Website Redesign and SEO - More than meets the eye

Ready for a Website Redesign? 

Are you looking at your website and thinking it needs a refresh? Maybe some new colours and a design that better reflects your evolving brand image? Whilst a new look can be great for brand perception, if not done correctly, you can really ruin your SEO. Here we explain that whilst a redesign is great for your website, you need to start with SEO first.

Why SEO matters in a Redesign

SEO formulates the structure that determines the success of your website ranking performance.
Its purpose is to make your strategic pages rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). Google’s algorithm considers a multitude of factors to determine the ranking of a website. This includes everything from the quality of content, load time, user experience, relevancy, date of publishing, metadata, inbound links and more. If SEO is not incorporated in your website redesign correctly, all of your previous work to increase your ranking will disappear.

In the process of redesigning there will be an abundance of ways in which your SEO can be impacted. For instance, if you alter the position of a page in your product menu, this can ultimately impact the hierarchy of your pages. If an important page gets pushed further down the list, Google crawlers may regard this page as less important than the ones above it.

Similarly, if you want the change the URL of a strategic page, you will need to implement a 301 redirect to your new URL. In failing to do so, all the inbound links that made that page successful will stay with that old URL and you will not see as much success with your new one.

There will be many things that can easily be missed when optimizing your SEO in the process of a website redesign. It should never be assumed that even small changes won’t impact your SEO. The best thing you can do is consult with an SEO specialist and ensure that you won’t lose all your hard work in building your Google ranking.

Is there a need to Redesign?

During this global pandemic, eCommerce has seen a major boom in results. With the ability of in-store shopping restricted and the need for convenience and accessibility, shopping online has transformed even the reluctant customers into online shopaholics. Within the first month of COVID-19 hitting Australian shores (April 2020), online shopping hit record high results with a growth of 31% more shoppers online compared to the average number of shoppers in April 2019. That is equivalent to 5.2 million online shoppers in Australia in April alone! With so much traffic, many businesses realised a need to improve their online capabilities and give their website a facelift.

Whether it is to incorporate Click & Collect as a part of your services, adding more delivery options or new product categories online, website redesigns are happening everywhere all the time. Some businesses have also noticed that their website wasn’t performing to high enough standards to take their customers all the way to successfully placing sales. This could have been due to poor performing websites, a site built on the wrong platform, pages lagging or if the website is just largely out of date. Again, optimal SEO implementation is key in these redesigning phases and will only enhance your website’s performance.

However, as much as redesign seems like a good idea, it will not help your business if you don’t have an SEO plan to suit accordingly. So let’s get started on explaining Website Redesigns and why SEO is such an important part.

Website Redesigns explained

There are 2 types of Website Redesigns: Complete Redesign & Cosmetic Redesign.

Complete Redesign: A total change to both the front-end and back-end of the website in regards to the development, structure, design and content. This redesign is necessary for out of date websites, websites built on a platform that no longer serves their needs or if a business wants to go for a complete rebrand.

Cosmetic Redesign: Typically these are more surface-level changes to the look and design on the pages. They include changes such as layout, font size, and changes to images or logos.

It is always best to consult with an SEO expert into which redesign type best suits your plans and what level of support you need. If you are needing some guidance and support in your own website redesign of your business, give us a call and let us help you succeed in your SEO endeavours.