Website Redesign Project: 8 Tips for Success
Ensuring that the website works correctly is critical for realising your business goals through careful implementation of SEO.
However, it sometimes happens that the website fails to perform to the expected level and cannot support some specific business goals.
Despite trying all possible ways to make the best use of the website, you finally discover that a complete website redesign would be a better way to resolve the issues that you are facing.
It would allow you to improve the functionality of the website as well as its aesthetics, make it more SEO friendly and even help in rebranding, explains the experts at the New York SEO company.
A website migration is also a reason for a website redesign. The scale of your website redesign will depend on your business goals.
Website redesign is risky if you do not take proper measures to ensure that the new design is effective in the way you want.
Any hasty action can prove disastrous for SEO, and to avoid it, follow the steps described below.
1 – Create a sitemap
When we concurred with the new brand, we began work on the sitemap, so we realised the number of pages we'd need to oblige on the new site.
We outlined our present pages and took a gander at what we needed to keep, change or erase.
To assist with making this more straightforward, we utilised guest data and Google Analytics to ensure we weren't erasing whatever was positioning admirably for SEO or had high traffic volumes.
We then, at that point, delineated the new construction into an Excel record, ensuring we consolidated every one of the current pages we were keeping and any new pages we needed to add.
We generally suggest ensuring data is available within three clicks and that you keep high-level menu things to a limit of 5-6 choices for convenience.
The sitemap data is fundamental for plan and content creation.
Whenever we had arranged the new sitemap, we took a gander at any pages that would not be utilised or have another URL.
We planned them from old to new, so we realised which sidetracks would be set up once we dispatched the new site.
This guaranteed that any pages that presently don't exist would not bring about a 404 mistake.
The visitor will track down the most recent significant data they require, regardless of where the connection utilised has begun.
2 – Plan the content first
It might appear to be odd to take a look at the substance before the plan.
However, we needed to look at the data we needed to remember for each critical page before planning them.
This made it simpler for the fashioner to design the formats and usefulness for the page.
We also thought to be the client venture at each cycle's progression to ensure that we made a site with the best client experience.
3 – Before migration
Be clear about what you want to accomplish by redesigning your website.
Additionally, you would like to improve organic search performance.
Regardless of whatever other gains you expect, you protect the equity and value of your website acquired over time, including your current rankings, traffic, or link value.
4 – Finalise the branding
We needed to invigorate our image as a feature of our venture, giving it a refined, bolder look lined up with today's organisation.
You can't typically begin a website redesign project until the branding is finished. The look and feel of the logo and elements will have a colossal influence on the general plan.
Our brand designer sent over idea visuals for the logo and colour ranges, then, at that point, took installed input to form them into the last endorsed fine art.
This has now been moved into our image rules, writing material, online media, and that's only the tip of the iceberg for notable brands to revive.
5 – Content and information architecture
The overall context of the subject matter and the sub-topic of the themes determine SEO success.
Besides the specific content, it affects the organisation of the content on the site.
Remember that changes to the sitemap, information architecture, and overall content can impact SEO during a website redesign. All pages are essential for your SEO strategy.
So they must remain intact after the website redesign.
There must be no dilution of the overall themes in the website sections due to the new design.
6 – On-page optimisation
Maintain the relevance of the content of each page to the search intent.
Knowing that the overall architecture and the context is undergoing change or remaining unchanged, you can undertake due page optimisation of specific elements to maintain relevance.
It means having a relook at the URLs, body copy, meta descriptions, page title, etc.
7 – Redirects
To maintain the desired level of user experience, map out all 301 redirects for all pages assigned with new URLs and eliminated during the website redesign.
It will help avoid 404 errors which can be very unpleasant for users, although it does not impact search engines if those pages are excluded from indexing.
However, you would lose the loss of backlink equity originating from that page during the website redesign.
Proper redirecting of all pages that have links pointing to them should be updated for the URL of the new destination page.
During the launch, perform any possible quality control check of the work done so far, and do not give the go-ahead unless you are satisfied with all redirects.
Even after launch, check the redirects and perform tests to ensure that all 301 redirects of old URLs perform satisfactorily.
Moreover, ensure that all changes incorporated in the site under development pass on to the new website.
8 – Make the time for testing
It would help if you guaranteed your time for testing the new site before it's launched.
We committed time and assets to check every one of the connections worked and page designs as needed before launching.
We additionally shared a connection to the new site with all staff before it was dispatched to get their assistance with checking through it.
Many people skip this step to get their new site live at the earliest opportunity.
However, we suggest allowing time for testing to take care of business during the first run through.