How to Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO

Did you know that content relevance paired with titles and metadata is one of the driving forces of a solid SEO strategy? Anyone striving to secure their spot on the online marketplace should design their website according to these factors.

However, if your website is due for a makeover, you may be afraid of losing all the SEO progress you’ve made so far. But, worry not — there’s a simple fix to this problem.

Making an SEO change can be terrific for your website, but it can also hurt its rankings if done incorrectly. Stick with us and discover how to redesign your website and save your SEO progress.

Before the Redesign

Before refining your website, be clear on your motivations behind the redesign. 

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Am I unsatisfied with the website traffic?
  • Am I trying to improve my SEO strategy?
  • Am I trying to rebrand?
  • Am I simply bored with the design?

Once you figure out what you wish to achieve by turning to web design and development, you can begin the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Save Your Content

Create an inventory of the unique pages of your website included in the index. You can use a crawler or even Google’s indexing system to accomplish this. 

On top of making an inventory of your pages, this step will help you identify 404 errors, broken links, duplicate descriptions, etc.

Step 2: Use a Test Site

Before implementing the changes on your actual website, where there will be real-life consequences, take advantage of the availability of test sites. That way, Google will not index your site in progress and include it in people’s search results.

Step 3: Review the Redesign Website SEO

Review the Redesign Website SEO

Depending on the amount of redesigning you’ve done to your website, you will want to do a complete overview of your current SEO metrics. During this audit, you will have to pay attention to URL changes, duplicate and low-ranking pages, irrelevant content, and broken links.

Step 4: Set Up 301 Redirects

By setting up a 301 redirect, you forward website visitors from your old URL to the new one. However, that’s not all these redirects do. 

They also inform the search engine that the URL change is permanent. That way, you move your previously established SEO settings to your new site.

Step 5: Activate the New Site

This phase is pretty easy because the web design and development team will do most of the work. However, you will still need to check whether your website is indexed once it launches.

You should also keep a watchful eye on the data analysis aspect. Ensure data from your website is constantly being collected and analyzed.

Step 6: Monitor SEO Ranking Changes

Keeping a close eye on any SEO ranking changes that develop once your website redesign is complete is very important. 

If you are not seeing a sharp improvement in your stats immediately after the redesign, that’s okay. A good SEO strategy will take a little while to gain traction and yield results.

The Ultimate SEO Change in Web Redesign: SEO Defend

Web redesigning is a lengthy, multi-faceted process that should ultimately increase your website’s traffic and search engine ranking. However, you never want to lose your SEO in the process of redesigning.

That is why expert SEO services such as SEO Defend exist - to make the entire redesign process a breeze.
Get in touch now, and we will build your website from the ground up while safeguarding your SEO!