How to Avoid Ruining SEO During a Website Redesign

It’s too straightforward to interrupt your web optimization throughout a web site redesign. Right here’s a foretaste of what can go incorrect:

• Lack of rankings and visitors.
• Loses of hyperlink fairness.
• Damaged pages.
• Sluggish web page loading.
• Dangerous cell expertise.
• Damaged inside hyperlinks.
• Duplicate content material.

For instance, this web site deleted about 15% of natural pages (yellow line) through the redesign, which resulted in an virtually 50% natural visitors loss (orange line). Curiously, even the expansion of referring domains (blue line) afterward didn’t assist it get better the visitors.

Luckily, it’s not that tough to keep away from these and different frequent points – simply six easy guidelines to observe.

Simply neglected however may save the day. A backup ensures you may restore the unique web site if something goes incorrect.

Ask the location’s developer to be ready for this fallback technique. All they might want to do then is redirect the area to the folder with the previous web site, and the adjustments will take impact virtually immediately. Be sure they don’t overwrite any present databases, too.

It gained’t harm to make a backup your self, too. See in case your internet hosting supplier has a backup software or use a plugin like Updraft should you’re utilizing WordPress or an analogous CMS.

Testing your web site for Core Web Vitals (CWV) and cell friendliness earlier than it goes stay is one of the simplest ways to make sure that your new web site will adjust to Google’s page experience guidelines.

The factor is, a web site redesign can critically have an effect on web site velocity, stability, responsiveness, and cell expertise. Some design flaws will likely be fairly straightforward to identify, corresponding to extreme use of animations or format not scaling correctly on cell units, however not others, like unoptimized code.

Ask your web site developer to run cell friendliness and CWV assessments on template pages as quickly as they’re prepared (no want to check each single web page) and ask for the report. For instance, they need to be capable to run Google Lighthouse on a password-protected website.

An SEO audit uncovers web optimization points in your web site. And should you do it pre-and post-launch, you’ll simply spot any potential new issues attributable to the redesign, particularly people who actually matter, such as:

• Undesirable noindex pages.
• Websites accessible each as http and https.
• Damaged pages.

So earlier than the brand new web site goes, click on on New crawl in Web site Audit after which once more proper after it goes stay.

Then after the crawl, go to the All points report and take a look at the Change column – new errors discovered between crawls will likely be coloured crimson (mounted errors will likely be inexperienced) .

You may need to give some points greater precedence than others. See our tackle the most impactful technical SEO issues.

Tip

You may entry the historical past of web site audits by clicking on the venture’s identify in Web site Audit.

By URL construction, I imply the best way net addresses are organized and formatted. For instance, these can be thought-about URL construction adjustments:

• ahrefs.com/weblog to ahrefs.com/weblog/
• ahrefs.com/weblog to ahrefs.com/sources/weblog
• ahrefs.com/weblog to weblog.ahrefs.com
• ahrefs.com/site-audit to ahrefs.com/site-audit-tool

Altering that construction in an uncontrolled course of can lead to:

• Damaged redirects: redirects resulting in non-existing or inaccessible pages.
• Damaged backlinks: exterior hyperlinks pointing to deleted or moved pages in your web site.
• Damaged inside hyperlinks: inside web site hyperlinks that don’t work, hindering web site navigation and content material discoverability.
• Orphan pages: pages not linked out of your web site, making them arduous for customers and serps to discover.

Naturally, it’s best to preserve the previous URL construction until you’re completely positive you recognize what you’re doing. On this case, you have to to place some redirects in place. On prime of that, make sure that to submit a sitemap via Google Search Console to assist Google replicate adjustments in your web site quicker.

Redesigns usually embrace some sort of content material pruning or just arbitrary deleting of older content material. However no matter you do, it’s essential that you just preserve the pages which are already rating excessive.

Site visitors is one motive, however since these pages are already rating, chances are high they’ve obtained some backlinks you threat dropping.

To ensure you’re not chopping out the great things, use two studies in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer: Prime pages and Finest by hyperlinks.

Prime pages report is a listing of all of the pages in your web site rating within the prime 100, appended with SEO data and sorted by visitors by default. So, only one click on in your left-hand aspect, and also you’ll see a listing of your finest “visitors turbines”.

The Finest by hyperlinks report follows the identical logic, however the focus is on hyperlinks (each exterior and inside) and it reveals all crawled pages in your web site (not solely those rating in prime 100).

You too can plug in any web page in Ahrefs’ Web site Explorer and see whether or not it may be reduce with none injury to the location’s natural efficiency.

Suggestion

If a part of the redesign is a listing cleanup, you may nonetheless get visitors to merchandise you don’t provide anymore should you create an “archive” web page and hyperlink to a spot the place guests can discover extra related merchandise. E-commerce websites and {hardware} manufacturers try this repeatedly.

This manner, you may nonetheless rank for associated phrases, and the person expertise is healthier than merely redirecting previous merchandise to new merchandise.

Lastly, if you end up in a state of affairs the place the brand new design imposes important adjustments to your top-ranking pages, take further warning when altering these parts:

• Key phrases in textual content, title and H1s: altering key phrases can alter the web page’s relevance for corresponding queries. As an illustration, if a product web page ranks for “kick scooter for teenagers”, you may lose that should you begin scratching the phrase out from the essential elements of the content material.
• Depth of content material: increasing or lowering content material must be performed with the intent to serve person wants higher, present extra worth, or make clear current info (i.e., search intent). Remember the fact that Google rewards helpful, people-first content, and never essentially artistic, persuasive copywriting.
• Inside hyperlinks: altering/chopping just a few internal links shouldn’t do any hurt, however that you must be tactical about it – ask your self if any explicit change may harm the rating. Remember the fact that inside hyperlinks help the move of link equity and assist Google perceive the context of pages.
• Distance of that web page from the homepage: preserve high-value pages near the homepage to sign their significance to serps.
• Schema markup: any adjustments ought to intention to precisely describe the content material and benefit from eligible schema properties.
• Web page velocity: don’t overuse heavy graphics, animations, and video. Once more, make sure that to pre-test the staging web site for CWV and run a web site audit proper after the launch.

Closing ideas

Whereas an total web site redesign may sound like a great second to introduce some web optimization, that you must take into consideration the visitors and backlink fairness the location has already earned. In the event you change an excessive amount of in a single go, you gained’t know what labored and why, and perhaps extra importantly, what didn’t work and how one can repair it.

Reality is, web optimization is all the time about experimentation. You may have a well-educated guess, however you may by no means actually know what’s going to occur.

Wish to share your web optimization story right here? Let me know on X or LinkedIn.