Website Redesign Best Practices – Part 2

By Author: Aka Ben Kemp
Total Articles: 916
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Website redesign proposal checklists should take careful account of the current status of the existing website. Rather than just rush headlong into the web redesign / rebuild process, an assessment of the good and bad elements of the original site should be made. Include consideration of SEO aspects. All to often, the website makeover results in a dramatic downturn in search engine rankings! Don't underestimate the value of the existing indexed pages... or the benefits of current organic SERPs. Run the rebuild idea past an SEO consultant...

The Risks to Current Rankings

Be aware that existing search engine rankings can all too easily go down the toilet! Why? Well, that's the consequence of not planning and executing strategies to cover the threats.

Page Redirection

Without a trail of breadcrumbs to find out where the old content went, all search engines are left bewildered and floundering in a sea of 404 Page Not Found errors.

1. Top-Ranking Pages - should be identified, preserved and enhanced

2. 301 Redirects - rerouting old page URLs ...
... to the corresponding new page names. If that's not done, all indexed and well-ranked internal pages will suddenly generate 404 Page Not Found errors, and will eventually be purged from all search engines indexes! All internal Page Rank will be lost, as will all client's Bookmarked page links... All "deep links" to internal content will be lost...

3. Optimised On-Page Content - moving previously optimised "good page content" to the corresponding new pages

4. Image Alt text - copying the old text to the replacement images

5. Meta-tags - copying titles, description and keywords to the corresponding new pages

6. Sitemaps - provision and listing of XML or HTML Sitemaps
If you fail to do this, Google's search engine spiders and bots will be forced to start from zero! If they are forced to reassess the intent and purpose of the site, and you've not preserved the good elements, a drop in rankings is inevitable.

Rebranding

I don't have a problem with branding per se. However, whilst branding consultants have great expertise in their sphere of interest, they usually have minimal understanding of the issues inherent in attaining top search engine rankings. Branding consultants have no respect for your 10 year old domain... Any recommendation to drop your aged / mature domain name in favour of a new "trendy" business name is a severe risk to your online presence. Domain Redirection makes it possible to redirect all traffic to the old domain to the new domain. You can couple that with individual page redirection... However, that still leaves you with all your old links pointing to a 'dead' domain and at risk of removal. Don't "misunderestimate" the value of an aged domain with lots of links! As an example, I just reviewed a rebuild proposal that involved moving from a 1999 registered domain with 2900+ incoming links (including 100+ links from domains with a +7 PR! Their destination was a 2008-registered domain with 35 links...

The Rebuilders

Ok, so you're going to rebuild a mature site that's generating business, but needs a more modern look and feel. Make sure you choose a designer / developer who comprehends the importance of the old content, and understands the SEO aspects. Make sure the fundamental SEO elements are included in the design architecture. I repeatedly see website design output from designers that amazes me, with examples such as:

An SEO module was loaded but not activated - so zero meta-tag content on any page!
A WordPress CMS with the Admin / Privacy settings set to "I would like to block search engines, but allow normal visitors"
JavaScript main menus that SE's cannot penetrate, meaning no internal pages indexed!
Flash main menu that SE's cannot penetrate, meaning no internal pages indexed!
Splash / Intro pages with 1 link to the home page only, and Flash content - meaning zero Home page content!
No sitemaps, just to make it even more difficult to find internal content!

If you are deliberately setting out to kill off a website, these are very effective ways of doing so... There's a lesson here! If you are going to rebuild your website yourself, or pay someone else to do it, you'd best ensure that the person responsible for the changes has a plan that includes at least the basics! Failing to plan is planning to fail ,as these examples clearly show!

Do You Need Google?

Whilst there are people out there who say that you don't, you may rest assured that they are, in the main, not knowledgable on the subject. Unless (or until) you are a household brand name, you are going to need search engines to deliver potential clients to you. To get an increasing flow of visitors from search engines, you'll have to play by their rules, not yours... Whenever you cannot change the global reality to fit your own perception, you must adapt... or you'll simply be irrelevant!

New Site SEO Requirements

For maximum SEO benefits, there are some overall goals to aim for…

Search Engine Friendly URLs - Page File Names should be explicit, and keyword-rich, independent of Titles or Headings
Off-Page Titles: independent and unique page Titles are essential. Dynamic, with manual over-ride will work fine.
Description Tag: independent and unique page Descriptions are essential. Dynamic with manual over-ride is ok
Keyword Tag: independent and unique page Keywords – dynamic with manual over-ride is ok
Image File Names: imported image file names should be preserved, allowing keyword-rich image names.
Image ALT Text: dynamic based on file name with manual over-ride is ok. Keyword rich image file names are important supporting elements of page content.
Menu Item Names - controllable, independent of page Headings, with manual set hyperlink titles
Page Headings - formatted in H1, H2, H3 HTML tags, independent of menu name

Make sure that the BASIC files are in place;

Robots.txt: with a link to the XML sitemap
Sitemap: XML, plus HTML
Custom 404 Error Page: standard page template, full menu etc

Make sure that the BASIC Hosting issues are sorted;

www vs. non-www: always use full canonical domain name, and prevent duplicate content being indexed
Hosting: correct country TLD – or correct country hosting

The SEO Guy, aka Ben Kemp, is a veteran SEO consultant with 14 year experience in SEO audits, website reviews and website redesign quote proposals accumulated in 24 years of IT management work.