Step By Step Guide To Website Redesigning Without Affecting SEO

In the entire process of website redesigning, one can and should expect a change in pages and codes.

When carried out along proper guidelines, it can be a boon for the existing website in terms of Search Engine Optimization, sales, organic traffic, etc.

The inverse relationship between SEO guidelines and organic traffic can push your website in terms of ranking and be a path to a victorious website.

But what happens to the site’s performance in the search engine if we change the general structure without taking SEO into account? You will no doubt be in for a disaster. Through this blog, we discuss possible ways to make the redesign of the website go as smoothly as possible.

Additionally, in case you are looking for Startup Services For SEO, know effective SEO Strategies as suggested by Pro Web.

Let’s start with the basic steps of a website redesign to understand developers better.

Table of contents:-

(1) Testing old site 

(2) Keep your test site unindexed 

(3) Redirection step 

Things to remember after launching:-

(a) Testing old site 

Perform a test website in the first step. It’s not meant to check the URL structure, but you must consider everything included in the site. You can use the free site monitoring tools to make your work easier.

Some free website monitoring tools are mentioned below:

• https://seomator.com/freeseoaudittool 
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/freeseositeaudittools/284841/
• https://sitechecker.pro/

It is recommended to run this task manually for more accurate output.

Now, you will have a general idea of the existence of your site. In addition, the system can identify even a minor flaw. Check the details below in detail.

•  Page titles
•  Replicate page titles
•  Page titles less than 70 characters
•  Missing H1 tags
•  Duplicate H1 tags
•  Multiple H1 tags
•  Meta descriptions
•  Duplicate meta descriptions
•  Meta descriptions less than 156 characters
•  Canonical tags
•  Broken links
•  Alternate text for image
•  XML sitemap
•  Robots.txt
•  Duplicate content (use Copyscape or Grammarly)
•  Pages indexed by Google (create a site: order in Google)
•  Site speed and performance
•  URL structure

By meeting these criteria, areas of the website that need improvement can be easily identified.

Content Architecture: Content architecture and contexts are crucial when redesigning a website, and don’t skip the complete pages. You can get the same picture of the complete list of pages by using the crawl tools.

(b) Keep your test site unindexed 

What happens if the search engine crawls the new content even before launch? First, of course, a duplication problem arises when starting the site. How can you possibly avoid this panic situation?

(i) Make your test site noindex:-

It’s easy for a developer to understand this condition by following these steps.

For WordPress sites, check the “noindex” box of the site’s CMS. Then the code below is added to the header of each page.

<META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOINDEX, FOLLOW” />

(ii) Block the website in the Robots.txt file:-

Now, to your robots file, add the code below to prevent search engine robots from crawling the site.

User Agent: * 

Disallow: /

(c) Crawling new site

Explore the new site to see its general structure so that you can better compare it to the current site.

•  Address
•  Content
•  Status code
•  Title length
•  Title pixel width
•  Meta description length
•  Meta description pixel width
•  Meta keyword
•  Meta keyword length
•  H1
•  H1 length
•  H2
•  H2 length
•  Meta robots
•  Canonical link element
•  Size
•  Word count
•  Level
•  Inlinks
•  Outlinks
•  External outlinks
•  Hash

(d) Redirection step 

To improve the user experience, it is inevitable to perform appropriate redirects. It ensures that the new URLs are appropriately mapped from the old URLs. 404 errors are not considered harmful to search engines, but they make a wrong impression on users. It also affects the link’s fairness score.

You must also perform the appropriate redirection for links pointing to the 404 error page. This phase seems to be a difficult task, especially for large sites.

Let’s take the example of changing your old URL.

For example, if your old URL was https://test.com/services.html

and the new one is https://test.com/services-test.html

The search engine will treat these links as different and cause the collision. So, to avoid this problem, you need to perform 301 redirects, i.e. redirect old URL to new URL. It communicates with the search engine that the page has been changed.

(e) Changing process 

After all these procedures, it is time to proceed to the new website. Unfortunately, many people mistake partially tipping over. In this method, the site is divided into specific parts, and these separate parts are connected in series.

But to make the exploration process uniform, it is advisable to run the switching process simultaneously.

Points to Remember After Launch Website Redesign:-

Recheck Google Analytics and Search Console: Do a quick backlinks search after the launch phase and check the search console and crawls. Check if it works properly, and if there is an error, recheck it.

Check for redirects: Check old URLs in order to see which ones have not been redirected 301. Search for 404 errors and perform the required redirects as soon as possible.

Validation step: Your old website may work well, but don’t expect the same from a new one. Test it using testing tools. You may use any of the tools below.

• Refer to Varvy Mobile SEO
• RankWatch
• Browserstack Responsive Design Testing
• Google – Page Speed Insights
• W3C Mobile Checker
• Google Developers Mobile-Friendly Test tool

Make sure to have no 404 errors in the list and make sure all the URLs used are target URLs against redirects or canonical pages.

Continuous Monitoring: After launch, you should perform thorough site performance monitoring for crawl errors, 404 errors, and HTML issues on the page. You may use the Search Console to do so.

Our team covers the critical areas in steps for website redesign to protect SEO rankings. It sounds like an easy task for a seasoned professional, but it means a lot to the website’s overall performance. If you’re planning to redesign your website without having to lose the look of the search engines, get in touch with Pro Web, the best SEO agency in Dubai. We have been working with big and established websites with higher SEO rankings, maintaining their performance in terms of SEO after the launch of their website.