The website is the reflection of your brand.
Keeping it manageable and attractive is important!! But, what more important is that you are keeping its each element safe.
With time, there comes a need to redesign the website and while working on the same, anything can happen!!
Your website domain authority and SEO rankings must be maintained during and after the overall process.
Indeed, considering only the website aesthetics are not enough, you should also think about different ways of SEO maintenance. There are many SEO companies that result in the terrible mistake of conceiving that website redesigning cannot affect its ranking.
Hence, it is essential to assure that you are carrying out some definite steps that cannot influence the website’s credibility.
Considering that, here in this article, we are providing you some of the best tips and tricks to retain the website ranking after website redesigning.
Major Areas to Consider in SEO Website Redesigning
While carrying out the process of redesigning the website, majorly, there are three areas to consider:
- What suits your prevailing Search Engine Optimization efforts
- Typical challenges you may encounter during the redesigning process
- Modifications that the new website will bring
By concentrating on the mentioned areas, you can identify the website ranking weaknesses and further, can improve it. In addition to achieving a ranking, you must strive to improve it as well.
Best Ways to Maintain the Website Ranking After Website Redesigning
Indeed, you can circumvent SEO troubles and increase visibility in the website redesigns with just some advance planning. Below website redesign tips guarantee that you retain valuable rankings when redesigning the website.
Save Crawl Content
Even if you keep the website on a temporary website address, keep the crawl of the old website. Screaming Frog is very useful here, again, if any analysis is needed, the old website crawl can be loaded.
Keep the Old Website Up and Running
If possible, maintain the old website on the temporary URL. Assure that the website cannot reach the crawler. Certain HTTP authentication is most useful, however with the old websites referenced when encountering obstacles can be a godsend.
Usually, some portion of the content of the website will be in the online archive, though it is better to have the real content.
301 Redirects
Of course, the first thing on your list is to redirect the existing URLs to the new URLs. We advise you if possible, then, let the content remain on the same URL while the redesigning process. Like, the WordPress website can retain a similar permalink structure.
It is needed. If it is not, then, certainly, you need a URLs spreadsheet on the new and old website so that you can test and implement the 301 redirects. When the new website is up and running, you need to crawl the existing URLs list to assure each 301 redirect accurately.
Do Not Repair Which is Unbroken
If you can, keep the elements the same, especially the URL. If the page name and the URL structure can remain the same, then you can reduce the possibility of errors.
If you need to make the amends, then do it. Also, assure to do it for the excellence, not just to do something
Content
If you currently have content that is performing properly, then, you need to lessen changes (or make it precisely the same). After indexing and ranking the content, there will be many possibilities for content adjustments in the new house, but for now, the goal is to reduce the changed variables
Update Your Backlinks
Look at the websites which transfer the best backlinks and traffic in analytics in a standard link indexing tool. When you get the list, contact the website administrator to update it if feasible. You must hold a 301, that updates the backlinks to quickly index and rank new websites.
On-page Optimization
Retrieving the old site will enable you to quickly export every key on-page component; like meta description, page title, title, etc. Keep it roughly equivalent (except some utterly obvious improvements are performed).
Internal Links
Do not forget to note the changes to the internal link building. Here, the crawl data becomes useful. If the webpage attains a plethora of internal links, but now there are almost no links, then this may have an influence on the web page ranking.
Monitor Rankings
Some changes are expected, however, you want to turn to the baseline in about a month after startup (preferably faster).
If there is a problem, do examine immediately to find out and solve it. Most of the time, for huge websites, it may take a while to re-crawl deeper pages, hence, be aware of this.
XML Sitemap
It is essential to update the XML sitemap and then present it to the best search engines, like Google and Bing. Of course, the page structure, 301s, XML sitemap, and navigation needs to adjust and register the new website to let search engines know the changes easily and quickly.
Examine Organic Traffic
You will never be able to rank for every feasible keyword that attracts traffic. Therefore, it is better to watch the traffic on every key page to find out if there is some improvement or not.
Leverage Google Search Console
Google Search Console continues to improve and will provide indicative data instantly from Google. Tracking the 404 and 301 guarantees that these critical steps are all in your support.
The “Search Traffic” -> “Search Analysis” tab is the reservoir of data containing impressions, clicks, average position and Click Through Rate (CTR). If you have a problem, then these diagnostics offer insight.
Technical Website Audit
In general, the technical website audit tool is used to provide you a piece of proactive information about any technical issues.
Several tools are there, like, Ahrefs, Moz, SemRush, etc. However, a remarkably useful tool is nothing but DeepCrawl. It examines log files and assists you in finding the issues that can become problems in the future. Each of these tools can assist you in identifying fast and solve all the technical SEO problems that arise.
Do Not Forget to Test
Never ever believe that the running website performs in a similar fashion as the developed website. As you have given a lot of resources and time in testing, however, things probably can grow in the real world.
In addition, it is recommended to run the website via a mobile-friendly testing tool to know it performs on mobiles. Even, check out the speed of every web page by page speed tool. Not to mention, consider the schema markup on the website.
Concluding Remarks
The website redesigning is the best opportunity to enhance the conversion rate and improve the website ranking. Although, the website that holds the great organic search traffic must handle it with care to protect the search engine optimization.
Go through the tips and strategies we have mentioned to assure definite improvements.
We hope that you liked this piece of article. In case, you have some queries and suggestions, then let us know in the comment section below.
Thanks for reading!!
About The Author
Morris Edwards is a Manager at Awebstar, a web designing agency in Singapore which is dealing with digital marketing, SEO, mobile app development, logo designing, social media marketing and more. Connect with him at Awebstar.com.sg.
Related Topics
- What is SEO Audit
- The Complete Small Business SEO Checklist
- Best Tools for Affiliate Marketers
- Video SEO Checklist
- SEO Strategies you should Implement to improve Search Performance
- Ahrefs vs SEMrush
- Exceptional WordPress SEO Tips to Get You On Top of the Search Rankings
- Improving Content Quality by Avoiding Plagiarism
- SEMRush Black Friday
- Design a Website
