Category: Best Website Design Practices

When redesigning a website, it is important to consider SEO in order to maintain or improve the site’s visibility and performance in search engines. There are several strategies that can help, such as conducting a thorough SEO audit, keeping the URL structure the same, using 301 redirects, using descriptive and keyword-rich URLs, using header tags, optimizing images, making sure the site is mobile-friendly, and using social media to promote the new site. By following these strategies, you can help ensure that the redesign process is smooth and that the new site is optimized for search engines. Conduct a thorough SEO audit before redesigning: An SEO audit is a process of analyzing a website to identify any issues that may be affecting its visibility and performance in search engines. Some things to look for during an audit include broken links, duplicate content, thin content, slow page loading speeds, and technical issues such as crawl errors. Conducting an audit before redesigning the site will help ensure that any issues are addressed during the redesign process, which can help improve the site’s search engine rankings and user experience. Keep the URL structure the same: If possible, try to keep the same URL structure for pages on the new site as on the old site. This is important because search engines use URLs to understand the content of a page and to determine its relevance to a particular search query. If the URLs change, search engines may view the new pages as completely different from the old ones, which can result in a loss of any link equity that the old URLs had built up. Use 301 redirects: When pages are moved or deleted during the redesign process, it is important to use 301 redirects to send users and search engines to the new location of the content. A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that tells search engines that a page has been permanently moved to a new URL. Using a 301 redirect helps preserve any link equity that the old URL had built up and ensures that users can still find the content they are looking for. Use descriptive and keyword-rich URLs: Make sure that the URLs for new pages on the site are descriptive and include keywords relevant to the page’s content. This will help search engines understand what the page is about and will make it more likely to rank well for those keywords. For example, a URL like “www.example.com/red-shoes” is more descriptive and keyword-rich than a URL like “www.example.com/products/12345“. Use header tags: Header tags (H1, H2, etc.) are used to structure the content on a page and to signal to search engines what the most important topics on the page are. It is important to use header tags appropriately to help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of the content on the page. Optimize images: Using descriptive, keyword-rich file names and alt text for images on the site will help search engines understand what the images are and will make them more likely to appear in image search results. This can help drive additional traffic to the site. Make sure the site is mobile-friendly: With the increase in mobile searches, it is important to ensure that the site is responsive and easy to use on mobile devices. This means that the site should be designed to adjust to the size of the device’s screen and should have a layout and navigation that is easy to use with a touch screen. Google now uses mobile-friendliness as a ranking factor, so it is important to ensure that the site is mobile-friendly to avoid any negative impact on search engine rankings. Use social media to promote the new site: Social media is a great way to promote the launch of the new site and to drive traffic to it. By sharing links to the site on social media platforms and engaging with users, you can build buzz and get more people to visit the site. This can also help improve the site’s search engine rankings by increasing the number of high-quality inbound links.   If you are looking for a website redesign from a company that understands SEO then contact us now.