new pages and posts on your site.

Having this simple plan as you design your site, from the old pages and posts to the new ones, can alleviate this concern and help mitigate an extreme loss in organic traffic. What we have to do here is to set up a process to appropriately deal with URL redirects, for each individual URL on your site.

I've been in many discussions (sometimes animated) with people in IT as well as with Website creators who have stated to just redirect the old home page to the new home page. Or, simply put - redirect the old site to the new site. I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, and be a bit brash, that ain't gonna cut it. Search Engines don't crawl sites that quickly or easily. We have to instruct and direct each page and post... for each URL on your site. Once that is done, then we have to update search engines with the new site information, so they can crawl the site and update their files.

Sure your site is new and fresh and redesigned on the front end. But now we have to be specific in telling search engines what to do on the back-end.

This means that you have to document each page and post URL. This is the opportunity to clean up your old content, redirect to new content, and instruct search engines to send visitors to the new content accordingly. The last thing you want to have happen is that someone clicks on a backlink - and they hit a 404 page on your site. That creates a bad user experience, and as such impacts your site's SEO.

So, here's the plan - assuming that each new page/post on your newly designed site has on-site SEO addressed correctly.

1. Start a Spreadsheet to Address URL redirects.
2. Create 4 Columns on this Spreadsheet: Post Title, Old URL, New URL, Redirect Complete
3. make a list of every post and page on your site. Include each published URL from the old site. This information will fill out the first two columns: Post Title and Old URL
4. As you create your new site from the old, include the new URL as it corresponds to the old one. This will be where you're redirecting traffic from your old URL.
5. Continue the process until all of the old pages/posts are addressed with a redirected URL to point to. When complete, all old URLs will be accounted for, so then you can address redirects accordingly.
6. Utilize this new spreadsheet, and apply redirects after your new site launches. Once the redirect is applied, update your spreadsheet column "Redirect Complete" accordingly with a 'yes'.
7. Then, generate an updated site map and submit the new site map to search engines (i.e. Google Search Console)

Please know that even with this process, there will always be OLD URLs that you may have missed. Whenever people come across these old URLs, they may visit a 404 page on your site. You can install a 404 redirect plugin (if you utilize WordPress) that will point people to a specific page automatically. In fact, you could also create a unique 404 page that states that the information they were seeking may be elsewhere on the site or is no longer available, with a few suggestions on where to find what they were looking for. This will at least provide a positive user experience for a visitor.

Having a plan of action to address your SEO upfront will save you countless hours to fix the issue, and ensure that visitors don't miss out on this transition from your old site to your new site.

Feel free to leave a comment or to reach out if you have any questions or concerns.