How to Redesign a Website Without Losing SEO?
Many people who own some websites might have some worry when matters concerning the redesigning of the website are being talked about. It should not be a big deal or a matter of conversation because there is nothing to be worried about. After devoting a significant amount of time and effort to your digital marketing, it's understandable that you'd want to maintain your rankings.
The world is really moving and people need things that are updated so the longer you wait to redesign your site, the more out of date it will appear.
It follows that not only can redesigning your site make it appear more modern and up to date, but it can also make your visitors happier as a result of it. Furthermore, happier visitors result in more leads.
Steps on how to Redesign a Website Without Losing Search Engine Optimization
1. Make a copy of your website for safekeeping.
It is always a good idea to create a backup of your existing website before embarking on a website redesign project as a precautionary measure. You have to back up your theme files, plugins, and database before proceeding. It will be easier to restore the website to its previous state if things go wrong in the future in this manner.
2. Create a page that will explain to your clients that your website is under maintenance
Broken pages or broken links on your website are something you don't want your visitors to encounter when they visit your site. As a result, it would be best to put your website in maintenance mode for as long as it takes to make the necessary changes to the content of your page.
Before removing the maintenance page from the website, double-check that everything has been tested in the staging environment.
3. Examine your current search engine optimization rankings to see where you stand.
The SEO data for your website should be collected after you have set up your maintenance page, and this should be done before you make any changes to the design of your website. In this way, you will be able to compare the performance of your site before and after making your modifications.
4. Keep the same level of content and structure throughout the document.
Make an effort to devote a significant amount of time and thought to the content and structure of your website. To put it another way, when updating your website's design, you should make every effort to keep the content of your pages as consistent as possible.
The URL structure and the hierarchy of your site pages are both examples of the site structure. When you make changes to your website's pages or URL structure, you'll need to use 301 redirects to ensure that your site continues to function properly. This can be a time-consuming process, but you can make it simpler by using a plugin such as All in One SEO to automate it.
Everything in One Place When it comes to creating 301 redirects and 404 errors on your website, SEO's Redirection Manager addon makes the process much easier. Start by simply pasting the URLs of your old and new websites into the appropriate fields to get things started.
5. Your Content Should Be Designed to Work on the Internet
When your design changes are complete, you must conduct an on-page analysis of the content on your website to ensure that it is optimized for search engines.
When designing your website, make an effort to keep the title, headers, meta-descriptions, and body of the content all consistent in their appearance. Also advantageous is the creation of a spreadsheet, which allows for a more accurate comparison of any changes that may have occurred during the redesigning process.
6. Test your new design on a staging site before putting it live on your website.
You cannot skip this step under any circumstances! Make sure you read this over and over again to ensure comprehension.
When developing or redesigning a website, it is recommended that you do so on a staging server to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Most of the time, this is done so that you can audit your website and test the site's functionality before putting it live on the internet. We want to make sure that any issues you see are rectified as quickly as possible before your website goes live.
7. Launch the website during its initial development stage.
Finally, it's time to put all of your preparations to the ultimate test: the test of time. You will be able to publish your new site to the live server at this point and don't forget to remove it from the staging environment to avoid any confusion.
It is important to remember to turn off the maintenance mode and to inform your visitors of the new look.
8. Following the Launch, there will be an audit.
Remember that just because you have launched your website does not mean that your work is finished. You should still double-check your work for any errors.
This is due to the fact that we are not 100 percent perfect and therefore must make some mistakes. As a result, when we go back to it, we will make any necessary changes that are possible. We will be able to improve and perfect our website as a result of this.
Finally, some thoughts on the redesign of the website
Unless you have a plan in place, redesigning your website without losing your SEO ranking can be a difficult task to complete. Before deciding to redesign the look and feel of your website, make sure you have done your research.