The web is in constant motion. Everything evolves! Trends, fashions, techniques. There are more and more people, and to continue to exist, you need to think about redesigning your website. Ideally, and depending on your industry of course, it seems appropriate to undertake this task about every 3 years. You want to modernize your website, and you don't want to lose your organic search ranking… That famous SEO that requires so much patience, technique and time.
Here are 7 tips to ensure your redesign goes well and the mistakes to avoid.
Why carry out a website redesign?
Various reasons can lead to a website redesign. The web is continuously evolving in terms of design, technology, and users' expectations and needs. So to stay on top and keep attracting your targets, you must improve your site. Companies are all the more affected by this phenomenon because they must stay one step ahead of their competitors. So to stand out, it is an essential stage of your communication strategy.
- Here are some reasons to schedule a website redesign:
- Your business name changes
- You are diversifying your activity or that of your company
- Diversification of a company's activity
- You are merging with another organization
- You are changing your visual identity and graphics
- You are changing web hosts
- You want to modernize your site and improve the customer experience
- Design evolution to improve the user experience
- Your site visits aren't taking off
- You run a fashion blog
- …
the importance of considering SEO when redesigning your website
Carrying out a website redesign can prove complicated. You must pay particular attention to your organic search ranking. In indeed, if it is poorly executed, negative consequences can harm your business. Here are some elements not to neglect when redesigning your site.
SEO should be your guide during the redesign
Your site's structure is a point of reference. It determines the coherence of the experience the visitor has while browsing your site. Thus before you start your redesign, take care to of work on your site map. For that, here are a few reference points: Start by checking whether navigation was smooth with your previous site.
Thanks to the analytics system, check the functioning and appeal of your site's pages. With this new structure, make sure visitors find what they're looking for without getting lost in the maze of your content.
Ideally, each person who visits your site should find what they're looking for in 3 maximum clicks. With this goal in mind, design a site tree that limits drop-offs caused by users not finding what they are looking for within a relatively short time. Plan your internal linking so that less attractive pages can gain in their ranking.
You must also have a strategic view of your internal linking. Use it to bring certain pages closer together and simplify the visitor experience. Internal linking also plays a fundamental role in SEO. By linking a less popular page to a highly visited one, you allow it to gain importance. This supports natural (organic) search ranking.
Make your site Google-friendly Friendly »
When you redesign your site, think about making it SEO Friendly. An SEO site Friendly is built to please search engine algorithms search, therefore to be « Google friendly », you must comply with the optimization requirements required by the Google search engine to have a chance of seeing your site ranked among the top search results.
To make your site Google Friendly. Think about structuring your site using headings (title headers) while respecting the following order: h1 > h2 > h3 > h4 > … Main title as h1, subtitle as h2 etc. This A writing system is of great importance for SEO.
Work on your pages' loading speed. Don't use excessively large images, and don't load your theme with plugins and other modules that aren't really necessary.
Simplify your URLs by placing your keywords.
Avoid The "Flash" technology is not suitable for SEO., because Files referenced through it are not read by robots.
7 tips for a redesign of your website without losing its SEO
Perform an SEO audit of your site
The process is a bit like a life: to grow and evolve, it's always good to know where you come from and where you want to go! So before thinking about redesigning your site, analyze what it is. Browse and put yourself in the shoes of an average visitor in order to note anything that could prevent smooth and efficient navigation. Identify the different keywords and the pages visited by users. Note them backlinks present from other sites to yours. The Google Analytics tool can help you with this process.
What will your SEO strategy be
Your objective, As a business, you will need to have your website positioned by search engines among the top results at best and all in the two first pages. To achieve this result, it is important to define an SEO strategy, set out as objectives that will help you will allow to design your site structure as well as the content of your pages.
Here are the steps to follow:
- Determine who your targets will be and the potential reasons for their visit to your site
- Write quality content, sufficiently developed, and related both to your business, but and to your visitors' expectations.
- Make sure your site's pages are performant (fast loading)
Review your site structure based on your SEO objectives
It can be interesting, during a website redesign, to reorganize its structure to make it more fluid and more “searchable”. Review your menu and submenus. Sort and segment to reach the rule of 3 clicks. Take advantage of this refresh to check your keywords and find others that may be better suited or more trendy.
The main menu should display selected entries related to your keywords.
Internal linking, which refers to the internal links that allow visitors to navigate from page to page, should also include keywords in order to optimize your SEO.
Set up 301 redirects
Being Given that you are going to modify your site's structure, and therefore the URL, it is important to set up redirects (301 code) to maintain the connection between the old as well as and the new ones URL. Furthermore, Google will receive a signal when these redirects are created, notifying it of your site's redesign.
The consequences of a poor 301 redirect are a negative signal sent to Google for your organic SEO, as well as a diminished user experience with 404 errors displayed (if they are created, of course), which will make navigation somewhat unpleasant..
Configure 404 pages
By configuring 404 error pages that are directly related to missing content issues and errors at the level of URL, this helps inform users. They are then warned that the page they want to open is no longer current.
Create a sitemap
Sitemap is an English word meaning site map. A sitemap is therefore a website plan that highlights all the pages, other resources found on the site in question. It often takes the form of a web page and allows users to quickly access all the site's pages. It is an element that helps the indexing work carried out by search engine algorithms.
Update backlinks
For reminder, A backlink is an English word that denotes a return link. More precisely, it is a hyperlink that leads back to a website or a web page. In your SEO strategy when redesigning your website, identify all your backlinks and then get in touch with the webmasters of the sites involved. They will update the links pointing to your new site using the new URL.
Monitor your site
You have just put your site back online; in the early days, pay close attention to what happens on it. Check for 404 errors. Keep an eye on any changes in traffic and the rankings of your keywords. This also lets you see whether the search engines have applied the necessary changes and taken the modifications into account. This is the testing phase, which allows you to quickly fix problems that could harm your organic search performance.
Our tip for redesigning your site and preserving its SEO
Protecting your organic search ranking during your website redesign is essential and completely feasible. You discovered in this article the tips to put into practice as well as the points to be watchful of throughout the entire redesign process.
Keep in mind that neglecting this SEO work can have serious consequences for your site's performance and therefore for your business. By following the advice given earlier, you will give yourself the best chance of maintaining your rankings in search engines.
And now that your new site is live, don't hesitate to order new content on Redacteur.com to make the most of this new version.
