I’ve been through a lot of website redesigns over the years on client websites as well as on some of my own websites.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong that can impact a site’s search visibility when implementing a redesign. I’ve learned some of these the hard way, and some have been demonstrated over and over to clients because their web developer refused to heed my caution.
You don’t want to learn these the hard way.
Speaking of web developers, if you are working with a team as an SEO and helping to manage a website redesign, make good friends with the web developer or team of developers. You want them on your side. If you are constantly having to fight with them, things are not going to go well.
I have a simple conversation with them that goes something like this…
First of all, I love what I have seen from the new design so far. I think this is going to be a great improvement over the old design.
I am sure I don’t have to tell you that any changes on a website can impact organic search traffic. I think the new design is going to have a positive impact overall, but Google can be finicky.
If we see a decline, you know (owner/director/manager) is going to want to revert some things until we can figure out what is going on.
That would just mean a lot of extra work for you and your team, and that’s the last thing I want. I am sure you feel the same way.
To make sure that does not happen, I have a couple of things I would like to make sure we do to minimize any chance of the new design having a negative impact on our site traffic.
Can I review those with you before you get too far into the project?
Feel free to use that and change it however you want. It’s worked well for me.
There aren’t many things to this list I’m going to share with you, but there is one overriding theme throughout it. We want to do everything we can to:
- Minimize risk
- Eliminate variables
When I say minimizing risk, I mean that the fewer things we change, the less likely there is to be a negative impact on rankings. Take a close look at significant changes and ask yourself, “Does this change really need to happen?”
By eliminating variables, if there is a loss of traffic, we have fewer possibilities to chase down as the culprit.
One other quick note. This is for a website redesign only and not a migration. This would include changing the CMS solution of a site. A move from Wix to WordPress, for example, would want to follow these ideas.
If you are moving a site to a new domain, with or without any kind of redesign, there are additional things you would want to pay attention to.
With that, here are the primary things you want to pay attention to when implementing a website redesign in order to eliminate any negative SEO impact.
Keep all URLs the same
Unless the site is going from some old ancient structure with URLs that make no sense and you are looking to clean those up, keep all of the site URLs the same.
This goes back to what I was just talking about in introducing fewer variables.
If you are redesigning the layout of the site and changing URLs and later see a traffic drop is it because of something in the design or the change in URLs? You don’t know.
If any URLs have to change, make sure proper 301 redirects are put in place. They don’t eliminate the possibility of a ranking drop, but they certainly lessen it.
I always request one exception to this.
On pages that get a lot of traffic, keep the URLs the same for at least a few weeks after the redesign is launched.
Many websites follow the 80/20 rule. They get 80% of their traffic from 20% of their pages.
For those 20%, don’t change the URLs right away. Wait until the new design has launched and things have settled down a little. Then make the switch.
In fact, I would change any of those URLs in small batches over time instead of all at once.
In addition to introducing fewer variables, you are also deadening any temporary impact on traffic implementing 301 redirects may have.
Do not change title tags
I’ve worked on redesign projects where the marketing team got involved and wanted to create more crafty titles to articles and title tags, thinking they were doing something to help pull people in and get them to convert at a higher rate.
All it did was drop rankings and traffic like an anchor in the middle of the ocean.
If you are faced with a situation like this where a developer or marketing team thinks they have hot new ideas for title tags and even page titles (H1 headings), urge caution.
When that fails, urge moderation.
Ask them to break up their ideas into clusters and introduce one cluster at a time. Then everyone can monitor results rather than potentially cratering large sections of the website.
Try to keep content and content layouts identical…
…or as close to identical as possible.
It’s a redesign, and especially if you are working with a bigger organization you are likely to find different departments who want to get their hand on the steering wheel.
Get the team to first focus on implementing the new cosmetic changes. Get the new layout live with as few changes as possible to the content.
If content changes are going to be made, again like with the URL changes or title tag changes, introduce them later after the new design has been live for a few weeks.
Be careful with navigation changes
This one I have seen too many times.
New design. New navigation menu.
The problem with this is your navigation menu not only is providing strong links to those pages, but it is also signaling to Google (and other search engines) which pages are the most important on your website.
Changes here can cause both rankings and indexing issues.
I’m not saying to not make navigation changes. I’m just saying to make them well thought out. Pay particular attention to anything that is dropping out of the navigation menu.
Keep your internal link structure
Lastly, a website redesign sometimes is more than just cosmetic changes and will include changes to content. When that happens, you want to make sure you keep your internal linking the same.
If Page A was linking to Page B before the redesign, then Page A should link to Page B after the redesign, and preferably with the same anchor text.
Try to limit the number of changes in your internal link structure that are introduced through the launch of the new design.
Wrap up
That’s it. These are the main things you want to fight for when working on a redesign to limit any potential negative impact to a site’s search visibility.