Every new website redesign is a PROCESS – a major process, and with big changes can come potential pitfalls. After spending potentially months or even years optimizing your website for SEO, you don’t want to lose your SEO ranking. Fortunately, the writers at REM Web Solutions (your pinnacle of marketing success) have tips and tricks to keep your SEO on track!
Don’t approach your website makeover feeling like you’re in the dark: let REM Web Solutions help you out!
The First Thing: Analyse Your Website Pages Prior to the Update
You can use tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console to see which pages of your current website are ranked the highest/which ones receive the most traffic. You’re going to want to ensure that these pages get the shortest, easiest URLs that are easy to remember and share.
This is also a good opportunity to determine which pages are going to need an SEO refresh and more thorough attention as you begin implementing a new website design.
Rewrite Underperforming Pages or Merge Them into Existing Ones
Remember how we said you should take the opportunity to scope out pages that are underperforming? Well, if you notice that there are pages that need work, don’t hesitate to give them a rewrite to yield better SEO results. Some pages just more engaging copy or maybe just need a new image to get people clicking.
If you find that an underperforming page has either redundant information or information that can be merged with an existing, better-performing page, this is also an option. Create a new section on the existing page and implement the information there. This way, you’re not wasting the content, but you’re also not hosting an unnecessary page, either.
Redirect Old URLs to New URLs
Next is building the website’s new pages – for that, you need a list of your current site’s pages. For URLs that will no longer exist on the new site, you’ll have to redirect them to locations on your new site.
You’ll do this using something we call 301 redirects. These are permanent redirects that notify search engines and browsers that the website’s original URLs have been permanently replaced with new ones.
Pump Up the Hype and Keep Your Clients Informed
Don’t be afraid to let your clients know that new and awesome things are on the way. If you have an active social media presence (as a business, you should), you can keep them updated on the progress of the rebuild.
It’s important to keep your clients informed because many of them may rely regularly on your website to access information about your services, or your services in general. If you’re anything like REM Web Solutions, you may also host an informational blog that your clients enjoy. So, your site being down temporarily and rebooted is important information to have.
Plus, you can build up a lot of digital hype and get people excited for the new website. Whether it’s a new look, a rebrand, or new website features, get the public PUMPED UP for what’s to come.
#newwebsite #SEO #hype #itnevernotfeelscringetosayhashtagoutloud
Strategy is Essential for Transferring Key Tracking and Marketing Pixels
It’s essential for you to monitor your website’s performance and collect valuable data. When it comes to tracking SEO, this is a vital series of steps you need to take:
- Utilizing Tag Manager: If you use Google’s Tag Manager, transferring data is a relatively simple process that can carry over all your available tracking pixels.
- Verifying Data Scripts: You need to make sure data scripts are firing for your marketing tools and that they’re properly integrated into the new website design. Make sure your DEV team continuously tests to make sure they work.
It’s important to preserve your tracking and marketing pixels because it helps you maintain essential data and analytics that indicate your website’s performance.
Complex Doesn’t Equal Better
It’s true that a website redesign is a great opportunity to improve several aspects of your site. However, you must remember that making the design more complex doesn’t mean you’ll have better results. Quite literally: more isn’t always better.
Every element of your design change must focus on improving the website and user experience, rather than making it more complex. Adding “bits and bobs” with no clear motive for improvement is sure to equal frustration on the user side.
You also shouldn’t make changes in the sole hope of maximizing search engine optimization. While it is important, there’s no sense in adding unnecessary elements for the sake of appeasing the algorithm.
Instead, Focus on Performance
You need to preemptively evaluate any desired changes and determine how it contributes to your business’s overall goals. Are these changes going to enhance user engagement and their overall experience or improve conversion rates? If not, they probably aren’t necessary changes.
Mistakes To Avoid
OK, we’ve given you some “to-dos”, now it’s time to explore some pitfalls to avoid. It makes sense to build a strategy, but a strategy only works if you know the common issues you should avoid.
Failing to Have a Keyword Strategy
The primary purpose of SEO is for your website to be easily found by your audience during an organic search. It would be a poor idea go through a website transformation that doesn't have a pre-planned and articulate keyword strategy.
Our team at REM Web Solutions conducts regular keyword research not only for our own website, but for any website we're designing for our clients.
However, there are also several tools that you can use to help identify keywords – but if you decide to do this, make sure you aren't using keywords that are too broad. You don't have to feel pressured to stuff your content with every conceivable keyword, either.
It's a much better approach to target long-tail keywords that are highly relevant to your business and use them in your content naturally along with regular keywords. These could be keywords that are specific to your respective industry and area. For example, consider REM as an example:
Marketing support Kitchener, SEO strategy Kitchener, etc.
Unclear Meta Titles
If your meta title for your webpage is literally... "home page" – you've got an issue.
Meta descriptions offer you ample opportunity to tell search engines as well as visitors what to expect to see on the page. You should also keep this in mind when you're tagging images on your website, as well. By having a clear meta title, the more likely you are to have an increased click-through rate.
A much better, more specific meta title would be something like: "Authentic Tandoori Restaurant in Cambridge | BestIndianCuisine.com."
Including relevant keywords in your meta titles helps search engines better understand your page. Aim to keep meta titles within 50-60 characters for optimal display in search results. Tools like Word Counter can help you calculate characters, including spaces.
Using Duplicated Content
A very common mistake we see in SEO is accidentally publishing duplicated content on your website. Search engines tend to penalize sites that have repeated content, and even those who believe they haven't done this intentionally could still be violating certain terms without even knowing.
Having a comprehensive content and Dev team can help make sure that this issue doesn’t happen.
But, just to provide an example, this is what duplicate content on your website could possibly look like:
- https://mybusinesswebsite.com/high-quality-pots-and-pans
- https://mybusinesswebsite.com/products/high-quality-pots-and-pans
- https://mybusinesswebsite.com/top-rated/high-quality-pots-and-pans
That’s far too many pages utilizing the same general keywords and talking points, and it appears that content is being recycled and repeated over again. Search engines are going to look at this as lazy.
Copying Content
In tandem with using duplicate content, you may also be tempted to reuse old content or even copy content from other similar websites. While this is not only an issue with plagiarism (which can have legal ramifications) but search engines can detect this, and it could impact your SEO.
You can use other websites for information and to see what talking points are being discussed in your respective industry, but try to ensure your content is original and authoritative. If you do want to use another website as a source, you can include them through a hyperlink – although it’s advised you don’t link back to other competitors. Instead, consider informational resources that include facts and insights relevant to your field.
REM Web Solutions - We Can Help Keep Your SEO On Track
If you need a website revamp, REM Web Solutions has your back. Our dedicated team of web developers and content writers are experts in not only design, but SEO.
Our collective team are some of the leading specialists in digital transformation marketing, and we have proven results of our methods working for our clients. We can help increase natural foot-traffic to your website and increase click-throughs. If you need help getting started on your SEO journey, contact us today.