The Impact of Website Redesign on Search Engine Optimization

A website redesign is meant to breathe new life into your online presence, ensuring a fresh look for your business and improving functionality. However, many companies do not understand how to measure the impact of a website redesign on their search engine optimization efforts. In fact, a poorly executed redesign can have a negative impact on your SEO practices, resulting in a drop in traffic and visibility. On the other hand, a well-planned redesign can help to improve SEO and the performance of the site in the SERP. Every three to four years, many businesses want to re-engineer their website and hire a website design company to get an updated business look. If you too are planning the same, it’s time to understand the relationship between website redesign and SEO. You should also study the measures that can help you minimise the negative impact of a redesign on your SEO efforts.

Website Redesign and Its Benefits

A website redesign enables large-scale changes to a website. The redesign can change code, content, structure, and visuals, ensuring a fresh look for the website. If your business website is no longer reaching its potential, it’s time to consider a website redesign service. According to one case study, leads improved by 300% as a result of a website redesign and SEO campaign.

A website redesign is an expensive choice. However, it’s better than losing opportunities and growth year after year with an inefficient website. When redesigning a business website, it’s important to avoid the pitfalls that may severely hamper your SEO score.

A website redesign poses some risks. However, when done correctly, it offers significant benefits. Before performing any redesign on your website, plan the entire process, consider your goals and issues, check the expertise of the developers, and take the best measures to minimise the negative impact on your SEO score. Some of the notable website redesign benefits are:

• Enhanced user experience
• Improved SEO & site performance
• Revised content strategy
• A facelift for the website
• Faster load speeds
• Ensures up-to-date security

Your website serves as a modern-day storefront for your business, and that’s why it should be attractive and easy to use. Even if a physical store has a broken sign, poor lighting, or a dingy interior, it will struggle to attract people. The same theory is also applicable to a website. If your website looks outdated and not visually pleasing, people won’t have any reason to visit, let alone interact with it.

When Should You Go for Website Redesign Services?

Even if a business had the greatest website in the world back in 2010, it would look very outdated today if the required changes are not implemented. Remember, since the best practices for website design change, technologies change, and even the expectations of your target audience change; your business website needs to evolve accordingly to keep up. Here, accessibility and responsive web design also play a great role. When a user visits your website for the very first time, he/she will definitely pay attention to the webpages’ layout or navigational links. It seems that website redesign is a necessity to pave a position in the online world. So, how can you understand when you should go for the redesign? According to a survey performed in 2020, here are the top reasons for considering a website redesign:

• High bounce rates
• Needs better user experience (UX0
• Not responsive on all devices
• Looks outdated
• Low conversion rates
• And not SEO-friendly

There is another way to know whether it’s time to redesign your website: think from the point of view of your visitors. You should ask yourself some questions, and the answers will help you make an effective decision.

• Is your website’s branding on point?
• Do all pages of your site load quickly?
• Are all pages easy to navigate?
• Are all web pages optimized for mobile?
• Is it easy to find the information you’re looking for?
• Is the customer journey properly streamlined?

Don’t forget to compare your website to those of your competitors and check your position. If your website is performing well in certain areas but missing a few details in others, changing or updating those areas will help you a lot. If you find that there are lots of things that you need to fix, hire one of the best website design companies in India and start the full website redesign. Now the question may arise as to why choose an India-based web design company?

Well, India-based web design companies are not only technically advanced but also offer affordable services that nearly all SMEs and giant corporations can easily afford.

Website Redesign & SEO Considerations

Note down the reasons for which you want to go for redesigning your website. You should understand your goals or set clear expectations. Understand the condition of your current website and set goals accordingly. Expert website design services in India can help to minimise the negative effects and prevent your site from losing rankings. Get an SEO checklist and stay organised throughout the process.

Audit Existing Content

Content powers your site’s organic presence.82% of marketers use content marketing, and many successful businesses are built on it. A well-planned website redesign service can take your content efforts to the next level. Start with tools like Screaming Frog to pull the required data for all URLs included in your site. Next, make use of analytics to perform a content audit to determine the most important pages and the ones you don’t need anymore. The audit will also help you identify pages that need to be redirected or combined with other pages.

Update Information Architecture

Your visitors may leave your site due to poor navigation. Website navigation and information structure are different, but the information structure should inform you about how your site’s navigation is structured. IA (information architecture) is all about how you organise information in the sitemap. On the other hand, navigation is about how you organise your website. How you organise information depends on what your website is about, why visitors will come to your site, and which pieces of information are most valuable. To update the information structure, you can follow the below-mentioned steps:

• Create a map of your site’s current structure
• Conduct a competitor analysis
• Understand how users interact with your site
• Note down the pages that you want to keep
• Create a new sitemap based on what you need

Map URL Redirects

A website redesign can change the structure of your site—some pages might get moved, and some might get deleted. Skipping URL redirects will cause you to lose not only your referral traffic but also your page and domain authority. How can you map URL redirects?

• Create a list of URLs you need and don’t need
• Create a new content plan
• Match old URLs with new ones
• Prepare the list of new content mappings and let developers implement redirects accordingly

Optimize Content You’re Keeping

Check how your current content is performing. Make a list of new keywords that have potential. Find content pieces that aren’t performing well. Rewrite them or update them using the latest keywords and recent links. Many content strategists also prefer to use data points, expert interviews, and visuals or videos.

Optimize Page Speed

25% of visitors leave a website if it takes more than four seconds to load, and a one-second delay can result in a 16% drop in customer satisfaction. For page speed optimization, first make sure your images are properly optimized. Thereafter, let the embedded videos load accordingly, or reduce the file size. Next, you should reduce the number of HTTP requests. Also, try to minimise CSS and JavaScript and properly clean up your HTML.

Conclusion

A website redesign can have a significant impact on SEO. By implementing the best practices in website redesign and SEO optimization, a business can improve its rankings and minimise the negative impact. Working with a website design company like Logo Design India can help you get creative web design services or redesign solutions that positively impact SEO. Prioritise SEO during your website redesign to improve your online presence, attract more customers, and achieve your ultimate business goals.