Designing a new website is not easy, especially when it comes to SEO.  There are several steps you should undertake before, during, and pre-launch the design to avoid negative ranking impacts. In this blog post, we will outline some of the most important SEO strategies for a website redesign that can help to optimize your page rank and make sure customers find you more easily in search engines. 

If you are currently working with a web designer or developer, work together with them to make sure the new site is fully optimized before launching it live. In addition, update all of the content on the old design as well so that there is no confusion about duplicate content. 

A website redesign is a great opportunity to update your site’s design and improve its functionality. However, it can also have negative impacts on your search engine ranking. In order to minimize the chances of this happening, make sure you follow these SEO strategies for a successful website redesign.

Why Redesign a Website?

Businesses are always looking for a way to grow their business. Whether that’s through organic growth, or finding new ways to reach out to potential customers. One of the easiest and most cost-effective solutions is redesigning your website.  Here are a few reasons why you should consider redesigning your site:

1. The purpose of your site has changed

The website design you created when the website was a blog has likely become outdated. If your business model or purposes have changed, redesigning your company’s web presence is important for effective digital marketing and communications with customers. 

If the purpose of your site has changed and is not what it was when you first created it, this could mean that some design changes will have to take place in order for people who visit or use the page to understand what is going on with its content.

Update your site’s layout to better reflect the new purposes of your website. For example, if you are now focusing on providing more lead generation content (perhaps some “how-to” blog posts and ebooks), include CTAs throughout popular pages in addition to those that appear when a user navigates away from them.

2. You want to rebrand your site

Rebranding your site doesn’t have to be a hassle. If you’re looking for an easy way out of the dilemma, then redesign it! When updating or redesigning your website, consistency is key so make sure that every page has practically identical elements such as logos and navigation menus. Having a consistent look and feel across your site, including having different navigation menus on pages can help keep visitors coming back for more!

Design inconsistencies are common, but they can be avoided with little effort. Site owners should review and implement brand guidelines to ensure that the site has a cohesive design.  If your site has seen significant growth lately, it may be time to review current branding guidelines or create new ones so visitors will feel more connected to your brand identity when they visit. This could include deciding upon a color palette, font hierarchy for various types of content you publish (i.e., headers vs text), button styles/iconography specific to each section of the website, etc.

3. Your website is outdated compared to the new design trends

If you want potential customers or clients in today’s digital age of business, then updating your site with these modern elements will be necessary!

The web design trends have changed so much in the last few years, and your website is now outdated. Your customers will be leaving because they won’t find what they’re looking for on your site anymore! It’s time to redesign it with new colors, fonts, or layouts that are more popular these days.

Design trends change every few years and with this designers need to keep up. A website that is two or three years old can be outdated when compared to a competitor who has an updated design, especially if they are currently utilizing the latest trendy flat look which embraces simple patterns like squares combined with clean lines and modern colors. This trend caters well for both mobile interfaces as well as desktops while also being embraced by many companies including Microsoft, Apple, Starbucks, etc., bringing their designs into alignment with how people use technology these days (with more users going on devices than using desktop computers).

4. You want to drive more traffic to your site

Online success requires creativity and a deep understanding of what your customers want. Improving the design elements on your website is just one way to keep potential clients coming back for more!

A well-designed web page can be an effective tool for increasing traffic – it’s not enough to simply have great content, people need something visually appealing as well. The look of each element in conjunction with color schemes, font size/style choices, etc., play a major role in how visitors will feel about visiting again or recommending you to others. This means that redesigning your site could go far beyond attracting new readers; by making some quick changes such as tweaking the layout and images. Are you not sure how you can know when you should redesign your website pages to drive traffic then you can check out your competitor’s pages that are already ranking on the same keywords that you are targeting with particular pages. You can also see the user engagement or bounce rate reports in Google Analytics and realize the pages where you need to improve like content, pages structure, CTAs, and look and feel to get engaged with your potential customers.

If you want to increase your web traffic then redesigning and updating the design of your website could be just what’s needed. To create a successful new look, consider the following tips:

• Keep it simple and easy to navigate by using popular colors or adding larger font sizes for navigation menus;
• Choose an appropriate logo that reflects the content on offer so people can trust in what they are viewing before investing time into exploring further pages online; 
• Add more images – this is known as “content marketing” which will make viewers feel like they’re getting something really valuable when visiting their site instead of feeling bored because there isn’t enough visual stimulation.

5. You want to convert more visitors into leads

If you’re driving lots of traffic to your site and want those visitors to become leads, then it is important that the design for your website incorporates a clear conversion strategy. Your site should tell visitors about who you are, what you do, and who your target audience is. Then – with an effective call-to-action button or form – convince them they will be happy customers.

It’s easier than ever to convert visitors into leads with a redesigned website. There are many more ways people can interact online, so make sure your site is optimized for all of them! Offer an engaging experience that will keep customers coming back and spending money on your products and services.

6. You want to add functionality to your site

You’re not alone. If it’s time to update, consider a redesign of the existing site as an opportunity for new functionalities and features.

As your website traffic and team grow, you’ll likely need to add new functionality to your site in order to meet the evolving expectations of both visitors and back-end users. To provide a better experience for viewers, you may keep the navigation system easily accessible and if you’re providing a multi-language option for content that matches different user preferences then you will need to redesign or restructure your website pages. These changes will allow visitors to find what they’re looking for as quickly and easily as possible.

7. Your website is not responsive or losing mobile visitors

If your website is not responsive or losing mobile visitors, redesign it. Websites that are poorly designed on a variety of devices will suffer from misaligned content and make for an unenjoyable experience in the browser. This can be avoided by implementing new design elements such as navigation bars with bigger icons to help you quickly find what section of the site they want without scrolling endlessly through menus; buttons need only one click away so there’s no reason why users should spend any more time than necessary going back and forth between pages when all their information may exist just below them.”

If your website isn’t responding very well to different device types like smartphones or tablets, then consider redesigning it! A lot of websites lose traffic due to poor responsiveness. 

8. Your website is not optimized for search engines

Websites that were originally built with templates or dynamically generated URLs can often be difficult to optimize for search engines. A website redesign is a quick and easy way to improve your site architecture so it will rank higher in the SERPS!

A website redesign can help you improve your site architecture, coding and SEO. This is because a new website will have custom page URLs that are more search engine friendly than dynamic ones, H1 tags that use the keyword for optimized content on each page of your site and an advanced CMS to make optimizing even easier. With all this in place, it’ll be easy to optimize every part of the experience from top-to-bottom so traffic increases across organic searches like never before!

9. Your website is built on outdated technology

You may not know that the outdated plugins on your website could be contributing to its slow and cumbersome performance. To avoid this, update your site with a modern plugin or make it mobile-friendly by utilizing responsive design techniques.

Updating an old website can sometimes feel pointless when you’re struggling just to keep up with all of the updates needed for security reasons alone, but neglecting these simple tweaks might eventually lead to more serious issues down the line if left unchecked. Whether updating our content management system (CMS), plugging in new code for search engine optimization purposes, or simply making sure everything is running smoothly across different devices.

The internet is always changing and evolving as time goes on but it’s important to stay current or risk being left behind. Updating your website with the latest technology, plugins, and functionality can go a long way in making sure that you continue looking up-to-date while providing users of all devices an easy experience navigating through your site.

When you’re not using the latest and greatest technology, your website can be slow or even difficult to use. That’s why it pays to take a look at updating your site every few years!

Why Do SEO with a Website Redesign?

1. Receive a return on your redesign

A website can cost anywhere from $1000 to $100,000. And it’s not easy to earn back the investment your business is looking for. Launching a redesigned website with SEO will help your company earn back its investment — plus some!

Many SMEs are looking to create a website that would help them stand out from the crowd. However, due to lack of expertise in this area and budget constraints they often end up with an average product that fails to deliver on their expectations. The solution is for these companies not just to rely on websites but also to have SEO incorporated into it before launch so as you get more traffic through your site, your company will start seeing return-on-investments sooner than expected!

2. Get SEO built-in to your design

A new, redesigned site provides your business with a fresh start and the chance to design an SEO-optimized website. It offers you the opportunity of getting ahead in search engine optimization by optimizing for page speed, navigation, internal linking etc.

A website optimized for SEO doesn’t have to be a drab, boring thing. A good agency will take your input and combine it with what they know about the design world in order to get you something that is both attractive and effective when it comes time for Google rankings.

3. Preserve any existing optimizations

Companies that already use SEO can’t afford to exclude it from their website redesign. A design without a focus on search engine optimization, like launching your redesigned site with no redirects and ignoring the impact this has on performance, can cost you in traffic leads and sales- so make sure someone is considering these factors when building out your new look. If partnering up for web development services, be aware of how important an understanding of SEO really is if they want any kind of success!

4. Create a launchpad for success

If you’re like most companies, the redesign of your website is a strategic move to better serve your business needs. You don’t want to launch an update that will decimate all the traffic and sales on your site. Instead, you’ll understand how important it is for people who are visiting or considering purchasing from you online can do so easily by updating their web pages with SEO in mind while working toward success as well!

SEO Before Website Redesign 

1. Goals & Project Plan

It’s time to get a new look at your website. The first step is deciding on website redesign goals, which can range from attracting more visitors and making them stay longer or increasing the conversion rate of clicks into customers. 

Setting goals for your website is an important aspect of ensuring that the project will be successful. Your web design goals may include:

• Business use-cases.
• User experience improvements.
• Marketing initiatives.
• SEO improvements.

Setting appropriate goals is a key aspect of ensuring the project’s success.

Once you know what needs improvement, execute these plans in order: 

• Set achievable expectations so that everyone knows when they are done – this will help with organization as well as keeping staff motivated throughout the process; 
• Create an outline before diving into specifics about color schemes, images sizes, etc.
• Consider how people consume content differently than ten years ago because technology has changed significantly since then: some prefer visuals while others appreciate being able to read text quickly; 
• Make sure graphics support usability by improving the navigation experience 
• Make sure you’re using a strong and reliable code. Core web vitals provide the framework that ensures your site is up, running fast, can be edited easily by you or an outside developer whenever needed for any reason whatsoever!

2. Content & Information Architecture

You’re redesigning your website! You’ve poured over the analytics, and you know what pages are performing well. But that’s not all: now it’s time to think about how users should experience those pages differently from before.

The best way for a user to find the content they love is through really awesome navigation – which means Content & Information Architecture (C&IA). C&IA can come as part of an overall web design process or even live alone in its own phase depending on how particular projects must be executed; but either way, this step will help ensure happy visitors who spend more time browsing and engaging with your site than ever thought possible.

Content and Information Architecture are the backbone of your website. It’s what allows you to create a user experience that will keep visitors coming back for more, no matter their age or device preference. Here are four things every business should think about when designing their content layout: 

1) The flow between pages must be intuitive and easy-to-use; 

2) Focus on creating unique layouts rather than templates as much as possible 

3) Keep it mobile-friendly with responsive design 

4). Use images effectively in order to make sure people engage with them! 

A few small tweaks can have a huge impact – do not forget those important details before launching into development mode!

3. Re-define / Create Keywords Strategy

The key to a successful website design is defining your target audience and matching them with the right keywords.

The typically SEO-minded website owner needs to be mindful of their existing rankings, as well. Implementing keywords during a redesign will help ensure you retain your current traffic without negatively impacting the new design’s ranking potential.

Find out your existing ranking keywords and implement these during the redesigning of your website so that you don’t lose any traffic. By using a keyword research tool, like Google Adwords Keyword Tool or SEMRush Search Volume, for example, will give you an idea of what to target in order to keep acquiring new customers as well as keeping hold of the ones from before!

4. New Site Structure & URLs

Get ready to see your website in a whole new light! Make sure the new site structure & URLs are more accessible, easier for users to find what they need quickly and efficiently.

After completing the keyword research phase, it is time for you to create and plan out how your pages should be structured. The best way of doing this would be utilizing Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tools. This will allow you up to 500 pages to crawl so that all potential keywords can easily be identified by analyzing metadata or URLs on each web page. They also have paid versions available if there are more than 500 pages per site which may not suffice enough data from just one run-through with their free version (we wouldn’t want any mistakes!).

5. 301 Redirect Map

Imagine you’ve been given a new website to redesign. Finding the old URL may seem like it would be difficult, but there’s an easy way: create a 301 redirect map! The best thing about this? You can do your work before actually designing anything; once you’re done creating that list of all those pesky 404 errors gone for good and matching them up with their rightful pages on your brand-new site.

You should create a 301 Redirect Map before you even start redesigning your site so that any old pages do not have 404 errors and confuse visitors. To make this easier, make a list of all the old URLs on your website with their corresponding new URL counterparts to match them up.

SEO During Redesign

1. Block Googlebot to avoid crawling staging

You must block Googlebot from crawling your staging site during the design phase of a website.  This will prevent duplicate content issues that can arise when web crawlers index pages before they are changed or modified, like with images and links on rendered mockups.

In order to avoid the design of your website being crawled by Googlebot, you should add a robots.txt file and robots meta tag that blocks it from crawling anything on staging and disallows any browser caching or rendering content from there as well.

2. Content Optimization

Content optimization is a critical component of any website redesign. The success or failure of the new design hinges on how well it improves site usability and customer satisfaction with page load time, words per minute readability, clickable navigation paths to important pages like checkout counters and help desks.

A content analysis will identify where needs for improvement are most pressing: too many keywords in text paragraphs; low word count sentences over 3 lines long; lack connection between header tags such as H1s/H2s/subheads (where you’ll find more extensive information) and main headings which should summarize those topics at hand–to name just three common problems that reoccur during web redevelopment projects I’ve seen firsthand.

A savvy redesign process will optimize the content of a new website to be more relevant for your target audience. This is because what matters most in this context isn’t necessarily page rank or how much time it takes to produce, but how well you show up on search engines and social media sites when someone looks for related topics. The backend keywords, meta tags, and navigation are all very important factors that can make sure people find their way around your site easily while browsing so they’re not “lost” looking at irrelevant articles or pages about items from other categories (like shoes). Plus there are many tools available now like Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics which allow webmasters access to different levels of analysis needed by any company who wants quality assurance before launching a redesigned site online.

3. Internal Links Optimization

You may have heard that a website’s navigation is one of the most important features because it should be easy to find your way around. But did you know there are other equally important parts of site design? For example, internal links seamlessly connect pages within the content so visitors can easily move between them without leaving and coming back again all over again. Or better yet, they might not at all! Internal linking optimization during redesigns helps keep people on-site for longer periods with less friction both in navigating from page to page as well as slowing down their bounce rate by reducing needlessly loading new resources or requesting more data about what they’re looking for when results come up short too quickly. 

4. URLs Structure Optimization

It’s best to optimize your website URL structure during the redesign process. This is because if you wait, it becomes much harder for search engines (such as Google) to analyze and index changes that occur after a new design have been deployed. You should be careful not to redefine existing URLs or change patterns from their original form until all of these adjustments have occurred in order to avoid confusion with users who may stumble onto an old site that still behaves like its pre-redesign version would before any optimization was done on those pages!

5. Unique Meta Tagging

Some websites redesign their site to get a fresh look and feel. But more often than not, they also need new content as well. Take the time during designing your website for its makeover to consider all of this: Meta tags, keywords in both titles and meta descriptions on each page within the site; URLs that will be short but descriptive enough for people looking at them from search engines or social media sites like Facebook or Twitter so you don’t lose those potential clicks before someone even reaches one of your pages with what you thought was an optimized URL.”

As part of any successful web design process is making sure there are just two elements missing – relevant information about who we are (meta-tags), why visitors should visit our website.

6. Site Speed

Site speed optimization is a key factor to consider when redesigning your website. Websites that take too long for the content or images on their pages to load are frustrating and could be driving potential customers away. Make sure you test out any slow-loading features before publishing them, as they may not have been designed with site performance in mind.

7. Image Optimization

Redesigning your website is an investment of time and money that can lead to a more successful business. One way you may be able to do this is by optimizing images on the site so they load better in different browsers, devices, resolutions etcetera.

There are many ways for visitors looking at your company’s website from their mobile phones or tablets will experience lags as well as long waiting times when loading up web pages with graphics-heavy content such as photos or videos. 

One of the best ways to optimize your website is by optimizing images. This can be done through resizing and compressing pictures. But if you’re not sure how or want help, there are many websites that will do it for free!

8. Making mobile a top priority

Mobile web traffic has grown over 400% in the past five years and is predicted to continue growing exponentially. This means that your website needs a mobile app or responsive design as well!

Mobile is a top priority for any website redesign. It’s no longer enough to simply have your site look good on mobile devices; now you need it to work well, too! One of the best ways that this can be done is by utilizing responsive web design and making sure all buttons align vertically so they’re easy to tap or swipe with one hand.

9. Usability

When considering redesigning your website, accessibility should be top of mind. A design that’s not intuitive to get around could lead to a low conversion rate and less time spent on the site- but there are ways you can make it more usable for everyone!

User interface designers often focus their efforts on making things work better while neglecting usability in favor of prettier aesthetics or user engagement features such as scrolling animations. However, these elements have diminishing returns when users don’t know what exactly they’re doing with them (or how). 

You should be focusing on usability while designing your website. Not only will this make it easier for you, but also the visitors who use your site!

Usability is important when updating a design or redesigning one’s webpage and with SEO in mind as well. The visitor experience becomes significantly more pleasant; they won’t have to worry about navigation being difficult or having to scroll endlessly just to find what they want, which could result in them giving up because of how long and frustrating their search was becoming.

10. Clean, SEO-Friendly Code

Modern web design trends are quickly evolving in the field of coding. It is essential to have clean, SEO-Friendly code that will ensure your website ranks high on search engine results pages for potential customers looking up services you offer or products you sell from a variety of devices and browsers available today.

The website redesign will be a new beginning for you. You’ll have an opportunity to clean up the code and make it more SEO-friendly, which can help improve traffic flow on your site. It’s best that you work with experts so they know what they’re doing and ensure everything is set up correctly from day one!

11. Compatibility with Multiple Browsers

The potential to rank higher in search engines is a major incentive for redesigning your website, but compatibility with multiple browsers can be an issue. In order to ensure that you are not limiting the customer base of your site and losing out on potentially great customers due to browser incompatibility issues, make sure that any changes you incorporate into your design conforms well across different platforms. This will give more people access who may have been excluded before by one or two incompatible specifications within their system configuration options when they were trying to navigate through it as users.

Compatibility with Multiple Browsers during web designing is important for SEO ranking because Google’s crawler cannot see the content properly if there are too many differences between how pages appear on various devices.

12. Follow Core Web Vitals 

Websites that are not mobile-friendly won’t be able to keep up with the times. If your website’s design is outdated, it will deter visitors and customers from coming back again in a future visit. To avoid being left behind, follow Core Web Vitals during redesigning of your site so you can stay on top of trends!

Google has created a set of metrics to measure the user experience on web pages called Core Web Vitals. Measures such as load time, interactivity, and visual stability are used by Google to rank websites higher in search results if they have good UX (user experience). Websites should start preparing for these core algorithm changes that are already started affecting website rankings, so make sure you’re implementing this during revamp your website.

SEO During Pre-Launch Your Redesigned Website 

1. Test everything you did SEO during the redesign of your website

To get the most out of your website redesign, you need to test everything as much as possible. This includes any changes you made in SEO or site design during the redesign of your website and also match with goals and objectives that you had planned before redesigning your website.

In order to ensure that your website will be a success, you should always test everything before the official launch. This is an important step in marketing and can help save time from having issues with load times or other technical glitches.

You’ve done all of the hard work, but don’t give your go-ahead for launch just yet! As you follow along with the go-live checklist and perform any possible quality control checks of the work you have done on the staging site to date. If anything is missing or not working as it should be take care of that now before going live. It’s much easier to delay a few minutes than live in regret later when something went horribly wrong.

2. Install New / Existing Google Analytics and other tracking codes

This is a great time to track your traffic from the start. You can use Google Analytics or other tracking tools like Google Search Console in order to monitor all of that new and old data as it comes through for you on launch day!

In this way, you will be able to compare page views, organic clicks and impressions, top-performing pages, engagement rate, and much more before and after launching your redesign to keep monitoring and compare your website performance before and after. 

3. 404 Page Creation

If your new design is going to be live soon, then it’s time to start thinking about one! You should know that this page helps users who have landed on an unknown or nonexistent webpage find their way back home again and continue browsing sites they still want access too.

A good practice would be making sure the 404 Page has useful tips for your visitors such as; what happened when I clicked here?, maybe my internet connection went out, oh no!, where am I now? The goal of this bit of advice is all about helping people get back onto the right track with minimal frustration!

4. Sitemap Creation

The use of a sitemap can be crucial when it comes to SEO. They are used by bots for indexing pages efficiently and they tell search engines which sites you want them to rank high on the page results list in order of importance. During development, it is important that your content management system generates automatically generate these maps so there will never be any need for manual updates or duplication across multiple versions of files.

Sitemaps help with organizing site structure while also telling Google which pages should have a higher ranking than others based on their relevance and priority within an organization’s hierarchy  If one has not yet created a map before launching their new website then they may face issues such as re-crawling duplicate pages.

5. 301s Redirect to Old URLs to New URLs

Redirects are important for a number of reasons. When you’re redesigning your site, it’s essential to map out 301 redirects so that search engines can still find the content they need even though URLs have changed. Additionally, any link equity is lost if links lead back to 404 pages on our website and we don’t want users getting frustrated when navigating through an error page. Ensuring all pages with links pointing to them get properly redirected is key before launch day arrives!

6. Check your site to fit Google’s Webmaster Guidelines

If you are going to be releasing a new website, it is important that your developer or designer and webmaster take into consideration Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This will help avoid any chances of getting penalized during the search engine optimization process and in turn losing rankings on SERP (search engine result pages). You may want to have someone who has experience with these guidelines check out your site before launch if this isn’t something you can do yourself.

7. Unblock Googlebot

If you plan on launching a newly designed website, it is crucial that Googlebot can access your site. Make sure you have unblocked the Googlebot when you had blocked it during the redesign process through Robots.txt and Robots meta tag.

SEO After Post-Launch

1. A Quick Audit Live Website

Get a quick SEO audit for your website. You may be missing some important information if you don’t transfer all of your website’s content from the development site to the live site. For example, if you optimized every article title on your staging page but they didn’t show up once it was launched because something went wrong with transferring them into a database at launch time (or another point), then there might be duplicate titles across different pages or product listings etc., depending on where those optimizations are made most often throughout your design.

2. Check Redirects

If you’re not updating your old site links to their new URLs, then any visitor who types in a URL from the previous copy of the redirect will end up on an incorrect page. This can lead them to think that your website is down or they typed something wrong- but it’s really just because you haven’t updated those old sites yet! Take some time to check redirections and go back through all of these files so everything goes smoothly now and well into future years.

3. Website Performance Validation

There are many factors that can go into the performance of a website. For this reason, it is important to routinely evaluate your site for best practices and common mistakes in order to ensure an optimal user experience upon launch. One good way you may be able to use throughout production would be mobile-friendly testing which will test how well your new design responds on different devices such as phones or tablets at varying connection speeds from various locations around the globe. Additionally, if Lighthouse audits have been performed during development then they should also run periodically while live too so any changes made by developers don’t adversely affect page speed time spent loading pages once launched out onto the world wide web!

4. Ongoing SEO

Ongoing SEO is an important part of any online marketing strategy. The idea behind it is to keep monitoring your site for changes and make adjustments as needed in order to have a successful campaign that will continue long after the dust has settled on your current design. When you’re in the ongoing process of SEO, it’s important to have long-term goals and objectives. You’ll need a plan for measuring your website performance based on what works currently before deciding on any changes