Critical importance of protecting SEO results during a website redesign using SEO migration

A website redesign is a necessary step in maintaining an online presence that is appealing to a company’s target audience. Websites age very quickly as the pace of the online world is extremely fast. Sometimes incremental changes are not enough and a website needs to be redesigned. When this is the case it is vital that a business ensures that it protects its SEO results. SEO can take up to a year to be fully optimized and this progress can be lost completely if a website does not successfully migrate its SEO strategies effectively. 

SEO migration is a complex and multifaceted process which requires a high level of care to successfully complete. This is why an SEO Company can be very helpful during this transition. 

Importance of SEO 

SEO or search engine optimization is a strategy of optimizing a website so that it performs more optimally on search engines. This means that the website appears more prominently for the intended search terms which are targeted to attract new leads. Even the website for the US government uses SEO strategies to improve their SEO results. SEO strategies lead to organic growth in web traffic and that is why it is such an important tool in the marketing arsenal of a business. Organic growth is the single biggest force behind an increase in web traffic. This is the case because 75% of search engine users do not leave the first page of search engine results. 

As mentioned, it can take up to a year for a website to be fully optimized for search engines. Because 75% of all clicks for search engines go to the first three results, maintaining this hard earned position is vital. When redesigning a website it is essential to migrate existing SEO content and url among other strategies to the new website as doing this incorrectly results in a website losing all of its SEO success. This will result in the business having to start from square one in terms of SEO and hinder their growth by undoing months of work. 

From a business standpoint leads come to a standstill and the phone simply stops ringing.

No matter how well designed a website is, it will not be found without effective digital marketing strategies. SEO is one of the more affordable options in terms of digital marketing especially when considering the return on investment. This is another reason why maintaining SEO strategies across a website redesign is important. The beauty of the redesign will go unnoticed if SEO strategies are not migrated successfully and valuable marketing expenditure will go to waste. 

How to protect SEO 

There are several steps to take when redesigning a website in order to maintain SEO work on a website. 

Meta descriptions and page titles 

Meta descriptions and page titles are a great place to implement SEO strategies as these are locations to place SEO important keywords for the content on the respective website pages. Unique and keyword rich descriptions and titles will better optimize a website for search engines. If a website already has SEO descriptions and titles it is important to migrate these successfully to the redesigned website. If not, it is a perfect time to implement this SEO strategy. 

Backlinks 

Backlinks are links from one website to another and any website which has backlinks should migrate them to the redesigned website. This can be done by creating redirects from the old website to the new website so that all backlinks are automatically redirected to the new website. In this way old SEO work will be maintained and continue to benefit the website. 

Changing content 

Content which is performing well on a website should be carefully considered. Fresh content is useful however a comprehensive content brief should be developed so that the fresh content does not omit key content that has served to produce historical traffic and leads. There are free tools available which track website performance and this can assist a business in determining what content is doing well.

SEO migration factors

There are other mechanisms of maintaining SEO during a website redesign such as fixing faulty links, ensuring url redirections of old to new URLs. This is not an exhaustive list but it does feature some of the most useful means of successfully transitioning SEO from an old site to a new one. This process can be complex which is why it can be helpful to consider an SEO Agency for the process. 

Final thoughts 

SEO is a vital and cost effective form of digital marketing that takes time to become fully optimized. The reward of this investment is substantial as it leads to organic growth for a website. Maintaining SEO when redesigning a website is crucial to ensure that the hard work of a business is not lost. This ensures that a website can retain its preferable search engine ranking and update itself for increased consumer appeal.  

The entire process must be meticulously managed with a proven SEO agency, copywriter and marketing manager or business owner. 

It’s critical to ensure this process takes its detailed course of action. As frustrating as this process may become in delaying the exciting new website launch, it’s important to execute comprehensively to protect your current and future rankings, traffic and business leads.