How To Successfully Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO Value

Redesigning a website is a great way to improve user experience, visual appeal, and performance. However, if not done properly, a redesign might result in a major loss in search engine ranks. Many organizations make the mistake of focusing only on design and layout, failing to see the need to maintain existing SEO value.

In this post, we will lead you through a step-by-step process for designing your website while maintaining SEO value. Whether you're using a content management system like WordPress or a custom-coded platform, these guidelines can help you safeguard and improve your site's search exposure.

Why Redesign Your Website And How It Affects SEO

There are several reasons why businesses choose to update their websites, including:

• Outdated design or branding

• Poor user experience (UX) or poor performance.

• New business objectives or target audience.

• A need to enhance conversion rates.

• Switching to a mobile-first or responsive layout

However, it's important to understand that changing layouts, URLs, or eliminating content may cause Google to re-evaluate your entire website. Without the proper measures, a redesign might possibly degrade keyword ranks, break internal links, lose backlinks, or lead search engine crawlers to misinterpret the new structure. To prevent these issues, make SEO services a vital component of your redesign plan.

How To Redesign Your Website Without Losing SEO Value

1. Back Up Your Website

Before making any changes, make a complete backup of your site. This includes your website’s databases, themes, plugins, and files. A backup guarantees that you can revert to the original version if something goes wrong during the remodeling process.

2. Create a "Site Under Maintenance" Page

If your site will be unavailable throughout the redesigning process, create a maintenance or "Coming Soon" page. Use a simple version of your branding and inform consumers when the site will be returning. More importantly, provide a 503 status code to notify search engines that the interruption is temporary.

3. Perform a Comprehensive SEO Audit

Before beginning a website redesign, it's critical to perform a complete SEO audit. This stage involves using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, and platforms like Ahrefs or SEMrush to gain insight into your present performance. Begin by selecting your top-performing sites based on metrics like traffic, keyword rankings, backlinks, and conversions. It is also critical to export your website's existing URL structure, information, and keyword rankings.

4. Set Up 301 Redirects

One of the most common SEO problems during the redesign process is the presence of broken hyperlinks, which can cause major losses in traffic and authority. If your redesign requires changing page URLs, you must utilize 301 redirects to properly transition both search engines and users from the old URLs to the new ones. To accomplish this efficiently, map all old URLs to their new equivalents to prevent losing important traffic.

5. Maintain and Update Valuable Content

Instead of eliminating outdated pages or blog articles that may still be valuable, prioritize keeping and upgrading them. It is critical to preserve what works and improve it by updating obsolete figures or facts, adding essential keywords in a natural way, and improving the overall layout with bullet points, subheadings, or images. High-performing content is one of your website's most valuable SEO elements. Removing it may result in a drop in rankings, even if the newly created areas of your site are visually appealing.

6. Ensure Your Website Works Well on Mobile and Loads Quickly

Websites are now ranked by Google according to their mobile versions. It is critical that your website runs well on smartphones and tablets. Your website should be user-friendly on all screen sizes and load in less than 3 seconds. To do this, utilize smaller picture files such as WebP, remove extraneous code, and allow lazy loading. If you use WordPress, a caching plugin can help your site load faster. A sluggish or difficult-to-use mobile site might harm your SEO, making this step critical.

7. Test Your New Website Before It Goes Live

Before releasing your new website, do testing on a staging site. This enables you to identify any concerns without affecting your live site. Click through all of the pages, test the forms and menus, and make sure all links function. To identify broken links, use programs such as Screaming Frog. Also, make sure Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel are working properly so you can track visitors. Thorough testing allows you to avoid mistakes when the site is live.

8. Monitor Your SEO After the New Site Launches

Check the performance of your rebuilt website on a regular basis once it goes live. Every week, check your keyword rankings to determine if they're improving or declining. Use Google Analytics to monitor visitor numbers and activity. Check the Google Search Console for any issues or notifications. In addition, track metrics such as bounce rate (how quickly visitors leave your site) and whether users complete desired activities, such as filling out a form or completing a purchase. This continual check-up helps you to discover and resolve issues as they arise, ensuring that your website continues to rank well in search results.

End Note

A successful website redesign requires a balance of aesthetics and SEO performance. At DexDel, we excel in helping brands enhance their online presence without losing search rankings. By combining design with data and creativity with strategy, we ensure your website is visually stunning and optimized for success. Contact us today to see how we can support your website transformation!

DexDel is a result-driven digital marketing agency in Newark, offering a full suite of professional digital marketing services including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC), website design and development, social media marketing.