Impact of Website Redesign on SEO: A Complete Guide

Website Redesign SEO Checklist: Our Actions

Changes in Website Content

It is one of the most important ranking factors for websites. Any change in it can affect the site’s ranking positively and negatively. So, we identify top-performing pages, high-ranking keywords, backlinks, underperforming pages, and technical issues (duplicate content or crawling issues). After analyzing all pages, we update the website content as required. It ensures you don’t accidentally lose valuable pages or SEO ranking of the website during the site redesign process. 

Making Careful Changes in Website URL 

Changing URLs without proper redirects is one of the main mistakes individuals make during website redesign. Remember, search engines already recognize and rank the existing URLs of your website. So, if you make sudden changes, the site’s ranking may decline significantly. So, we use 301 redirects to redirect old URLs to new ones. It will prevent users from coming across dead pages, protect the link juice from backlinks, and preserve the site’s SEO ranking.

Preserve On-Page SEO Elements

During the redesign process, the site’s content often gets a fresh layout. But on-page SEO factors must remain as they are. So, our SEO experts may- 

• Update the title tags and meta descriptions if required.
• Make header tags (H1-H6) keyword-rich.
• Add ALT tags to all images on the site.
• Interlink important pages of the site. 

All these actions help maintain website ranking during the redesign phase. 

Optimizing Site Architecture and Navigation

Remember, a logical and clean site structure is good for both search engines and users. So, during the website redesign, our SEO professionals work with developers to ensure-

• Your website navigation is simple and easy to understand at first glance. Visitors are able to reach any page in just 3-4 clicks. 
• All important pages of the site are just a few clicks away from the homepage. 
• The site has a clear hierarchical structure. 

This will increase the site’s crawlability and indexing speed. It also encourages visitors to spend more time on the website, contributing to its SEO ranking and the business it fetches. 

Implementing Technical SEO

Technical SEO is important to maintain the site’s healthy ranking on the web. So, during the site redesign process, we ensure that-

• The site loads fast on all Internet-enabled devices. For this, we may compress images, use caching, and eliminate unnecessary scripts. 
• The site is responsive to all mobile devices. 
• SSL certificates are active as both search engines & people love visiting safe websites. 
• The site has clean and crawlable code. It allows search engine crawlers to quickly visit the website or its pages and index all necessary pages. 
• Update XML sitemap and robots.txt to reflect the site’s redesigned structure.

By taking care of all these, we prevent issues that are highly likely to affect the long-term SEO growth of your website.

Testing Before Launching the New Site

Before launching a redesigned website, our team examines its metadata accuracy, mobile responsiveness, page loading times, content uniqueness, and other factors. It helps us ensure the redesign transition is done properly and the negative SEO impact is minimal as far as possible. 

Monitoring Performance After Website Launch 

Remember, website rankings may fluctuate after a redesign done by us. Don’t worry; it is normal as search engines take time to crawl and re-index the new website. We monitor organic traffic changes, keyword rankings, crawl errors, and indexing issues, backlink health closely, and take the necessary action if required.