In the changing cyberspace, website redesign has become more of a necessity than a choice. But, many website
owners have lost a sizeable chunk of their SEO gains during each redesign. Reason?
Poor preparation and haste.
Fortunately, an equal number of webmasters have executed this task seamlessly. They have taught us how to
redesign a website without hurting its SEO.
A condensed version in 10 steps is given below:
Backing up your current website is the most critical step. You have three options to do this:
Using a sitemap :-
Using a crawling tool :-
Using Google’s Search Console :-
You should not let users see the website being overhauled, which contradicts your efforts to enhance User
Experience (UX).
So, once you have an inventory of pages, copy the website onto a temporary URL, which means your old website
will still be accessible to users.
Before altering the site, however, prevent search engines from indexing your test website. You can do this in
three methods:
Doing this will help you save your SEO gains and enable a smooth transition to your new website.
Redesigning is the best time to audit your site. If you do it right, these are the benefits you will get.
The first item on your checklist should be SEO performance. Re-orient your content for users instead of search
engines.
Do away with excessive keywords and shallow content.
If you have Screaming Frog data, check whether your website has any of these issues:
If you think fixing these would be difficult, seek help from your developer.
Website redesigning can restructure the URL. As such, traffic from your old URL will hit a ‘404’ error. This
is why many websites lose their referral traffic after a website overhaul.
You can use online redirect checker tools to check for redirects.
One way to prevent losing such traffic is to use '301' redirects. These act as a bridge between your old and
new URLs. The '301' redirects will also transfer the SEO benefits from your old URL to the new one.
How to Do It?
The process is easy on a WordPress website. Many plug-ins are available for this task, and Download and
install one to your admin panel.
If you are using any other CMS, there might be a built-in redirect system. Most domain name providers also
help customers set redirects through their DNS settings
While redesigning your website, you might:
These actions make a few updates to your internal architecture necessary.
In the first case, remove all the links pointing to the deleted page, so searches don’t return '404' pages.
In the second case, update all the links with the new URL. This update is done to reduce the server burden and
prevent the loss of link juice.
You can find which pages are linked to the deleted ones in the copy of your original website. You will see a
list of internal links to the deleted page in the referral section.
Redesigning is done; it's time for you to publish the website. Before that, however, you need to do two
tasks.
First, remove the curbs preventing search engines from crawling your website, and Secondly, remove all the
‘noindex’ directives.
You can use Google Search Console to observe how your website is functioning. These will also find broken
links on your new website and fix them without delay to avoid penalties from Google and other search
engines.
Now that you have a new website, you can build your SEO. Turn to Google Analytics to find new avenues of
improvement.
This is part of the post-activation procedure to speed up indexing. Here’s how to do this.
(*You can do this only if the search returns a box saying: “URL is on Google." If this does not appear, you
need to resubmit your website to the search engine)
The next step is checking the status of your robot's files. These control the access of search engines to your
website. Any wrong configuration of the files will result in your losing SEO gains.
Use Google Search Console’s
‘robots.txt tester’ to check their status.
An update to your website will change its XML sitemap as well. You must submit this new sitemap to Google to
help them index your site faster.
Up next is monitoring the website's SEO performance. Tools like SEMRUSH can help. They will list your rankings
for keywords and display your link score. You can also track your rankings manually.
A Point to Note
It's normal to see significant rankings fluctuations at first, which can be negative and positive. Search
engines will take a few days/weeks to precisely place your site according to its SEO status
This method is ideal for making minor changes to your website. No temporary URL is needed in this method.
Versions of your site are made by injecting JavaScript into users' browsers as pages load. As such, the method
doesn't hurt your SEO.
Google encourages webmasters to use such testing as the purpose is to improve UX. You can also restrict the
testing to users from a specific campaign you can design with a tool.
But remember not to restrict Googlebots from accessing your test, and this may backfire as Google will take it
as a violation of its guidelines and initiate manual action.
The key benefit of this method is direct access to user preferences. Steady use of this technique for a while
can accrue valuable SEO benefits.
Don't try to significantly alter your content during the redesigning phase; this might affect your rankings,
and you wouldn't be unable to find out what caused it.
As such, alter/remove only those pieces of content related to the website's design.
After you publish your new website, observe your rankings for a few weeks. If there is a slump in rankings, it
might have something to do with the redesign.
If there is no change, then you can proceed with any content overhaul you have planned.
Note: All redesign, be it for SEO, rebranding, or aesthetics, should improve UX. Focus on this aspect,
and your website will be shielded from the vagaries of algorithms