Sunday, November 20, 2011

Internet site Redesign and SEO - Plan to Win

By George Lockington


In case you were considering a internet site redesign, think of it as an opportunity to also increase your site's research engine optimization (SEO). Several webmasters with sites that rank even relatively well in the research engine result pages (SERPs) worry that redesigning their internet site may well destroy their keyword rankings and for that reason their site's free organic internet traffic. But a redesign can genuinely be a golden opportunity to improve the SEO of your web site and enhance its organic look for traffic dramatically.

SEO Internet site Review

Before embarking on a internet site redesign project, you need to consume inventory of what you will be generating appropriate and what you might be doing wrong with your existing website from an SEO perspective. Perform a thorough SEO internet site review of all on-site and on-page look for engine ranking factors and page your findings. This page are going to be applied later to set search engine optimization goals to your newly redesigned site.

SEO Rankings and Site visitors Baselines

You require baseline measurements to your existing site's keyword rankings and organic visitors volume just before beginning any redesign work. These baselines can then be employed after your newly redesigned website goes live to determine whether or not the SEO goals to your project had been met.

If you happen to be not already using a web analytics package, you ought to contemplate acquiring one. Google Analytics is free and is great for gaining insight into your site's traffic. Pay specific attention to which URLs on your existing site are owning organic targeted traffic inside look for engines and also the search phrases employed to discover individuals URLs inside the SERPs. This information will probably be invaluable when optimizing the pages of the newly redesigned site.

You should also pull weekly ranking reports for not just the keyword phrases you might be targeting but also the keyword phrases discovered as soon as reviewing your existing organic visitors utilizing your net analytics software. It is suggested that you just pull the ranking reports weekly for your minimum of several weeks ahead of commencing your website redesign project.

The Internet site Redesign

Once you might be armed as part of your SEO web site review, have reviewed your organic visitors through your world wide web analytics package, and have keyword rankings for your site's most significant keyword phrases, you may start planning and working on your site redesign. The very first step in the technique is figuring out what you desire to adjust about your existing site.

Document all of your website redesign and SEO goals thoroughly. This need to include not just aesthetic and usability changes but also SEO related changes to elements like the firm of the site, your navigation structures and interlinking of pages, SEO friendly URLs, coding standards, etc. If there's some thing you desire to improve on the internet site from an SEO perspective, it is very best to accomplish it all at as soon as with your redesign.

Work out your internet site model on paper just before a single line of code is written. Use wire frames to model your post layouts. Produce mockups of each sort of article since it will glimpse on the redesigned site. Include as many in the SEO points as probably over a mockups - top navigation, left navigation (if applicable), footer links (if applicable), the h1 element, h2 elements, etc. Use the mockups to detect and solve usability and SEO related issues ahead of you start coding. If you rename or delete any URLs on your internet site as part of the redesign then be sure to implement 301 redirects so that the new URLs will get credit ratings for inbound links for the old URLs.

Once you are satisfied as part of your new website design, turn the developer(s) loose to implement your changes.

Testing Your Website Redesign

It is really critical to thoroughly test your redesigned web site. Test all pages on the internet site from a functional, usability, and SEO perspective. Review the HTML source code for each with the pages on your site. Examine all on-page ranking factors like the title, meta description, h1, and h2 elements. Make sure all links are either SEO friendly text links or image links. Check that all image links have the alt attribute set correctly because it is regarded the link text for an image link.

Do not forget to document and, if possible, test the process of upgrading your site. If you have a development environment, install a copy from the existing website and go from the procedure of upgrading. Should you encounter any difficulties once screening the upgrade, modify the program and documentation to adjust for ones issue, and try it again. Repeat the system until you might be comfortable that you have a sound plan.

Once you're satisfied that your redesigned website is working properly and meets all of one's SEO goals, you happen to be in a position to go live with the new website design. If feasible schedule the upgrade for a non-peak time of day. If your web site has seasonal traffic, schedule the upgrade for your off-season.

After Your Site Redesign is Live

Once your internet site redesign is live, you will need to monitor your site closely. Continue to pull weekly keyword ranking reports and to monitor your world-wide-web analytics. Pay particular attention to pages that received a lot of organic traffic previous to the redesign went live. Use Google's Webmaster Tools to monitor items like 404 Not Discovered errors.

Expect to determine a temporary drop in rankings and visitors as the look for engines absorb all the changes you made as component on the redesign. However, should you planned, tested, and executed your website redesign well then rankings and targeted visitors need to return stronger than ever after several days, weeks, or possibly even a month or two depending over a extent of changes made towards the site.




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